Framework Laptop Community

Our final assembly factory for Framework Laptop 16 and all of our sub suppliers are now up and running smoothly. We had a few bumps as we ramped, with an early material shortage on the RGB Macropad and product serialization and data systems issues delaying some of the keyboard versions. All of those issues are now resolved, and we’re on our way to utilizing full manufacturing capacity. We’re currently aiming for an approximately 5 day cadence between sending out “preparing your batch” emails from batch to batch, with a goal to speed that up to 4 days as we reach peak factory output. We sent out the email to Batch 4 late last week and plan to send the Batch 5 email this week. We expect to fulfill all Batch 5 and most Batch 6 orders before the end of Q1 and all current pre-orders before the end of Q2. We’ll be updating the timing that appears on your order in your user account to reflect this. We optimize manufacturing throughput by scheduling larger runs of each configuration, which means we will have anywhere from 1 to 4 different batches in the midst of fulfillment at any given time.

We also wanted to provide an update on the the open issues that we shared in earlier emails:

1. Keyboard deflection - We shared an improvement in an earlier email which involves adding five additional rubber pads around the Mainboard to provide additional support to the keyboard. In parallel to our manufacturing partner completing qualification testing on this, we’ve started dogfooding it internally in Framework. If you’re not familiar with “dogfooding”, it comes from the idea of “eating your own dog food”, or making sure you’re testing what you’re making before others do. As we mentioned in the earlier email, once we complete testing, assuming the results are positive we will roll this into new production and share a form for existing Framework Laptop 16 owners to request a kit of pads.
2. Secondary SSD may disappear - AMD has provided us with the necessary BIOS fix, which we’re now testing as part of an overall Framework Laptop 16 BIOS update. Our initial testing on it is positive. Once this BIOS is ready, we’ll share it into the Community first as a Beta release before the final release.
3. Display frozen after smart MUX switching - AMD has shared an updated graphics driver with us that has the fix for this along with some new features and performance improvements. This is also currently in our test process, and it will follow the same release path as the BIOS update.

Thanks again for your patience, and we’re excited to get your Framework Laptop 16 to you (or the rubber pads and software updates if you already have yours).