Major PC manufacturers are raising prices to cope with component shortages caused by big tech's AI mania, but buyers of Framework's modular laptops are getting an unexpected deal instead. The company is upgrading the SSDs of some pre-ordered models and passing on a cost efficiency; Nirav Patel writes that "we finally have some good news for you."
We were able to qualify and source a new SSD from our partner ADATA, the XPG MARS 970, that offers better performance, efficiency, and long term reliability, and comes in at substantially lower cost than the SSD option we had previously qualified. Since we haven't started shipping Framework Laptop 13 Pro pre-orders yet, we'll be switching over all existing pre-orders that had chosen the previous Gen 5 SSD options and reduced the price on those orders as well. This new SSD comes in 1TB and 2TB options, and the 1TB lands at a lower price than the 500GB SSD we had previously qualified, so we will also switch 500GB orders to the 1TB drive at the lower price.
Other news on the subject has been doom and gloom, with Apple finally raising prices across nearly its entire hardware line (Macs, iPads, Apple TV, HomePod and Vision Pro!), apparently for the first time in its modern history without an accompanying spec bump somewhere. The base MacBook Air went to $1,299 from $1,099, the cheapest MacBook Pro to $1,999 from $1,699, and the budget MacBook Neo to $699 from $599. Only the iPhone was spared; Apple's stock dropped 6%. "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company said in a similarly unusual statement.
Framework expects to raise prices soon, though, on the Intel-powered Laptop 13 Pro to track an anticipated hike in the cost of the CPUs. The price of its Framework Desktop was increased last month for high-end 128GB models, but not 32GB and 64GB models. The price of the flash memory used in its Storage Expansion Cards, though, shot up so fast they paused production rather than inventorize at the higher price.
Previously:
• Framework adds powerful RTX 5070 GPU to modular laptop options
• Framework users complain over its support for far-right firebrand
• Framework's first desktop PC
• Framework's 12-inch laptop wins encouraging reviews
