[00:01] Historically, some of the coolest inventions&nbsp; ever were built in a cave with a box of scraps,&nbsp;&nbsp; and this Framework 16 laptop is no different.&nbsp; I mean, maybe it's a little different since I&nbsp;&nbsp; intentionally chose the DIY version so I could&nbsp; channel my internal Iron Man. I could obviously&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:19] spend a few more bucks and have Framework do the&nbsp; assembling for me, but where's the fun in that? Framework laptops are the only laptops that ship&nbsp; like this. And this, their most powerful 16-in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:31] laptop, has an impressive, upgradeable&nbsp; Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card&nbsp;&nbsp; inside—a graphics card that I can swap out&nbsp; and upgrade in just a few minutes. The first&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:43] modular laptop of its kind. Plus, the whole&nbsp; Framework design is foolproof. Watch this:&nbsp;&nbsp; the graphics card can be swapped out just&nbsp; by lifting up this black flap and undoing&nbsp;&nbsp; six screws. But we'll get to that in a&nbsp; second; I want to see what the rest of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:57] the laptop looks like first. And I can do that&nbsp; by peeking underneath the large metal plate. When I say it's foolproof, I mean that each&nbsp; of the screws that I'm removing right now&nbsp;&nbsp; don’t actually come out. They are captive,&nbsp; meaning they stay in the hole that they're&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:10] securing and can't get misplaced or lost. With the&nbsp; mid-plate and its steel captive screws removed,&nbsp;&nbsp; we can get our first look at the extremely&nbsp; modular internals. There are some slots&nbsp;&nbsp; for memory, long-term SSD storage,&nbsp; and even the battery. It says this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:25] battery is replaceable. Did you&nbsp; feel that? A breath of fresh air. With only three more captive screws to&nbsp; unscrew, the 85-Wh battery is the easiest&nbsp;&nbsp; battery replacement of all time. For reference,&nbsp; this is the battery we found inside of Apple's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:39] M2 MacBook Pro. It is 100 Wh, but it is&nbsp; not user-replaceable, and it looks like a&nbsp;&nbsp; Frankenstein conglomerate of iPhone batteries,&nbsp; which makes removal far more difficult. So,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:51] thumbs up to Framework for being normal and&nbsp; finally giving the people what they want. The two lower loudspeakers are also&nbsp; modular. Each including a 1-watt&nbsp;&nbsp; woofer and a 1-watt tweeter for four&nbsp; speakers in total. The coolest module,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:05] though—and something I've never seen in a&nbsp; laptop before—is the ability to swap out&nbsp;&nbsp; and upgrade the modular graphics card. All made&nbsp; possible by removing four screws and pulling up&nbsp;&nbsp; on this interposer. Just don't touch the gold&nbsp; contact pads on the bottom. An interposer is a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:20] high-bandwidth bridge, a connector designed&nbsp; for repeated swaps of powerful components. We can unscrew two more captive screws identified&nbsp; with the orange markers, and this allows the whole&nbsp;&nbsp; graphics card module to be released out the&nbsp; back, meaning I can upgrade this graphics card&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:36] in the future, all in about 4 minutes. Also,&nbsp; if you're not into gaming or video editing,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can use the same interposer and the same&nbsp; cavity to add more internal SSDs instead.&nbsp;&nbsp; A modular design is basically unheard of in&nbsp; the laptop space; I hope Tim Cook is watching.
[02:52] Normally, a GPU is soldered onto the mainboard&nbsp; for portability, which is true—the Framework&nbsp;&nbsp; is 20 mm thick versus the MacBook Pro at&nbsp; 16 mm thick—but all things considered,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:04] it's really not all that big of a difference,&nbsp; and I think it's pretty amazing. I'll remove&nbsp;&nbsp; the upper airflow grill and fingerprint-scanning&nbsp; power button from the laptop. Normally, a person&nbsp;&nbsp; wouldn't need to go this deep since the mainboard&nbsp; is not as likely to need replacing, but since&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:19] it has marked and numbered screws 1 through 8, I&nbsp; think we should just keep going for the fun of it. disconnect the modular Wi-Fi 7 module. And&nbsp; with the motherboard removed, we can see&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:33] the heat pipes that are keeping the Ryzen AI 9&nbsp; 12-core processor cool. As well as on the back,&nbsp;&nbsp; it has Framework's mailing address&nbsp; and customer service number just in&nbsp;&nbsp; case you need more instructions or&nbsp; someone to talk to if you're lonely.
[03:47] The Framework 16 is basically a desktop&nbsp; in a laptop body. And thankfully,&nbsp;&nbsp; it is still upgradeable with all this new&nbsp; hardware. It's almost like the company&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:59] cares about its customers, and I'm not sure&nbsp; what to do with these new feelings I have. With the motherboard back in place and our&nbsp; interposer bridge installed onto the graphics&nbsp;&nbsp; card, I can set in our long-term storage. I&nbsp; have two SSDs. These are basically the hard&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:14] drives that run the operating system.&nbsp; The stubby 2-TB drive goes in first,&nbsp;&nbsp; and the full-size 4-TB drive goes in on top. I'll&nbsp; use the smaller one for holding the operating&nbsp;&nbsp; system and program files, and the larger drive&nbsp; for storing the video projects that I edit.
[04:28] The short-term DDR5 memory sticks click&nbsp; in. On the right side of the motherboard,&nbsp;&nbsp; I have two of the 24-gig sticks for&nbsp; 48 GB of RAM in total, which should&nbsp;&nbsp; be plenty to edit my 4K footage with. I&nbsp; don't do a whole lot of gaming, but video&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:42] editing uses all the same hardware, so having&nbsp; a gaming laptop still gets the job done best. And you might be like, "Hey, Jerry, where's the&nbsp; keyboard?" And that's a very valid question. The&nbsp;&nbsp; keyboard is actually hot-swappable and modular as&nbsp; well. Once the aluminum mid-plate is reinstalled,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:58] there's a series of gold pins across&nbsp; the plate that allow the keyboard or&nbsp;&nbsp; number pad to be placed at any point or on&nbsp; either side. The keys themselves have 1.5 mm&nbsp;&nbsp; worth of travel. For reference, the MacBook&nbsp; Pros have 1 mm, but who's counting? You are.
[05:14] And all of these keyboards, number pads, and&nbsp; trackpads can be hot-swapped without needing&nbsp;&nbsp; any tools. There are two locking latches&nbsp; at the bottom left and right sides of the&nbsp;&nbsp; computer that hold everything in place. I'll&nbsp; throw on the black plastic screen bezel for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:28] a second. We'll come back to this, but it's&nbsp; held in place with magnets. Then I can put in&nbsp;&nbsp; literally whatever ports I want to into the&nbsp; sides of the computer. Whether it's USB-C,&nbsp;&nbsp; USB-A, six different headphone jacks, Ethernet,&nbsp; HDMI, Micro SD, DisplayPort, or SD card slots,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:45] they are all hot-swappable, and I get to choose&nbsp; what I want. How about them apples? Plus,&nbsp;&nbsp; each of the ports only costs 20 bucks, which&nbsp; is far cheaper than Apple's dongle adapters. The only downside of the DIY edition is that&nbsp; I do need to install my own operating system,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:00] which is kind of a hassle. I am told that&nbsp; the Framework laptops also work with Linux,&nbsp;&nbsp; but as embarrassing as it sounds, I'm&nbsp; still not quite sure what Linux is,&nbsp;&nbsp; and at this point, I'm too afraid&nbsp; to ask. So, Windows it is for me.
[06:12] The display of the Framework 16&nbsp; has a 2560x1600 pixel resolution,&nbsp;&nbsp; 165-Hz refresh rate, and 500 nits of&nbsp; brightness with 100% DCI-P3 color,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:26] meaning it can be used for video editing&nbsp; or picture grading. And I repeat: even the&nbsp;&nbsp; screen can be replaced in about 10 minutes&nbsp; with just four screws. Framework already&nbsp;&nbsp; has replacement parts ready to go on their&nbsp; website for everything inside this computer.
[06:40] And I'm not sure what these feelings&nbsp; are—happiness, appreciation,&nbsp;&nbsp; maybe hope. All I know is that I am Iron Man&nbsp; and I don't think I'll ever be going back to&nbsp;&nbsp; a regular old laptop ever again. Framework is&nbsp; where it's at. If you want one of my teardown&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:56] skins for your own Framework laptop, I'll leave&nbsp; a link down in the description. We also have&nbsp;&nbsp; teardown skins for MacBooks and every popular&nbsp; smartphone so you too can look like the genius,&nbsp;&nbsp; billionaire, playboy, philanthropist that you are.&nbsp; Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.