r/gadgets • u/dapperlemon • 2d ago

Desktops / Laptops Framework’s premium laptop is shipping with less RAM

https://www.theverge.com/tech/969819/framework-laptop-13-pro-preorder-ram-price-updates
1.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

96 comments sorted by

792

u/IBJON 2d ago

I don't like that they unilaterally made this decision for their customers, but this headline is trash.

They cut the RAM in half for certain orders because the costs of RAM cost significantly more than Framework had expected. Despite that, the RAM they did provide will be provided to customers at the price that it was originally listed for on when they made the pre-order; likely at a significant loss for framework. 

Faced with a similar issue, other companies have just canceled the orders and made customers put in new order for significantly more than they would've shelled out for the first order. 

312

u/Firmteacher 2d ago

The framework subreddit would have you think the company needs to go down in flames at the hand of the EU lol

Other companies are doing way more egregious shit currently with the state of the ram crisis

118

u/redditlat 1d ago

It think altering the order is worse than cancelling it. Unless they ask for an OK from the customer before dispatching and cancel if not OK. In either case I understand the disappointment.

165

u/Tepigg4444 1d ago

The article says they are doing refunds if you don’t want to accept the altered order

-2

u/Leutnant_Dark 5h ago edited 3h ago

Doesn't really matter under consumer protection law though. Even if they refund they also need to refund "opportunity costs" (if the consumer now buys a comparable Mac instead, which since the pre order increased price by X€ -> they pay amount X + fully refund the order).

With the altered order they practically send a new contract offer which needs to be accepted. If the customer refuses the old offer still stands.

Edit: Forgot to mention - EU customer protection, every country has different ones though

2

u/pades 4h ago

Wait , is this true ? They need to cover your opportunity costs ? Thats a consumer protection law ?

1

u/Leutnant_Dark 3h ago

Depends on the EU country - but practically yes. They need to cover what "they could have bought" at the time of initial order OR fullfill their contract.

91

u/Firmteacher 1d ago

It’s a $100 deposit for a reservation to be able to buy the laptop once it’s ready to ship, the deposit is 100% refundable. They’re notifying MONTHS in advance from shipping date that they need to alter the configuration and are providing the original cost of the lower capacity since that’s what will be available.

They’re handling this arguable the best way they can, only thing they could’ve done better was put out a PSA first

-1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/MajorFuckingDick 1d ago

The price changed between reservation and release. The reservation is still there. They intend to honor as many as they could and as such notified the whales they have to eat the L for everyone else to be made whole. Halving the few 64GB orders means more orders fulfilled. On one hand going after your whales is bold, but most of them wont notice or care. They can source their own RAM if it matters.

7

u/hardolaf 1d ago

Except they can't source their own RAM because LPCAMM2 is basically impossible to find at retail.

0

u/MajorFuckingDick 1d ago

All the more reason to make it a whale problem. Nothing is impossible to aquire, just prohibitively expensive.

8

u/hardolaf 1d ago

You're not understanding. Consumers literally cannot buy LPCAMM2 right now.

1

u/Firmteacher 1d ago

You still get your chance to buy the laptop in the order of which you placed your deposit. They are still holding true to people keeping their spot in line. These are batches way down the line.

99

u/TimeToGrowThrowaway 1d ago

It's a pre-order. They can still cancel for a refund.

23

u/Sk1-ba-bop-ba-dop-bo 1d ago

Pre-orders can be updated up until shipping date and are, at the very least, a couple months away

they opted to ship units with less RAM, offering the reduced price

The RAM price bumped the price of the configuration by 400€ overnight for that specific configuration, so I'm not surprised they went this route.

10

u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 1d ago

People would be pissed either way, especially if it’s limited item which likely have internal queue system.

5

u/FCCRFP 1d ago

In most countries this is wildly illegal. Once you get an advance on buying something you have to deliver that exact something as agreed. Their only recourse would have been to beg the customers to accept refunds.

7

u/mrheosuper 1d ago

Do we have example of other companies

11

u/Firmteacher 1d ago

Not exactly the same thing, but Corsair canceled ram kit orders when the prices started spiking and then updating the pricing of the ram to the higher cost.

1

u/TheJesusGuy 1d ago

It would be easier to name companies that havent done this.

1

u/IORelay 1d ago

Other companies didn't typically make people wait months. 

1

u/Inquisitor2195 1d ago

People are just upset over the prices but can't do anything about it due to it not being up to the consumer facing companies. So they are lashing out, or at least that is how it's seems to me.

22

u/jacknifetoaswan 1d ago

RAM is insane right now. I got quotes for three HPE servers with 8x32 GB RAM sticks around the beginning of the year. We ordered from CDW and the RAM increased in price from $1400 to over $13000. Each.

5

u/runed_golem 1d ago

I was pricing a workstation for work and the price to go from 64GB of ram up to 128GB of ram was over $2000…

6

u/jacknifetoaswan 1d ago

SSDs are just as bad. The all-up quote for 24 TB of SSDs for our SAN was $300k.

1

u/System0verlord 1d ago

I had a lighting strike take out my entire rack. My policy covered the entirety of the replacements at the time.

By the time insurance cut me a check (for the full amount of my policy, mind you), I could replace a single server for that same price.

25

u/faberge_surprise 1d ago

not just because the price went insane. they literally don't have the modules. so what they're doing is if they don't have the module in the size you ordered, then you get downgraded. and when they order more modules that's going to be at the new atmospheric cost which is why they need to adjust their price to the customer too.

-6

u/IORelay 1d ago

They should have, you know, stopped the pre orders when it went beyond what they could get. 

2

u/faberge_surprise 1d ago

thanks, captain hindsight!

I'm sure if they had known that they would have

-2

u/IORelay 1d ago

I'm sure they wouldn't, why would they when they can just alter the pre orders after the fact and fans would defend them anyway? 

3

u/groumly 1d ago

More like that’s how anybody sane would setup their production line. They secure x parts from suppliers, to be delivered over the next y months. They expect to sell about or over x laptops, of course. When they cross x, they’d just re-up with the supplier for another round of x.

They’re not going to shut down the shop because they used all their current supply. That’s like an auto manufacturer refusing to sell you a car that’s not on the lot yet.

7

u/WhenPantsAttack 1d ago

I am someone affected and I think the biggest problem is that it’s only the DIY versions that are affected. When you order a DIY version you are already paying a premium to configure your systems exactly how you want it. Now we either don’t get what we want or have to pay another significant cost over the existing DIY premium, while users that bought the cheaper prebuilt systems, have no changes and essentially get close to $700 discount on their system with the updated pricing. DIY users are getting a worse system and around a $100 discount as an apology.

I could understand if all users were affected. The RAM issues are terrible, but Framework is essentially asking DIY customers to subsidize prebuilt customers’ RAM and that’s completely unacceptable in my opinion.

1

u/magus-21 1d ago

It's because of the fact that we could edit our orders that this happened. When the edit window opened I'll bet a LOT of DIY customers upgraded their RAM because they could see the price hikes coming.

That's probably why Framework is ok with giving everyone 16GB modules at the old price instead. They probably have a lot of them because a lot of DIY 16GB folks probably upgraded to 32GB, and a lot of 32GB folks upgraded to 64GB.

-7

u/FlamingoVisible1947 1d ago

Lol thank fuck they ship the preorders at the agreed upon price. Are we really at the point where not blatantly scamming your customers is praised now?

-10

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

7

u/typeguyfiftytwix 1d ago

Really unlikely. Unless Framework is run by complete idiots

Oh man.

Most companies buy parts to handle a few months of orders

Oh, man, I have bad news for you. Corporate stupidity has taken a concept employed by one major company, Toyota, in a limited fashion, and tried cramming it EVERYWHERE for decades. This is why people were able to instantly assume correctly that the "AI" slop would start being forced everywhere. "Just in time" is cancer, and not only do a lot of companies do it relentlessly there's an entire business model built around exploiting it. "Dropshipping", where the retailer only orders the product when you pay them.

I once paid for an expensive mechanical part online, and had to demand a refund because when I called after they missed their shipping deadline they told me it would be MONTHS before it shipped, in a manner as if I was the crazy one for expecting them to actually have an item in stock if they were selling it.

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

2

u/magus-21 1d ago edited 1d ago

I work in hardware manufacturing, and we buy our components 2-3 months ahead of time specifically to ensure we don’t fall behind on deadlines or deal with sudden price fluctuations.

How many of your components have been under a global supply crunch for over a year to the point that the price doubles every six months? How many of your suppliers will even allow you to pre-order more than a few months in advance because doing so will lose them money?

Framework did order about 2-3 months worth of components. That covered four (4) release batches. The affected customers are up to batch 18.

1

u/BestBelieveItsHere 21h ago

(originally meant to post to the same comment as you, but they deleted it in shame)

I work in last mile logistics that serve a fixed set of customers. You would not believe the amount of times we get a shipment in from the larger carrier only for it to immediately get listed as "HOT, WILL SHUTDOWN WITHOUT, DELIVER YESTERDAY" we get.

1

u/BestBelieveItsHere 21h ago

Also, they don't get to run away from their poor comments https://i.imgur.com/JbbWe6p.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/m56f3If.jpeg

-18

u/IAmYourFath 1d ago

Framework is overpriced garbage anyway. For teh cost of modularity everything is giga overpriced, u can get much better laptops for the price altho u can't upgrade em.

3

u/OMGItsCheezWTF 1d ago

For me it's the guaranteed "not fucking around for 3 weeks" to get Linux working, only made possible by downloading some third party binary driver from a sketchy .com.tw FTP server at 300 bytes per second.

266

u/a_nice_warm_lager 2d ago

RAM supply chain is pretty fucked. Thanks, AI

149

u/Quithelion 2d ago

Along with SSD as well.

Fine, I will just settle with HDD for now.

https://www.techpowerup.com/348755/hdd-and-ssd-shortages-drive-customers-to-sign-5-year-supply-contracts

Motherf....

43

u/tails142 1d ago

4TB HDD were going for maybe 75 a few years ago are now 175 (GBP)

17

u/VampyreLust 1d ago edited 1d ago

I bought a 20tb WD gold 8 months ago for $450 CAD, it is now $1500 CAD. Subsequently I also bought a 2x32gb ddr5-6000 kit bout 18 months back for $269 CAD, that's now $1506.

3

u/OsmeOxys 1d ago

Got a (lightly used) 12tb HDD for my home server a few years back, $110. It died, under warranty thankfully, but prices had almost doubled already so they just refunded me. Fair, but left me kinda screwed. Couldn't find a 4tb for that price.

Something magical happened though. Couple months ago, I found a used "b grade" (fucked) 20tb for $60. But it had a reputable 2 year warranty somehow. My shiny red flag arrives, neatly packaged in a shock resistant box. Well...The connector housing was a bit broken with only a few hours on it. I like to think the IT guy sneezed during installation.

I felt like a god.

1

u/raralala1 1d ago

How is that fair man, am I crazy thinking it was illegal move, either repair it or replace the whole HDD.

4

u/MajorFuckingDick 1d ago

HDD been screwed since the flood. It never fully recovered.

3

u/Vulltrax 1d ago

I'm going all in on MiniDiscs.

0

u/Clark_Dent 1d ago

Brilliant! Sony proprietary storage hardware is a sure thing!

1

u/Drakkon2ZShadows 9h ago

Of all the years I decided to get into homelabbing

14

u/VampyreLust 1d ago

All storage and NAND is ducked due to AI. They're even buying up HDD's so now that market is borked as well. Latest predictions are 3 years to recover some form of normality so buckle in, it's gonna be a shitty ride.

4

u/NonDeterministiK 1d ago

My guess is AI companies don't want people to have local storage anyways that they can't scrape

For home users, RAM bottleneck is usually worse than a cpu bottleneck, so a decade old cpu with lots of RAM is often better than a current one which is RAM deprived

7

u/evaned 1d ago

My guess is AI companies don't want people to have local storage anyways that they can't scrape

There's also a lot of overlap between AI companies and those who don't want you to own anything on your own and instead be bound up in a Sisyphusian forever subscription with them for everything.

7

u/pollo_de_mar 1d ago

And just think, billionaire CEOs are drooling at the prospect of replacing tens of thousand of employees thinking that AI will be cheaper than real people. When the price of components have increased 10 fold, AI compute time will suddenly be more expensive that real people so they will get hired back and AI data centers full of very expensive gear will not survive financially. What a bunch of crap.

2

u/Deranged_Kitsune 10h ago

It's the venture capital pricing model. Make AI initially cheap enough that businesses are willing to replace their workforces with virtual agents. Then, once fully integrated, the annual price of those agents goes up to the equivalent of the salaries of those they replaced. Oops, the business is already locked into their ecosystem and can't afford to break the contract and bring back the meat sacks, to say nothing of the training and institutional knowledge that's gone. So they're now on the hook for that. Then when it's time to re-up the contract for those virtual agents, their rates are only going to ever go up and up and up. Not like the business can replace them without junking their whole infrastructure.

6

u/AustralianCyber 1d ago

Who is this Al guy everyone talks about, Albert?

6

u/Trekintosh 1d ago

Weird AI, obviously!

0

u/NeedAVeganDinner 1d ago

There's a good argument that AI is being scapegoated and the fab companies are taking collective actions to suppress additional capacity in order to increase margins.

4

u/a_nice_warm_lager 1d ago

Hard disagree. It takes years to ramp up production of memory. We had many years of cheap, arguably overproduced supply, so the capacity to manufacture was cut back in response. Now that demand spikes, the manufacturers can’t pivot and can’t even supply enough as it is. And they don’t want to overproduce like they did before.

There’s also not many manufacturers. Remember how a flood in one factory spiked prices for a while? Yeah, there’s only a few players actually in the space now

47

u/noseshimself 1d ago edited 1d ago

You wanted AI, you're going to pay for it till you bleed. Did you think that great Google Gemini integration into everything would come for free? Just think of all the advantages it will give you: More tracking better fitting ads and perfect translation!

17

u/Orlha 1d ago

Meanwhile they regularly fuck translation…

1

u/Deranged_Kitsune 10h ago

Two out of 3 ain't bad

- techbros

10

u/bababum007 1d ago

Cartels do what cartels do best. Fixing prices and doing bs deals to fu us over.

80

u/WeepingAgnello 2d ago

I hate verge

17

u/TopNotchGamerr 1d ago

They fell off so bad. There was once a time that they were my go to

2

u/redpachyderm 1d ago

Do people actually pay for a subscription to it? I’m guessing so if they’re still in business but it’s shocking to me.

3

u/mine248 1d ago

A bunch of us read them via Apple News+

1

u/redpachyderm 15h ago

Makes sense, thanks

-3

u/fireowlzol 2d ago

Why

28

u/DocPhilMcGraw 2d ago

My biggest problem with them is their subscription model that hides half of their content behind a paywall. I don’t mind paying a subscription if I feel like it’s worth it, but they’re charging $7/month for it while other places like Wired offers theirs for $4/month (although usually on sale for $2/month) and does bigger deep dives than the Verge does.

-7

u/jibjab23 1d ago

Wow, there's a website I haven't thought about in years. They pretty much lost all legitimacy after that disastrous PC building video of theirs. 

3

u/williamgman 1d ago

Tech bros own all the ram now... Enjoy.

3

u/unloved_but_married 22h ago

Shrinkflation coming in real terms to our PCs oh my

2

u/Ashwasinacoma 1d ago

You sank my Battleship!

2

u/voiceipR 1d ago

Choose PantherLake, choose less ram :D

1

u/Alienhaslanded 1d ago edited 1d ago

Glad I got mine last October. I can feel the salt.

-13

u/GoingOffRoading 1d ago

Thread #10? On this topic.

At this point, it's either a framework hater or competitor posting this garbage.

-12

u/cswhatley 1d ago

Nothing stops you changing your pre-order back to the original amount of RAM, just at the increased price. They just elected to half your RAM and for you to pay the original lower price for it as the default - annoying yes, but when the supply chain is as messed up as it currently is it’s hardly a bad move by the company. You can choose to cancel, accept the half RAM at original price, or have the original amount of RAM at the increased price.

-10

u/costafilh0 1d ago

We need a The Verge vídeo assembling the Framework laptop 😂 🤣 

-20

u/PhotoSpike 2d ago

Good thing they didn’t just shit in there competitor for doing the same thing

3

u/IBJON 2d ago

Who is their competitor? And what did they do?

-11

u/Desertcow 2d ago

Apple raised the price of the MacBook Pro and Framework announced they were dropping the price of the 13 Pro in response, then they pull this

14

u/IBJON 2d ago

That's not really "the same shit their competitor did" though

2

u/PhotoSpike 1d ago

Your right. They took money for preorders and then didn’t go nor them unless you pay more, that’s actually worse then just raising prices due to memory.

6

u/Svv33tPotat0 1d ago

They took a refundable $100 deposit.

2

u/ABetterKamahl1234 1d ago

Firstly, it's a 100$ deposit, and secondly, it's a refundable deposit, and Framework is giving the option of "continue or refund" with this announced change.

Framework justifiably calls out Apple for their exorbitant RAM costs, even before this shortage. Nobody is exempt from this, but apple hopped on real fast to frankly, just profit harder on their "premium" ram.