Framework laptop: This DIY laptop wants you to take it apart and repair it

It’s the ultimate ‘right to repair’ laptop.

- GORDON MAH UNG

Framework wants you to take its laptop apart and repair it. Seriously. While most laptops are difficult, even impossible, to repair or upgrade, not only can this debut product from Framework be dismantled and upgraded, but the company actually encourages you to do it.

We took an early-production Framework laptop for a whirl. While we have some issues with certain design choices, we have to say it’s refreshing to see a laptop made for upgrading and serviceability.

For example, most laptop bezels and bodies are held together with plastic latches that snap the keyboard deck onto the bottom. While you can usually snap the two together after opening it to, say, swap out the SSD, do that enough times and the plastic latches will eventually break. Framework addresses this by using magnets to hold the bezel and body together. Once you’ve removed the five T5 screws on the bottom, you carefully pry the two pieces apart.

Framework’s screws use a T5 Torx head instead of the far more common Phillips head, which some will take as an anti-repair feature because few people have Torx drivers. To its credit, Framework includes a T5 Torx tool with a plastic “spudger” on one end.

GO AHEAD, TAKE IT APART

With most laptop reviews, you start by testing it, and you may gingerly open it up later to look inside. With the Framework, we did the reverse: We took the laptop apart before testing it.