Typing this from an 11th gen intel framework right now –
I’ve upgraded a few things (namely the CNC shell, the hinges, and the speaker) and it’s pretty painless. I have some experience repairing electronics though – but not a ton – and it’s been generally pleasant. I had some issues with my batch that required more work than I think it probably should have, including an RMA at one point, but that was a few years ago and it seems most of the problems have been ironed out. You can swap out any parts you want and the compatability has been really good, both for hardware and software. You can upgrade any model with any of their components, it’s a whole ecosystem, so buy a config that’s accessible to you and upgrade it then. Everything you asked about being able to do you should be able to do no problem, there’s nothing unique to the framework computers that would stop that from being the case. If gaming is your usecase though, get an AMD machine (or get one of the new 16 inch notebooks, I have a 13 inch one which doesn’t have the space for a dedicated graphics card, so gaming performance has taken a hit accordingly). Hopefully that helps!
yeah, I appreciate the push towards more privacy-centric search engines but as a result searches that are relevant to me geographically on places like startpage are next to useless. I understand why but I wish that local results were a bit better on the alternatives.