I’d be surprised if there was a market for a Framework laptop dedicated to gaming but I am really intrigued by a Framework laptop that can game.
I use my laptop for my work software engineering but since the pandemic have gotten back into gaming a little. I’m on an old Xbox and it’s showing its age but I don’t game enough to justify buying a whole gaming PC. If I can plug a GPU into my work machine and play some games? Now that’s compelling. The fact that it wouldn’t have all the cringey “gamer” decorations you see on the average gaming laptop would be a bonus too.
(all that said a Steam Deck is probably still the more compelling purchase for me in that regard, I’ve been eyeing one for a while)
Definitely go with the Steam Deck. It’s literally a portable pc which you can turn adhoc into a workstation, plug into a TV for sofa gaming and it’s really really bang for buck. The performance is amazing, the community caring and it runs on Linux.
I game on a framework laptop with an eGPU. I have a Razor Core Chroma with a Radeon 2060. There’s plenty of guides out there to get it up and running [^1]. I did try to get it working under Linux but wayland support for Nvidia is still a mess. For now, I’ve been dual-booting Windows to play my games on. It works really well.
Isn't one of the advantages of Framework that you can swap out parts, so it would be much easier for them (theoretically) to build a gaming version of the laptop.
I have the Steam Deck, I mean, I had it, because I'm waiting for the RMA because mine had a nasty bug which capped either CPU or GPU at a low level.
And this is my message to you: Beware it is pretty much a beta product, so buy it with this in mind. You will experience lot of bugs and troubleshooting, specially if you want to use it outside Steam's box (custom mods, emulator's etc).
I use my laptop for my work software engineering but since the pandemic have gotten back into gaming a little. I’m on an old Xbox and it’s showing its age but I don’t game enough to justify buying a whole gaming PC. If I can plug a GPU into my work machine and play some games? Now that’s compelling. The fact that it wouldn’t have all the cringey “gamer” decorations you see on the average gaming laptop would be a bonus too.
(all that said a Steam Deck is probably still the more compelling purchase for me in that regard, I’ve been eyeing one for a while)