I have been considering getting a new laptop/macbook to be my primary travel, college and work device for a while now. My previous purchase was in 2016 for a Razer Blade Stealth QHD (256GB). This suited my needs for a while but the greated caveat I faced with it was the small 12.5″ screen size which had me squinting leading to eye strain and the fact it wasn’t really upgradeable as modern laptops/macbooks have integrated designs. This was the major source of my hesitation to continually having to spill money every few years to buy a brand new system if I wanted an upgrade to a specific element such as CPU performance.

My search resulted in the common options people in the tech industry use:

  1. MacBook Air/Pro
  2. Microsoft Surface Book
  3. Dell XPS Developer Edition
  4. System76 Laptop Range

However after hours of researching every model I wasn’t too impressed as they all inherently possessed the same issue, the lack of upgradeability. Sure you can maybe swap out the RAM or storage on some of them but that would most likely be the extent of it. At this point I was very disillusioned and on the verge of giving up.

Then one day, being a subscriber of Linus Tech Tips’ YouTube channel I came across a recent upload titled “A COMPLETELY Upgradeable Laptop? – Framework Laptop Review” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rkTgPt3M4k which at first I thought was just another typical laptop review, but the mention of it being completely upgradeable made me extremely curious. After watching his review, reading posts on the reddit and visiting https://frame.work/ I felt a great sense of thrill. This was essentially what I had been searching for, a fully modular laptop. Something that I could tear apart, upgrade, repair or replace whatever I saw fit and the manufacterer had no issues with that, in fact they sold replacement and upgradeable parts directly to consumer.

So at the end of January I took the leap and ordered a custom configured DIY edition costing $1402.51 with taxes. I opted to purchase the RAM and Storage myself from external sources totalling $279.01 with taxes.

RAM: 2 x Crucial 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CL22 (CT16G4SFRA32A)
Storage: SK hynix Gold P31 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen3 M.2 2280