this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
246 points (94.6% liked)
Technology
84019 readers
3344 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If I understand the specs correctly, this should be almost fully compatible with existing 13 hardware.
Tempted to just get the black chassis once they release it, and put my current FW13 mainboard in it
The new bottom cover requires the new battery, new speakers and new audio board, as well as the new input cover (graphite or silver). So you are limited to either getting a new input cover or getting the entire bottom kit.
They did a video where they swapped parts from a first generation FW13 with a FW13Pro. There were only two caveats: one, if you want the Pro battery on your older laptop, you have to buy a new bottom panel too because they made the battery bigger for a longer life and it won't fit in the old cover. And two, depending on your architecture, the Wi-Fi modules might not be interchangeable due to some vendor chipset thing, I think?
Everything else was able to be swapped, though, it seemed.
Edit: oh wait, I take it back, the speaker modules. I think they might technically be compatible, but since they're side-firing on the Pro instead of down-firing, you'd need a new bottom chassis if you didn't want them to sound awful.
They also said you need the new touchpad and top plate to have enough clearance for the battery
Bottom panel, input panel, battery, and speakers have to be all pro together
You can put the new input panel on the old bottom panel, though
No, I don't think it was bigger on the top, I think it was bigger on the bottom. I'm pretty sure you just needed the bottom cover.
It's bigger in both dimensions.
They explicitly state the top input module has to be changed to support the new battery in the video here
https://frame.work/ca/en/laptop13pro?tab=upgrade-to-pro
Unless you can put the old battery in the new bottom panel, you have to upgrade all 4 at once if you upgrade the bottom
Yeah, the black chassis looks fucking awesome
I'm having a Framework 16 and during work in a warehouse I produced a major scratch on it.
Would love to either do a cover up "tattoo" (like laser engraving) or just switch to a black chassis, if it becomes available for the F16
Either way, those things fucking rock
My little brother has an old ThinkPad, which I regard as good.
But the keyboard starts to die and he bought a new keyboard to replace.
You need to disassemble the complete laptop, just to change the keyboard - and there are a fuckload of screws and flimsy connectors.
Because of that age, I also guess, that those flimsy plastic brackets, holding the flat rippon cables, while easily break - at least that happend to me, when I tried to repair an really old piece of hardware
The idea of Framework is absolutely great
The only thing, that worries me, is the massive use of magnets, because working in a dirty industrial environment, it sucks up all the little metal pieces - and that killed the speakers of my last laptops at least, and brought that shit into PCB environment
Still, at its so easy to disassemble, I can just pull out the modules, even while the laptop is running, clean them up and put them back.
Fucking love this thing!
Ok, only wanted to say something about this nice black chassis and got carried off...
This page has info on parts and upgrades
https://frame.work/ca/en/laptop13pro?tab=upgrade-to-pro