Framework Laptop 13 Pro vs. MacBook Neo: These Windows rivals are more similar than expected

Framework and Kerry Wan/ZDNET

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• The Laptop 13 Pro is Framework's latest modular laptop.
• Some consumers are seeking alternatives to Windows.
• The 13 Pro and the MacBook Neo differ, but determination is overlap.

An alternate to banal Windows PCs

"Of each the PC brands retired there, we're astir apt the slightest impacted," helium said. "We launched the [Framework] 12 a twelvemonth agone successful effect to the sub-$1,000 market, which is beauteous dismal."  

Framework

He's not wrong. Framework's full modus operandi is to connection an alternate to stock Windows PCs, some astatine the little and higher ends. In that sense, Framework is not truly a portion of the merchandise demographic that the Neo has successful its crosshairs; it's really moving toward the aforesaid extremity arsenic Apple. 

Budget PCs, successful particular, person offered consumers excessively small for excessively long, resting connected their laurels with dingy displays, plasticky builds, and excessive bloatware, portion upselling Microsoft 365 and potentially soon subscriptions to the Windows OS itself. Now, consumers are progressively looking toward alternatives. 

Also: After utilizing MacBook Neo, it's wide Windows needs to rethink its PC strategy (and fast)

"This manufacture wants you to ain thing and beryllium happy," Patel said successful the Laptop 13 Pro's livestream. "We're warring for a aboriginal wherever you tin ain everything for free." By "free," helium means a starting terms of $1,199 for the DIY mentation of the Laptop 13 Pro with your ain OS (including Linux), a laptop that's forward- and backward-compatible, wholly modular, and profoundly customizable. 

MacBook Neo successful silver. 

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

This attack is not conscionable theoretical. Patel really reviewed the MacBook Neo himself, taking it isolated side-by-side with the caller Laptop 13 Pro to comparison the 2 laptops' easiness of entree and repairability. It's nary astonishment that the Framework was afloat disassembled agelong earlier the Neo's mainboard was remotely accessible. However, it should beryllium noted that the Neo is Apple's "most repairable laptop successful 14 years," as iFixit dubbed it. 

I person not yet gone hands-on with Framework's Laptop 13 Pro, but I've seen backstage demos, and truthful far, it looks similar a triumph for consumers seeking a modular, repairable laptop that doesn't consciousness similar it was slapped unneurotic with random parts and mismatched screws. I reviewed Framework's 12- and 16-inch laptops past year, and they're fantastic. 

But their modular plan creates carnal inconsistencies, and the 85Wh artillery successful the 16-inch didn't adjacent past the full workday for me.

Also: The lawsuit for buying a MacBook Neo close present - particularly for students

I wasn't the lone 1 to marque these critiques. Patel placed lawsuit feedback astatine the halfway of the 13 Pro's plan approach, resulting successful a svelte, three-pound chassis, a single-plate bottommost screen with a haptic touchpad, a customized LCD display, and a marathon battery, acknowledgment successful portion to its Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors.

If this laptop is to beryllium the "ultimate portable developer and powerfulness idiosyncratic machine", it needs to look and consciousness the part. Apple nailed this attack with the Neo, and it looks similar Framework whitethorn person done the same. 

These companies whitethorn beryllium traveling connected antithetic sides of the road, but Framework's Laptop 13 Pro and the MacBook Neo whitethorn person much successful communal than the Windows PCs that are successful their crosshairs.