Price: £1,399 from fave.co/42yr527
The Framework Laptop 16 is a laptop with a mission. It wants to prove a large, powerful laptop can deliver great performance alongside a repairability that puts other laptops to shame. The Laptop 16 delivers on that promise if you’re willing to pay a premium. Let’s dive right in.
The model I received was the DIY Edition, which meant some assembly was required. The memory, storage, ports and expansion bay are configurable. Shoppers can buy their own memory and storage separately, but the ports (which Framework calls Expansion Cards) and the Expansion Bay must be purchased from Framework since they are designed for its laptops.
The DIY Edition offers a long list of options for configuring the laptop. I configured it with the Radeon RX 7700S GPU (Radeon 780M integrated graphics are available) and installed a total of six ports: two USB-C, two USB-A, DisplayPort-out and 3.5mm combo audio. Framework also included Expansion Cards for other ports including HDMI and Ethernet, but I decided not to use them.
DESIGN
Unboxing the Framework Laptop 16 DIY Edition is a far different experience than a usual laptop. The DIY Edition is not fully assembled but instead a kit with at least most of the pieces you’ll need to build it (you can buy memory and storage from Framework or purchase it separately). Instructions for assembly are available online and a screwdriver, which is necessary to access some internal components, is included.
Customization, upgradeability and repairability are key points for Framework, andBay require use of the screwdriver and should be serviced with the laptop off. The DIY Edition also requires an operating system, which isn’t provided (I used Windows 11).
