Why we chose this
We've owned a Gen 1 Framework 16 for fourteen months, and the upgrade path is finally real — a new mainboard arrives, you swap it in twenty minutes, and the laptop is two generations newer. The Gen 2 makes that argument stronger by being a genuinely competitive machine on its own merits, not just on the merits of repairability.
The review
Framework's second-gen 16-inch model is the most interesting laptop on the market for the same reason as the first: every part is replaceable, including the GPU. The Gen 2 fixes the early complaints — the keyboard now feels closer to a ThinkPad than a kit, the screen options include a 165Hz 2880×1800 panel that's genuinely good, and the GPU module supports the new Radeon RX 7800M as a hot-swap upgrade for the discrete-graphics chassis. Battery life on integrated graphics is now 11 hours, which puts it within striking distance of a MacBook Pro 14. The story isn't that this is the best laptop you can buy — a MacBook is faster for most workloads — it's that this is the only laptop you can repair, upgrade, and keep for ten years without filling a landfill. For people who hate the hardware-as-disposable model, Framework is the only serious alternative.
