The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2025
Framework Laptop 12 brings modular repair to budget laptops — from $549
Framework's first touchscreen 2-in-1 ships fully modular at $549 DIY — CEO Patel calls it 'the product I started the company to create.'
Framework Computer
What it had to solve
Framework made its name repairable premium laptops like the Laptop 13 (from about $750 DIY). CEO Nirav Patel's diagnosis: the industry's worst products are the cheap laptops marketed to students, so the company aimed its modularity at the bottom of the market instead of the top.
How it works
Framework had spent years proving modular laptops were possible at premium prices. In February 2025 it announced the Laptop 12, a 12.2-inch touchscreen 2-in-1 aimed at students and schools, and promised it would be 'our easiest product ever to repair' — with a keyboard and RAM simpler to swap than on any earlier Framework and a shock-absorbing TPU edge for drops.
The design reuses the whole Framework toolkit: a 13th-gen Intel Core i3 or i5, 1920x1200 400-nit touch display with stylus support, up to 48GB of DDR5 and 2TB of NVMe storage, four modular Expansion Card ports, and a mainboard module that can be replaced with newer hardware years later. CEO Nirav Patel framed it as 'in many ways the product I started the company to create,' writing that entry-level laptops are 'janky, locked-down, disposable, underpowered, and frankly, boring machines' marketed to the people who most need long-lasting computers.
Preorders opened April 9, 2025 at $549 for a DIY configuration and $799 prebuilt, with June and July production runs; the June batch sold out in under an hour. The pitch was that a fleet of these machines could last many years — an IT administrator could upgrade dozens in a few hours — turning the category known for e-waste into the category built to be kept.
Why it lands
- It takes a premium feature (modularity) and applies it to the cheapest laptops — exactly the tier where repairability is rarest.
- Students and schools are the buyers of disposable budget laptops, so fixing the bottom of the market attacks the most e-waste.
- Redesigning the keyboard and RAM made the 'easiest product ever to repair' claim concrete, not marketing.
- The $549 DIY entry price gives the upgrade path of a $1,000+ machine to budget buyers.
- Modular ports lockable from the inside make the machine durable enough for a school fleet while keeping ports user-choice.
What it did
Preorders opened April 9, 2025; the June production batch sold out in under an hour. Reviewers praised the repairable design — The Verge titled its review 'plastic fantastic' — and it became Framework's first touchscreen, convertible and stylus-ready laptop.
What you can take
Repairability needn't be premium-only: push modularity down to the cheapest tier, where disposable machines dominate — that's where the industry's biggest waste lives.
Since then
The Framework Laptop 12 shipped in June and July 2025, with the June batch selling out within the hour; The Verge's review praised its repairable innards and called it 'plastic fantastic.' Framework kept iterating on the platform, later adding Intel Core Series 3 processor options, Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 7 in an August 2026 refresh — an upgrade path only possible because the mainboard, battery and storage were designed to be swapped.
Sources
- Framework wants to fix the budget laptop with its first touchscreen machine
- Framework's Laptop 12 Could Inject New Life Into Budget Portable PCs
- Framework now accepts US dollars for new Laptop 12, starting at $549
- Introducing the Framework Laptop 12
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