My nephew just graduated high school, and wants a laptop. When he decides what computer to buy, price (or more precisely, value) is the most important attribute.
Apple's MacBook Neo upended the 'value laptop' equation—Apple's not supposed to be both the cheapest option and the best value... but it seems like that's squarely where the Neo landed for the good-but-cheap laptop category.
My nephew is also my godson, and to kick off his computing journey, I thought I'd let him choose from a Framework 12 I bought to test, or the MacBook Neo I bought a couple months ago to use around the studio.
Its hard for me to justify framework for a variety of other reasons, but the value proposition was always upgradability / diy options in the first place. That said I’d rather go with a thinkpad right now or an MNT if I wanted to support open design.
I’d still love to get a pocket reform, but I’ve got 3 thinkpads, 2 of which have had some big upgrades/repairs, and another on the way. At the very least the T/P/etc series are great for repairing and upgrading. Even third party extras are pretty common.