Framework has been selling and upgrading the upgrade-and-repair-friendly Framework Laptop 13 for nearly four years now, and in early 2024 it announced a larger, more powerful Framework Laptop 16. At a product event today, the company showed off what it called “an early preview” of its third laptop design, the convertible, budget-focused Framework Laptop 12.
This addition to Framework’s lineup centers on a 12.2-inch, 1920×1200 convertible touchscreen that flips around to the back with a flexible hinge, a la Lenovo’s long-running Yoga design. Framework CEO Nirav Patel said it had originally designed the systems with “students in mind,” and to that end it comes in five colors and uses a two-tone plastic body with an internal metal frame rather than the mostly aluminum exterior Framework has used for the 13 and 16. Framework will also sell the laptop with an optional stylus.
For better or worse, the Framework Laptop 12 appears to be its own separate system, with motherboards, accessories, and a refresh schedule distinct from the 13-inch laptop. While the Laptop 13 already offers first-generation Intel Core Ultra-based and (as of today) AMD Ryzen AI 300-based processors, the first Framework Laptop 12 motherboard is going to use Intel’s 13th-generation Core i3 and i5 processors, originally launched back in late 2022. Despite the age of these chips, Framework claims the laptop will be “unusually powerful for its class.”
As in the Framework Laptop 13, making the laptop easy to upgrade and repair was a priority for the company. It supports up to 48GB of DDR5-5200 (implying just a single DDR5 RAM slot) and up to 2GB of NVMe storage, both of which will be user-accessible and upgradeable. The photos of the laptop that Framework has shared show it using four of the company’s USB-C expansion cards, the same number as the Framework Laptop 13, plus a dedicated headphone jack. The laptop will officially support both Windows 11 and Linux.
Framework didn’t share much else about the Framework Laptop 12 today, but the company hopes to begin preorders in April and to begin shipping the laptop in mid-2025. The lower-end processors and plastic body will both make the laptop cheaper than the Framework Laptop 13; we’ve asked Framework if it has any pricing information to share, and we’ll update if we get a response.