Framework Raises $18M Series A

Love my Framework. Barring Apple&#x27;s recent move away from the touchbar it&#x27;s honestly the first machine I&#x27;ve been excited about in 6 or so years. The build quality is great, love the simplicity and design of the expansion ports, and the repair&#x2F;upgrade-ability is huge. It&#x27;s gotten me back into using Linux as a daily driver.<p>I really hope they stay true to their vision and that this means expanding it into other consumer product lines.

&gt; We’re not ready to share what the next products are just yet, but this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one. We have a detailed plan in place for the next two years and napkin sketch ideas going out a couple of decades.<p>It&#x27;ll be <i>really</i> interesting to see where they go next. Given that they&#x27;re already in computer and custom board space, I&#x27;d make a guess that it&#x27;s going to be routers - similarly embedded devices and they&#x27;d make a great option for replaceable parts (i.e. WiFi, connection options etc).

It would be amazing if they could also sell repairable household electrical goods like washing machine, dishwasher, etc - in the future.<p>These are plagued by planed obsolescence. I would totally pay for repairable ones even with a premium. Imagine a dishwasher that you can hack and program yourself :D

The Frameworks are really good. However, the chips inside are disappointing, IMO.<p>I was considering the i5 1135g7 Framework with 16gb of RAM. A friend of mine bought it, and it&#x27;s idle power draw is of 8-9W with Gnome 3 and Firefox open.<p>I decided to get a laptop with a 5800H and an RTX 3070 instead. My power consumption as I&#x27;m typing this comment right now is of 7W with a dozen tabs and an IDE, messaging, etc... open. That is despite a 46% larger screen, and a much faster, unlocked TDP, 8 core CPU.<p>That&#x27;s a real shame, IMO. Combined with a 55Wh battery, it&#x27;s quite problematic, and was a deal-breaker for me.

Ever since the framework came out, I&#x27;ve been half-hoping for my laptop to die. It really is like someone made exactly the laptop I want, but I really don&#x27;t need a new laptop at this point, and I tend to use laptops for 5-10 years. Here&#x27;s hoping that Framework is still around say 2-7 years from now!

Is there a miniature ASIO soundcard planned for one of the slots? Not needing to carry an external audio interface around when working within a DAW is a major factor that&#x27;s keeping me on MacOS (both pro audio and consumer use the same driver there).

While other comments are wishing for the company to expand outside of laptops, I really hope they won&#x27;t loose their focus. There is so much they can improve on in laptop space.

I&#x27;m a biased Framework owner, but fantastic news and congrats to anyone hanging out here.<p>I feel there has been a growing market for a company like this over the last few years with the RTR movement and upgrade cycles for hardware delivering less than they previously did.

The first time I set eyes on their modular port tech, I knew this company was going places. I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon but I think my next laptop will be a framework if I continue to hear good things. Any statements on quality since people have had them for a bit now?

I purchased one last year and it&#x27;s been great so far.<p>Pros: - price. I have spare RAM and NVME ssd so this brings the price further down - modular port...<p>Cons: - display&#x2F;hinge is not very stable - touch pad is not as good as macbook&#x27;s. I can&#x27;t reliably click-and-drag using a singe hand (thumb finger to click, then index finger to drag). On macbook this gesture works perfectly fine.<p>Wish there is a bigger version, and&#x2F;or a swappable battery!

This website showed to me in French while I have my browser in English and am in the Netherlands.<p>If I want to switch to Dutch, it won&#x27;t let me. My basic understanding of French is that this product is not yet available in my country. Still horrible experience. Why not show me the English page?<p>This website makes the wrong assumption someone&#x27;s language is tied to the location.

I really wish there was a vendor that makes a high-performance ARM-based SOC available to third-parties. The problem with x86 laptops these days is that they feel a generation behind Apple laptops in both power consumption and performance. This doesn&#x27;t have to be the case. Apple has a great hardware team, but they don&#x27;t have a monopoly on ARM. There could be competitors out there doing what AMD and Intel won&#x27;t do.

&gt; <i>this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one.</i><p>Any guesses?<p>I&#x27;d love to buy a Framework phone — if they can guarantee Android updates.

I wish I could buy one in Turkey, but probably our customs would add %80 markup over it considering if they&#x27;d clear it in a month. I love my Mac, but Framework excites me and even Thinkpad&#x27;s are not going well. I miss my XFCE with Arch.

I wished they took it one step at a time rather than tackling so many issues at once. Making a repairable laptop would be enough to jumpstart the mission.<p>Making it repairable, upgradable, customizable and using morally sourced raw materials seems like too much for a start-up to handle. If they focused on 1 or 2 goals at a time, I reckon they&#x27;d be able to manufacture these faster and cheaper.

I find it interesting we need a start-up to cater for the desire for a repairable and upgradeable laptop. Dell, HP, Asus, MSI etc have already got the money and the expertise. If there&#x27;s really a market here why haven&#x27;t they already taken it? My guess is that the market is small though disproportionately represented on HN.

I wish they&#x27;d allow configuring the keyboard layout, at least for most spoken languages of the world.

Anyone have any good independent reviews of the laptop to recommend?

I&#x27;m sure a certain youtuber will be happy with this news!

Is the hardware entirely open source and free from patents?<p>I&#x27;m talking about schematics, PCB layouts and 3D models of the chassis.<p>Nothing proprietary or patented?

&gt; this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one.<p>A Framework car with open source ECM would be quite an ambitious project!

I would buy a framework in a heartbeat if they add a decent hz display and a few other comfort features I&#x27;m accustomed to from running linux on a long line of Razer and the Asus G-series of gaming laptops. 120hz and a 1650ti would make this thing amazing and wouldn&#x27;t push the price point very far at all (especially if it&#x27;s optional).

I have your laptop (4th batch). It&#x27;s great! Love it! Looking forward to what you folks do in the future.

Maybe a next step could be a router like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eu.protectli.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;fw6e&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eu.protectli.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;fw6e&#x2F;</a> ?<p>Protectli is very nice, but the area could use a push forward.

My heart sank when I saw this, is it that do we feel the need to keep raising money from power hungry venture capitalists?

Congratulations to the Framework team! :)<p>I very much am looking forward to their next product, and I hope they stick to their goal of a sustainable, consumer-friendly laptop ecosystem.

Can&#x27;t wait for the 15&quot; model - hope its coming soon.

For the posts about battery and sleep problems: do Framework have a recommended and well tested distro&#x2F;setup they know works well? If not, why not?

I heard the framework works with linux distros well, can anyone recommend places to check laptops linux support in general?

Really hoping that this year brings direct Framework sales to European destinations.

Pretty excited about this. Really looking forward to getting the next gen.

What linux distro works best in a framework? Any headaches with drivers?

I remember finding this laptop when searching for a new one. I loved it, but I wanted AMD instead of Intel. I ended buying an Asus G713QR, gaming laptop, but very powerful and with an amazing screen.

This is great news! Congrats to Framework!

When is a 15&quot; laptop coming out?

Edited: We&#x27;ve posted in the February Who&#x27;s Hiring thread too: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30165535" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30165535</a>

My only wish is for an AMD version.

Please make a 17 inch laptop (a-la LG Gram)

FYI, my corporate net wont allow me to access the site: Blocked TLDs

Is this the company that re-invented the PCMCIA slot, but completely proprietary?