When Framework launches a new laptop, it usually takes the opportunity to put out some other refinements to its designs. Although its updates for the Framework Laptop 16 aren’t as significant as the changes to the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro, they address a number of complaints and requests that will make the upgradeable workstation look and function better.
The Laptop 16 is getting one new CPU option, though it’s in the same Ryzen AI 300 chip family that Framework used in its late-2025 refresh. The six-core Ryzen AI 5 340 option slots in below the eight-core Ryzen AI 7 350 configuration, and it brings the Laptop 16’s current starting price down to $1,599 for a pre-built system or $1,249 for a DIY Edition (down from $1,799 and $1,499, respectively). Continued RAM or storage price increases could eventually reduce or nullify those savings, but they’re available for now.
Many of the Laptop 16’s other upgrades are primarily cosmetic. One is a new “Translucent Smoke Gray Bezel” option, which joins the existing black, orange, and lavender bezels.
More significantly, both the keyboard section and the trackpad area are now being offered as single pieces, rather than as modular sections that you need to augment with additional modules or spacers to create a complete top case.
One-piece keyboard and haptic touchpad modules will make the Laptop 16 look cleaner and more “finished.”
Credit:
Framework
The original design was created mainly so that buyers could decide whether they wanted a number pad or not, and if they did use a number pad, how they wanted the trackpad to be centered. As a result, the keyboard and trackpad needed a total of five or six different pieces, giving it an unfinished and prototype-y look that could be an acquired taste.
The new one-piece keyboard and one-piece trackpad modules help to fix that problem, at least for people who are happy with a centered number-pad-less keyboard and a centered trackpad. The trackpad module in particular gives the laptop a much cleaner look, given that (unlike the keyboard) its spacers could never be anything but spacers, rather than number pads or customizable LEDs.