jamesbuckwas

You can re-purpose the desktop for many more use cases than even a Framework laptop. Look at the r/HomeServer subreddit for more examples. Some include using it still as a gaming system with even a $200 GPU upgrade (like an RX 6600), a media server with some inexpensive hard drives, a home server running backups or services such as pi-hole, or just as a system to experiment with. I have a desktop with a Ryzen 5 3400G and 2 PCIe x16 slots that I would use to experiment with PCIe passthrough. That experience would have been far more difficult with a laptop due to the proprietary configurations used for laptop motherboards, and the difficulty in managing screen outputs even on a laptop with two GPUs.

My point is that even if the Framework laptop is faster in certain workloads for you, this can easily be alleviated with an upgrade to some of the desktop's components. Even without an upgrade, there are many possibilities for you to still use your desktop which, honestly, still has decent components for a variety of use cases. I'd love to use that system as an emulation PC.

These are all very concise and well-explained reasons to keep your desktop.

You, u/T900Kassem, can also use the old desktop as a media server with the GTX 970 for H264 transcoding (not sure about H265, Intel Arc would be a good upgrade for that), or as a home theater PC for playing games or replacing an array of consoles with emulators. Those systems are also fun to mess around and tinker with using expansion cards. For example, I'm using a cleaned up 2009 Mac Pro with a spare GTX 745 I had lying around to experiment with virtual machines and PCIe passthrough.

It also means that the people around us can more easily enjoy the media that we've collected, since they probably don't enjoy the same collecting and organizing process that we do.

For example, I'm planning to re-organize my media for Jellyfin on TrueNAS, what with organizing the folders and file structures, and creating better ways to rip DVDs, Blu-Rays, and audio CDs. I enjoy that process, but it also makes it more convenient for my family members to access and watch that media when they would like to as well. So there's more than just my personal enjoyment that's increased from this.

In my opinion, unless you require a feature you can only get on a mac, such as macOS, multi-day battery life, or a powerful GPU (and you can't afford the FW16 instead), you should get the Framework Laptop.

​

You have not mentioned a specific use case in your post, and I am still curious what that is. But since you have not, for the time being I will assume both laptops would work, at least at a basic level, for you. With that, here are the benefits of each laptop I think are worth considering, and why the Framework Laptop 13 or Laptop 16 would be a better option.

The Macbook Pro will likely have a more powerful GPU than at least the FW13. It will have a higher resolution screen, and a higher refresh rate one at that. The Macbook Pro will have a longer battery life and better speakers, although both of those can be solved for less than the price increase from the FW13 (with a power bank and headphones). You may prefer the trackpad on the Macbook Pro, however this is really up to personal preference (I for one quite dislike the Macbook's vibration trackpad), and many users of the FW13 have said the trackpad on that is quite good in its own right. Lastly, you may prefer macOS over Windows 11 or a Linux distribution, but since you are considering both laptops from the outset, I will ignore this point here.

The Framework Laptop 13 has numerous benefits over the Macbook Pro in my opinion. First and more obviously, the repairability, upgradeability, customization, and sustainability are all unparelleled compared to the Macbook Pro. The FW13 has had 4 different generations of motherboards from different CPU motherboards, and with how well they've designed and expanded their product range in just 3 years, there's no reason to think future generations of even faster processors won't be released in the future. With just this point, the price-to-performance of the FW13 in the long term makes more sense than just the immediate purchase. Another very important point is that if your workload benefits from them, the doubling of RAM and storage will allow you to better run your tasks, or save ~$80 if you decide to better match the Macbook Pro and FW13 specs. Additionally, being able to upgrade these components in the future, as well as swap ports for your use case, make this a far more flexible laptop, not just during purchase, but for the many years of use this laptop will receive.

But there are more benefits than just the performance and pricing. Unless you wish to pay hundreds of more dollars for AppleCare, the Framework Laptop is also a far safer investment if there is any likelihood of the screen, casing, or keyboard/trackpad breaking during your normal operation. You likely already know about Apple's famously anti-consumer repair policies, but since it seems like you are buying the DIY edition of the FW13, I'll summarize it as the fact that repairs are no more than 10% the price of the product, rather than 50% to 90%.

There are several benefits you gain by purchasing a Framework Laptop 16 instead of Laptop 13, if you are willing to wait for your batch to ship and for paying an equivalent price to the Macbook Pro. For starters, the graphics card performance will be more comparable between the two laptops, although in-depth testing will be needed for more accurate information. Even without a GPU, the FW16 has a greatly improved screen (better color accuracy, 165Hz refresh rate, higher resolution) over the FW13. The battery is also about 30% greater in capacity than even the upgraded battery in the Ryzen 7 FW13 model. Additionally, if you don't require a powerful GPU, you still gain the same advantage as the FW13 with being able to upgrade both the processor and now graphics in the future, when models even faster than that of the Macbook Pro are released.

​

In summary, I would strongly suggest purchasing a Framework Laptop 13 if its unprecedented repairability and upgradeability are of interest to you. I would also strongly suggest considering a Framework laptop 16 if you require more powerful or even more flexible hardware. Unless you absolutely need Macbook-specific features like macOS or your software only runs on macOS, there is little reason to purchase a Macbook Pro over either model of laptop from Framework. I hope this is helpful for your purchasing decision. I would be very interested of hearing your experiences here after you make your purchase!