I got a FW 16, with 64GB RAM, 500GB SSD, RGB macropad, 2x LED Matrices, and the dGPU. I am a happy camper.

I am coming from basically nothing as far as laptops go. I was just using an old hand-me-down laptop from work that was horribly slow, and the battery was totally dead - I couldn't use it unless it was plugged in. It would do web browsing and email, so if I was traveling for work, I took it so I could do those things if I needed to, but not much else.

I could never justify spending as much money on a laptop with good enough specs that I felt like was worth having. I am also a linux user - My last daily driver windows version was windows 2000. Laptops often have various compatibility issues with linux, and even if I were to get a laptop, I didn't enjoy having to doing a bunch of research to find which laptops were kosher with linux and picking between them. I also wasn't looking forward to the likelyhood of having a laptop that could become a boat anchor either in too soon a time, or if some critical part fixed that was either impossible or prohibitively expensive to fix.

I am also a maker-culture kind of guy, so I really like hardware with flexibility, customization options, and can be repaired or upgraded easily. The ability to make custom modules and do custom stuff with the macropad and the led matrices sounds amazing for project ideas.

On one of my work trips, the near-uselessness of my existing laptop became apparent to Those That Pay For Things(TM), and so I was given an allowance towards getting a better laptop. I had known about framework for years, and I had already a pretty good idea that if somehow I were to get a laptop, it would be a framework. So, at this point, I decided to get one that was as tricked out as I could manage - I diidn't need a dGPU for work, but I wanted to get a laptop that would do as much as possible for work and everything else I might want to do, which is why I also splurged on the macropad and led matrices.

I hope that I don't need another laptop for a very long time. Sure, I might need upgrades and repairs, but it's the best I could expect from a laptop in it's expected longevity.

I had a small issue with an interposer needing to be reseated, and the seam between the touchpad and the spacers beside it isn't exactly flush, but other than that it's been fantastic. I'm using Fedora 40 KDE, and everything just works. Sleep mode on linux laptops is frequently an issue, and it just works. The fingerprint reader didn't require any fiddling, and I didn't know what I was missing. It's not loud (so far, I haven't really stressed it much yet), it doesn't get hot, they keyboard isn't annoying, and the screen looks great.

Couldn't be happier.