when I say I found the best budget laptop on the planet I mean the best laptop from the perspective of the planet since this laptop does not immediately become obsolete the second after you buy it historically nearly every laptop manufactured since the younger Dryus has been unmodular and unupgradable computational slabs of circuitry however this brand new laptop called the Framework 12 is the only laptop that I’ve ever seen that ships like this obviously you can buy it fully assembled of course but where’s the fun in that the Framework DIY kit is where it’s at where every single component is backwardly and forwardly compatible with the future you can think of Framework as the fair phone of computers and it starts at 559 bucks if you assemble it yourself and that’s a pretty wild price from the motherboard to the memory to the battery every screw is labeled and every component has a QR code which corresponds with a tutorial on how to swap it out if you’re into instructions that is now I imagine I’m supposed to just slap in some RAM and an SSD at this point but I’d rather delve a bit deeper into the Framework 12 first before turning it on for the first time the DIY kit knocks a few hundred bucks off the cost of the laptop when you finish assembling it yourself and I’m just assuming since we need a keyboard it’s probably in this box there are also hot swappable customizable modular ports that we’ll get to in a second and of course a standard M.2 SSD and equally standard size non-solder DDR5 RAM framework is the antithesis of Apple say no more there’s even a color match Framework screwdriver that works with every screw in the laptop and I’m sure Framework isn’t going to mind if we tear it down all the way first before building it the rest of the way up instantly though I see that this Framework 12 laptop is almost too repairable normally I’ll always have a few screws left over after every repair i kind of collect them and it’s a right of passage but Framework has taken that away from me by making every screw captive meaning it can unscrew right but stays attached to whatever module it’s holding in and new modules like this 50Wh battery will come with screws already in position i like how it says this battery is replaceable cuz Apple would never with the battery removed we can see the core of the laptop is made from metal then a colored plastic and an overmolded rubbery layer just like a built-in protective case the lighter colored rubber is surrounding the edges of the outside so it does appear more magnets around the inside and I assume this is to help the lid stay closed when we put it all back together the dual loudspeakers are modular each of these are two watts and again both have the same style of captive screws so there’s nothing to keep organized both speakers are connected to the same audio board which also contains our headphone jack thumbs up for that you’ll see these springy pogo pins in a few places around the Framework 12 instead of Lego style or ribbon connectors Framework is using these little springy boys to maintain contact with a pad on the opposite board unless of course the laptop gets wet and the contact points oxidize but you’ll probably have other more bigger problems at that point anyway the dual speakers are wired to the same pogo connectors and have their captive screw still in place but I’m not immediately seeing any balls inside not going to lie though this whole not needing to keep track of my screws thing is pretty awesome if Framework were to make a phone I would be so happy let’s not get distracted though i just noticed that everyone on the Framework team gets their names printed inside the laptop i’m liking these guys more and more the power button board has another captive screw and some more pogo pin pads there are five more screws marked by orange that hold in the main board and fun fact about pogos as a kid I wanted to break the world record for pogo stick jumps i got to a personal best of about a thousand jumps before realizing that the record was over 100,000 maybe one of these days I’ll have to pick it back up again if I lift up on the two orange pull tabs the two LEGO style connections can come loose from the board the screen probably has too much data transferring for pogo pins to handle but at least these pull tabs make it super simple for someone who’s never replaced a motherboard before to replace a motherboard the little Wi-Fi card has two signal wires attached to it as well again this is deeper than most people will ever need to go inside of the Framework 12 but it’s still cool to poke around in here the turbo fan looks rather glorious and I don’t know what any of these circuits do on the back but it looks like a little city for ants it’s nice of framework to put their address and customer service phone number back here probably because if you’re in this deep you took a wrong turn and definitely need directions but in honor of Father’s Day last week I don’t need no directions and I’m just going to keep on going to be fair though Framework has done a really good job of making their semianual motherboard and processor upgrades backwards compatible for the past 4 years and that’s a pretty big deal there’s a magnetical flap that covers the RAM slot and four screws that hold down the heat pipe with three additional screws holding down the turbo fan which then cools down the heat pipe this is very similar to what we see inside most other laptops and the Red Magic gaming phones it’s interesting that even the copper plate that makes up the heat sink has its screw holes numbered in the order you’re supposed to tighten the screws down in framework has thought of everything my processor under the blacked out cooling system is the 13th generation Intel Core i3 which fits the less expensive vibe of the Framework 12 it does have an integrated GPU so there’s no heavy gaming on the Framework 12 but Framework does have a larger more premium Framework 16 laptop which apparently has a whole removable dedicated graphics card so if you want to spend a bit more money and do some heavy gaming or video editing on a bigger screen the 16 is probably a better option with the battery so easily plot back in I feel like I’m cheating and it’s time to throw in the SSD the M.2 2 is a single terabyte and I think we can put two terabytes into the same space if we wanted i also have 16 gigs of DDR5 but I could bump it up to 48 using the same form factor if you’re not familiar with the words I’m using like modular repairable and inexpensive that’s okay at least your texts are blue finally for the keyboard what’s really cool about this is that it also has no plugs just a heck of a lot of these pogo pads on the back which line up with the pogo pins on the motherboard the keyboard buttons have some decent depth to them but I’m pretty unopinionated when it comes to keyboards the keyboard does have threaded inserts on the back which correspond to some more captive screws that you’ll see in a second i’ll just plop the lower end of the keyboard into the frame of the framework 12 and press it in then flip it over to tighten the eight captive screws waiting for me on the back side of the laptop if for whatever reason one of these screws comes loose there are six spare screws just screwed into the frame inside of the laptop at this point I can also choose which ports I want to include in the sides each of these modules range from a reasonable $11 like the USBC port all the way up to the most expensive still reasonable $25 SD card slot and everything in between from Ethernet to HDMI USBA micro SD and even Display Port cards i can get new cards and swap out old cards at any point and any time turning the computer on for the first time I did have to install Windows myself since this is the DIY kit but the pre-built laptops come with Windows already installed and a neat party trick is that this Framework 12 has a 360° hinge so you can use it in tablet mode and I know this video sounds a bit like a sales pitch but it’s not sponsored framework just makes machines that are kind of everything I’ve been looking for in a laptop knowing that my laptop isn’t going to be obsolete right after I buy it is kind of nice and you might be like “Hey Jerry what about the screen though is that part easy to replace?” And yes it is with the bottom plastics removed we see another four non-captive screws these ones are indeed totally loable but the screen will probably be just fine if we only put back two or three so don’t worry too much about it framework does have to go make it easy again by labeling the screw holes as an M2x 2.8 so if you do lose any now you know what size it is i’ll take the 12.2 in LCD with its 60 Hz refresh rate and 1920 x 1200 resolution and slide it down there’s no adhesive and if the computer was turned off I could just pop off these two ribbon cables and replace the whole screen in about 3 minutes funny enough the replacement parts are already available on Framework’s website so if you happen to break your computer screen on day one the replacement pieces only cost $149 i’m a huge fan of what Framework is doing knowing that I could get a replacement screen in a pinch and not lose everything I’m working on would be some pretty nice piece of mind let me know if you want me to take a look at the more premium Framework 16 down in the comments as a side note since only