The strongest interpretation of "we'd love to release the full schematics" the subtext: but we can't / don't want to due to "reasons*, none of which are likely to satisfy everyone, so we'll try to avoid that discussion as it would help distract us all rather than getting on with our goals.
>Our main manufacturing partner is Compal, who makes laptops for many other large US notebook makers.
>Apart from off the shelf modules like the SSD, RAM, WiFi, and LCD, the Framework Laptop is entirely custom to us, and we own all of the design and tooling.
If you locate Acer Swift 3 SF313-53 diagram it will be 90% same thing, just shuffled around with different mechanical design.
Sure, QR stickers and a bunch of new/incompatible iteration of good old ExpressCard are nice to have, thank you, but that doesn't make all that big of a difference to repairability.
I’m confident any device following these guidelines would be DOA in the larger market, though. Even _if_ you could source things like LCD assemblies that fit your criteria, the expected density (high) and labor costs (low) people have for modern electronics don’t leave a lot of room for this kind of bespoke design.
I’m extremely impressed with how far Framework got on the path to “full repairability” using off-the-shelf parts without producing something that looks like a late-90s Thinkpad.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the old IBM, Tadpole, Toshiba, et. al. designs, but I don’t think that many people outside this community would be willing to pay 2-3x as much for something 2-3x larger and heavier and several generation behind in terms of performance. (Not to mention wildly incompatible with any non-hobbyist OS.)
OTOH, what you’re describing does sound a lot like why custom, hand-wired audio amplifier builders do. They manage to make a business out of it, mainly by appealing to folks willing to spend effectively unlimited money to get that “special something”.
User-replaceable RAM, SSD and keyboard are all steps in the right direction, of course. But it would be quite a stretch to give product full marks on repairability based on that alone.
Laptop in question does use partial through-hole connectors for all 4 USB-C ports - notice 6 shiny slots around each such port around 0:25 mark in video. Such connectors are actually harder to rework/replace, but also tougher and less likely to require repair in the first place. So overall, well-done here to framework, even if most everybody else is doing that too.
All those high speed bus interfaces are probably tied directly into the CPU, the chipset, or both, and so are largely gonna be covered by any confidentiality agreement intel imposes on vendors of those parts.
The Pi4 CM is a much more modest device by comparison. It has no ram expansion and only a few lanes of PCIe, USB3, and some other fairly standard IO interfaces otherwise.
Realistically, the frame.work mainboard is the compute module. You plug it into the equivalent of a CM carrier board with the TB4 ports.
Being so vague and listing no reasons doesn't seem helpful to me.