I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I canāt help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
People (not necessarily the author, but likely many commentators that make similar complains about the frameworks price) will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price.
I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience, but thatās is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Rergardless, what I feel like we see here (along with a lack of scale from a small company) is the core tradeoffs that weād have to make to get back repairability, etc. framework certainly isnāt above criticism, but if you donāt care about these things then why look at this machine? A large established brand is always going to offer a a better value on the things you care about.
I want Framework to succeed, but the author's objection isn't unreasonable:
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a ā¬1200-ā¬1500 laptop at best... two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd
For most people the long-term total cost of ownership is going to be a major factor when they consider a more repairable laptop. Sure, generating less e-waste is nice, but saving money is probably the main point. What the author is asserting here is that to get the repairable laptop you need to spend 50% more for the same specs! As well as accept that the form factor is bulkier etc. At a 50% premium you do have to question whether you're going to save a meaningful amount of money in the long run.
For me I probably would - I find uses for machines that are a decade old and the repurposability of Framework components is pretty interesting. But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
I think the Framework 16 is too expensive. They can access a niche market at these price points but to get bigger they will need to find a way to deal with the cost issue. PC World's review of the Framework 13 this year was: "A steep price for a compelling upgrade."
The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody. Reliable machines rarely need repairs outside of owner mistreatment, and most people I know who are technically capable enough to care about upgrading generally do it maybe once every 4-6 years, by which point hardware has usually advanced far enough that buying a new laptop is easy to justify.
So while upgradability and repairability are great to have, their material impact on day to day user experience is minimal, except maybe for people who have a tendency to severely underspec their initial hardware purchases. On the other hand, things like chassis rigidity, cooling performance, fan noise, and battery life being subpar are constant reminders that you spent a pretty penny on a laptop that's not meeting your needs.
The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
As an aside, I believe that Framework could probably get closer to that ideal if they unchained themselves from the port module idea. Yes it's cool, but it forces all sorts of design compromises that otherwise wouldn't be necessary, and I'd bet that something like 80-90% of Framework buyers would be just as happy if changing ports required opening up the chassis, swapping out side plates, and doing a little bit of internal wiring.
Screens have seen improvements, but not in a significant way within these 4-6 years. Keyboards haven't improved leaps and bounds. Track pads either. Laptop casings haven't seen innovation either.
The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
> port module idea.
That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
I wish I could do that right now. The only reason I haven't one of their laptop is their stubborn refusal to ship outside a dozen or so countries.
Handy that you can have them fully encased but thereās nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Maybe some people really want the enclosed module so they have fewer things to carry, but thatās a pretty small advantage that Iām not sure many people will value.
Iāll contest that on the screens. Mini-LED backlighting is a substantial step up for contrast, backlights in general have gotten brighter, IPS panels have gained notability better color gamuts and contrast, and OLED panels are now widely available even in budget machines. The screens on the M1-M4 MBPs look quite visibly nicer than those MBPs used up until 2019.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen thatās moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as wouldāve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something thatās still possible.
I have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.
> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
Laptop motherboards arenāt like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If youāre lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.
> That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
With all due respect -- meh.
I have a fairly old-ish laptop that I am not bothered to upgrade because a Ryzen 5500U is super capable to this day (and I don't do local LLMs) and it has a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 Type-A port. And an SD card reader.
I bought a hub. I put the laptop on a stand and plug its Type-C 10Gbps slot in the hub. Job done.
All this clamoring about being able to replace ports surely resonates with many people but to this day I don't view it as a true advantage. If you have to carry your laptop to a dedicated office, a stand and a hub are table stakes anyway. And that's not even touching a proper big display, keyboard and a mouse.
And furthermore, if making the ports flexible leads to too many design compromises then to me that means that I am making a bad deal.
I am periodically inspecting Framework laptops and I still find them lacking. Their appeal to tinkerers has IMO peaked and they should pivot to another pitch or they might not survive. Though I really, really hope they do. We need the competition.
This. My idea of a repairable laptop is the Thinkpads up until around 2015. And I absolutely agree that the port modules forces Framework to limit the number of ports to the point that I'd hesitate to purchase one because I'd be swapping ports all the time.
The replacement parts aren't cheap either as Framework has very little used parts market.
I can rehouse a Thinkpad or most other high volume laptops for a quarter or less the cost of a Framework, making the total lifetime cost much lower. Framework will sell you a new housing with screen for $399, but at that point I can buy an 11th gen Thinkpad for half the cost.
I want the economics to work, but even with free labor it makes no sense.
As the owner of a Framework 13, you're exactly right. It only has 4 ports, at least one of which is pretty much always for charging, and let's face it you will always want a USB-A, so that leaves two. If you want to be ready for HDMI output or SD cards, that occupies them both, better hope you didn't want another USB-A or whatever.
Oh, and there's a permanent headphone jack, for some reason.
Compare to my last Thinkpad (a T460), which had a charger jack, three USB-A, HDMI, RJ45, MiniDP, a headphone jack, and an SD slot. I didn't need to swap adapters because everything was just already there. (I never used the MiniDP or the headphone jack, but everything else, yeah.)
If the Framework had 2 or 3 permanent USB-C's in addition to the 4 swappable ports, or just had 6 or 7 swappable ports, I'd be much happier. But as it sits, carrying a baggie of modules in my backpack is just silly.
That said, it can do something super cool: Charge from either side. Because there are USB-C ports on both the left and right, and any of them can be a power inlet, I'm presently laying on my side in bed, with the charger plugged into the "top" side, i.e. the one that's not leaning into the mattress. When I roll over, I'll just move the cord.
When I was shopping for my "next" (present) machine, I was able to find one Ideapad that claimed it had USB-C ports on both sides, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. I couldn't get Lenovo's site to tell me which cheaper models had this, and their support people couldn't produce such a list either. Finally in frustration, I decided to give my money to Framework instead, and the either-side charging is a trick I rely on frequently.
My current load-out is two USB-C and two USB-A, one of each on each side.
Also the fact that hardware is pretty stagnant and upgrades arenāt that important anymore for most stuff. I bought an Acer in 2012 and over the next 5 years I upgraded the RAM from 4 gb to 8gb and swapped the hdd for an ssd. Those were enormous upgrades! Then I bought a MacBook Pro with 16gb and an ssd and didnāt need another computer until this year (still didnāt NEED one but I found a good deal on a 4 year old MBP).
But how common of a problem is this, now that Apple is well clear of the butterfly keyboard mess? I havenāt had to get my MacBooks repaired even once in the past decade and change, and thatās despite two of the machines Iād used during that time being the butterfly/touch bar models!
That being said, yes itād be better if such a repair were quick and easy, but Iām not sure that itās so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that. A laptop thatās bad at being a laptop isnāt worth a whole lotā¦
As opposed to taking the part out of a Framework laptop, shipping it back to the repair center for weeks, and then reinstalling it when it comes back?
Or if time is of the essence, ordering the brand new part to skip the repair process and then installing it yourself when it arrives later?
Contrast this with the amount of time my coworker spent hauling his laptop charger everywhere and obsessively topping up his laptop battery while traveling because the battery drain during sleep was a problem at that time. This added extra wear and tear on the battery, of course, but I guess he could replace it himself?
You just order a new key, and install it. And not have the downtime. (You can remap key or use an external keyboard.)
And yeah, replacing the battery is easy. Not a Framework, but I replaced a laptop battery some years ago, was glad I had that option, because lithium battery lifetime always decreases eventually.
Iām old enough to remember when many phones and some laptops had removable batteries. Switch to a spare, and boom instantly full, you didnāt need to tether it to a wall.
Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. Framework offers repairable laptops at a fixed price. To some the repairability adds enough value to warrant the higher prices, to some it doesn't. (As well as customizability and mainline Linux kernel support).
I've found that if you're in the habit of repairing laptops, Frameworks may come cheap to you as you might have spare storage and ram around. Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
What is the implication of this? You're not allowed to criticize a product unless you're being forced to buy it? What is the list of companies you're allowed to levy any critiques of, then? Your electricity provider? You could always move, right?
Is this the mentality that leads people to only ever criticize government power and let all others off the hook?
I sometimes feel like people criticize products as if they were offered to them personally. The pricing of a product may be absurd to them but if it were absurd to everyone there wouldn't be a market for it.
You can objectively compare the features between two products and criticize them that way. But to criticize the price you need to attach a monetary value to those features. With a framework one of those features is repairability, which to some is worth nothing, and to others it's worth a whole lot.
So is the frameworks pricing absurd? That depends on the person buying.
> Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
To be fair at least Lenovo and to some extent dell also offer this for individual customers.
It usually is not an option on the latest processors for premium models though as soldered RAM becomes more prevalent there. A minor problem of the author might be that they are looking at the relatively high tier models, which ime have less options for "saving" money, while something like a thinkpad e14 might also have been a good candidate instead.
I think the people criticizing would be potential customers who are voicing the issues that are preventing them from purchacing one. For example, I would criticize the lack of a trackpoint equivalent. And in fact, I'm not purchasing one because it doesn't have a trackpoint. If they listened to my complaint, I'd be much more inclined to buy one. (Not right away ā I'm not on the market for a laptop right now ā maybe 3 years down the line.)
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
This happens all the time, especially with Apple. Complaints about the inability to side load or use alternative stores for example. Nobody forced you to buy it. It's stupid when people do it for Apple and it's stupid when they do it for Framework.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience, but thatās is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Buying one of the original Frameworks and a Macbook Air at roughly the same time made me realize how little I actually care about upgradeability and repairability. This feeling took me by surprise. Modern Macbooks are just so much better in terms of feel it's like comparing tech from a different decade.
(it also turns out that having a defect that the manufacturer doesn't make right can cause a person to feel a few different things, but gratitude for the product's repairability isn't at the top of the list)
Agree. I want rock solid Linux compatibility with mac like hardware quality / battery life and a Thinkpad like toughness and keyboard. I don't really need it to be upgradable as long as it lasts 8 years.
IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.
I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.
We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.
Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%.
TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.
I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.
Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.
Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).
My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..
Some people around me prolesytize these modern Macbooks endlessly but I don't quite get it. I've tried them but I still love my Framework 16 to bits and I'd take it any day of the week. The Macbooks are great machines, and one thing I can say in their favor is the battery life is phenomenal, but I prefer my Framework's aesthetics and feel - it feels more like I'm holding something I've worked on and made my own vs just bought, I prefer the shiny metal over the dull gray of the Macbooks, the keyboard and trackpad are just as good (and I love the rgb pad I have in place of a numpad), and taking it apart/replacing modules just feels so cool. I've also saved those friends various times by lending an expansion card, usually usb-A.
Your comment is sensible, so long as repair parts aren't duds all the time, and repairs don't cost you the same as a purchase.
For most laptops, including macs, replacing things like batteries and screens is not what makes them irreparable, but it is things like the cpu, discrete gpu, etc.. I applaud framework on what they're doing, but it isn't there yet. If anything on the mothrerboard breaks, you're looking at a hefty repair bill to replace it. If they keep a decent stock of original,tested and quality parts long-term (10+ years) that would be one thing, but if "repair" means upgrading to the latest stuff, then it is just saving you on a replacement.
Ideally, I would purchase replacement components at the time of purchase, so if I have a loose $300 after the initial purchase, I might spend it on a spare ram, cpu, or gpu. Now, with that money, I can only buy cosmetic/casing parts, battery, connectors and such. Again, I appreciate their direction, and if we're spending to support them alone, that's great. But they have been around for a while, and some constructive criticism regarding value might be good.
> In contrast, Framework laptops has many supposed benefits: they're upgradable, repairable
Why would you propose that the author does not care about these things? They clearly do, they are simply not a single issue voter ā and who is, when buying something as complex as a laptop? There is a trade-off and the one that Framework made here is not hitting the mark for the author, and they go into some detail to explain as to why.
I am super excited about Framework stuff: They are clearly getting somewhere with this; it's nicer than anything that came before with comparable repairability. I think it's super plausible that we don't exhaust the physical limitations that arise through repairability before it's so nice, that the trade-off will be negligible for most folks.
IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. If you are doing this I think you are missing the point. This isn't a apples to apples comparison.
I also feel the frustration of the parent, and I also see that many people don't want to pay or consider the ramifications of where we we are at right now in this given time. Most devices are designed to be throwaway, manufactures cut corners, operate at a loss. These are byproducts from our badly designed technology from a suitability perspective that have driven prices down in a unhealthy way IMHO.
Its like trying to compare prices between now and fifty years ago. If you want the world to be more sustainable, you need to consider that its going to cost more, its not going to be comparable to whats out there right now, and you are going to need to deal with the growing pains.
Comparing Framework laptop to whats out there today in terms of features is a losing proposition. The market is built around a lack of sustainability.
> IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability.
But is it really more sustainable to have a poor quality but easily repairable/swappable laptop where you had to exchange multiple parts over e.g. 10 years, compared to a high quality laptop that lasted the full 10 years and didn't need any repairs? And that is not unusual, my 10 year old X1 carbon is still going strong, I just had to take change the battery at some point, but that was not very difficult.
I don't know if I consider Framework laptops poor quality. I wonder if you are considering the impact to the planet though. We have tons of waste everyday from devices that are not built with sustainability in mind. Yes Framework has a ways to go with that, but its the only company that I know thats really doing something about it. We have all these devices that if they are not built around sustainability in contributes to a worse climate and I worry what kind of world we are leaving behind for our children.
Value wise when trying to spec out my personal Lenovo laptop on framework, it'd never get anywhere close to being worth it even if I completely made use of the hardware after a future upgrade.
Framework makes sense if you're going in on the sustainability idea, but other than that it's really just an expensive laptop that's not compelling against its competitors
The pricing when I looked was similar. I went with a Lenovo last time because the Framework 16 hadn't quite matured, but premium anything is never going to make financial sense.
Buying and repairing a framework is never going to be cheaper than going through consumable trash laptops, and buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
What you're paying for right now is the customization capabilities and the ideology. Upgrading and customizing a single platform with a community, vs. a fixed one-off design that'll be lost next time you upgrade.
If Framework isn't already compelling to you at this time, then you're not the target audience. They might drop in price, but they'll never win a race to the bottom.
Or you could just buy a MacBook Air for like $900 (or one of the windows snapdragon machines, but it you care about avoiding Intel Iām assuming you want Linux and doubt the support is as good as asahi on Macs)
Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.
Edit: though it should be said that what I think is good might be a far cry from you think is good. I did use a Thinkpad X13s as my primary work machine for 6 months, though.
I mean, this could literally be the last laptop shell, screen, keyboard and power adapter you ever buy. That's a fantastic sustainability story. Not to mention that if it dies you are never at risk of having to replace the whole thing unless it melts in a fire.
It could beā¦ but it wonāt be. Internals will be outmoded quickly, and I would be shocked if logic boards from ~5 years from now will still be compatible just as needs evolve (especially around cooling and power delivery)ā¦ and this is all before physical wear and tear on screen/keyboard/ports.
I would be very surprised if many frameworks are upgraded ship of Theseus style for decades, or if the total cost of ownership (and even ecological impact, most of the nastiness is going to be the electronic internals, not the metal casing) is lower than for someone buying a more integrated laptop ever 5-6 years.
In the context of the massive amount of throwaway packaging involved in the food supply chain, or every other part of the supply chain for every consumable we use, how big a deal is that? Are electronics uniquely impactful in terms of sustainability versus eg plastic clamshells to transport apples?
Literally just picked up a 13" M4 Air for $750 from Best Buy for my wife. It was spend $500 to replace her older MBA screen or a bit extra for a whole new device.
Macbook air = small keyboard, small screen, limited battery, all parts expensive to service, etc. Try hacking a Mac Mini instead: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini
A MacBook Air is just a Mac mini with a keyboard, screen, and battery. You can choose to attach the same peripherals to your MacBook, and have the flexibility of a laptop when you need it. Paying a couple hundred dollar premium for this is a good deal.
> I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
You can't do that with the 16, only the 13 [0] and you can't upgrade ram on it. Which is kind of the problem in a nutshell. Over time fewer user modifications make sense due to the context of the whole computer as an integrated system.
> but I canāt help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
On the contrary, I think a lot of people completely understand the value proposition. Itās just that once you evaluate it against all of the tradeoffs and other priorities, it reveals that upgradeability is not as valuable as the other priorities. Most consumers arenāt single-issue voters who purchases hardware based on a single axis of features.
With Framework laptops specifically Iāve started to feel like ābut itās upgradable!ā is becoming a tired rebuttal to any discussion of the tradeoffs you take one when you buy one of these machines.
In theory I enjoy an upgradeable machine, too. But in practice Iām not willing to give up much now in exchange for the possibility of maybe upgrading part of it later.
This is a classic example of revealed preference in product design. When you ask people in a vacuum if they want features like upgradeability, swappable batteries, or tiny phones that fit in your pocket the answer is always āYes, obviously!ā Then when the product comes to market and people have to vote with their wallets they survey the options and pick the laptop thatās light and highly integrated, the phone with a built-in battery thatās compact and sturdy, and the phone with a screen big enough to not feel cramped. This leaves a vocal minority trying to tell everyone else that theyāre making the wrong choice or they have their priorities wrong, but the simpler answer is that these products are best reserved for the minority of people who prize singular design goals like upgradeability options to such an extreme that theyāre willing to compromise or ignore everything else.
I have a FW13, 3 yrs old, battery was getting weak, i just ordered one from FW and popped out the old one and put in a new one. Same for SSD and memory. This alone makes me stay with FW.
Not trying to change your mind but at least when it comes to exchanging the SSD and battery, you can do the same thing with practically all Thinkpads and Dells?
Just did it with my old Dell a couple days ago ā I was done in 5 minutes.
Dave2D made the argument that you could buy another laptop for the same price as upgrading the Framework 16. This makes it hard to accept the quality tradeoffs.
I think whatās lost here is when the framework project was launched, all the companies were moving to SoC designs and reliability was unknown.
Replacing a stick of ram is still much cheaper than buying a whole new MacBook, but these systems seem to be reliable enough that ram failures arenāt front of mind. Same for SSDs.
On my experience, every time Iāve been in the situation of looking for more capacity because the software requirements have gone up, Iām 1-2 generations of DDR behind and it doesnāt really make sense to do the upgrade anyway.
How often are you actually going to do that though? My desktop from 12 years ago has 16GB of RAM and Apple only just upgraded their base specs to 16GB.
Ok granted my new desktops have 128GB, but that's massive overkill so I can have like 12 VSCode's open. For normal people 16GB has been the sensible amount for at least a decade.
I tend to agree. But some people at least want the option. I would also say only in 2025 has that shifted for me as well. I've been perfectly fine with 16gb of ram for at least a decade, but local LLMs have me wanting for more.
The current benefit for a Framework is that you can swap out the entire inner/guts without being an expert and everything still works together. Most of the laptops I have provide 2 SO-DIMM slots and a slot for either NVME or SATA for storage.
So for me, there is little value in that in most scenarios. There are a few laptop chassis that I am very fond of and have wished I could "use that chassis with that hardware", but even then I haven't seen Framework chassis designs that give me that impression. I'm not saying they're crappy, but I'm thinking of different types of brushed metal, magnesium alloy stuff, etc.
It makes me wonder who their audience is if they are targeting users that will pay a premium for an upgradable system, but are afraid of modifying the guts of the computer.
If I wanted the innards of my laptop to be upgradable, I would want the only part of it that would stay with me for the next decade or two (the chassis) to be damn near perfect.
There's a reason why there are enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads. These things were built like a German executive sedan.
> enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads
This. It baffles me that companies like System76 and Framework refuse to borrow from an existing successful solution like ThinkPad. I remember asking System76 representative over the phone about trackpoint; from time to time I revisit that one thread on Framework forums about trackpoint keyboard... No progress there.
The only explanation I have is that they obviously can't copy, but designing something like an old ThinkPad is intrinsically hard and costs way too much for a small company.
I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. While it can be compared to laptops without modular RAM, SSDs, or Wi-Fi cards, the real comparison is to laptops with modular ones of those for significantly less and suddenly the amount of upgradeability value drops significantly. Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well. The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability - especially with the breadth of selection so far. In the meantime, you're paying significantly more for less quality to have said ability.
To me, the core value proposition of the Framework is actually more in customization than about upgradeability. That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout, your order builds up without really assuming you want a charger, RAM, and SSD to be included. If you don't particularly care about those things or you can find a laptop which matches what you want up front then it just leaves you questioning the massive price increase to do it the Framework way instead.
I'd really like to enjoy the idea of fully upgradeable laptops, but I think trying out a Framework laptop just made me realize how much it doesn't work out like I'd hoped rather than making me more excited for it. I ended up returning it and, ironically, getting a 395 laptop with soldered RAM (in my defense, Framework sells a desktop with this as well).
I don't see why upgrading a motherboard to one with a newer generation CPU is not valuable. Or why going 16 to 32 GB RAM a few years after buying it first isn't.
Yes full upgradability of each component would be pretty nice but now we have a desktop and factors like compactness and "premium feel" would be even worse
I only said the value is not that high, not that it's not valuable at all. Paying a premium up front and on the upgrade to swap out the CPU + Motherboard (also forcing the GPU on certain Framework models) eats heavily into that limited value vs just buying lower cost laptops that aren't as modular.
Regarding the RAM, again, you don't need to pay for a Framework to do be able to do that. Same for the SSD. These are probably the two most reasonable components to upgrade, and it's not novel to have options to do so.
That full upgradeability actually doesn't make sense in the end is my exact point/realization I had trying it out. You can get somewhat upgradeable laptops where it makes sense already, and compromising every which way to be more upgradable is a hugely diminishing return.
> I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. [..,] Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well.
The Framework's screen is officially upgradeable, though, and I see that as a strength: while you or I might not blink at doing an unofficial screen replacement for some other laptop, I'm sure most people would be afraid to attempt something like that.
I've also (officially) replaced the webcam (new one is definitely better) and speakers (new ones are better but still meh). When my battery starts to go, I'll replace it with the higher-capacity battery that's available now.
So it's definitely quite a bit more than just RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi.
> The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability
I agree on the RAM: I have a Framework 13, and my next mainboard upgrade will require new RAM (which is of course crazy expensive right now), as my current board uses DDR4. But I view that as a forced upgrade; if I didn't have to go to DDR5, I'd probably stick with DDR4, and I'm sure it would be fine, even if not optimal.
But I really don't understand or agree with your comment about the SSD. I have a 2TB NVMe drive in my current laptop, and I expect I'll be using the same drive for years to come, certainly through my next mainboard upgrade, and probably even the following one.
> That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout,
Right, agreed: I have not changed the layout of my ports in more than a year at this point, and I never changed the keyboard style/layout. It was nice to be able to easily replace the keyboard when my original one developed issues a few months ago (not Framework's fault... it was my cat's fault), at least.
But I think all of this is a matter of taste. I expect there are some people who change out their expansion ports fairly often. It's fine that I don't value that feature as much as I expected I would.
My expectation is that I'll have this laptop chassis for another 10 or so years, probably with 2-3 mainboard upgrades in that time. My prior two (non-Framework) laptops were in the $1800-$2000 range, each of which lasted three years, and had significantly less RAM than my Framework does (those two laptops weren't even offered with 32GB, let alone the 64GB I have now).
My next mainboard upgrade will likely be the cost of that new laptop, given the crazy cost of DDR5 right now (though it looks like I'd be paying Dell around $2400 for a 13" laptop with 64GB; I could probably do the Framework mainboard upgrade plus RAM for $1800 or so). But maybe the next-next mainboard upgrade will still use DDR5, and I'll get a brand-new computer for around $1k. That's a really great value prop for me.
"Most people" don't upgrade individual components of their desktop or spend thousands on their computer either, especially beyond the storage and RAM, so I'm not sure who the average person it's supposed to comfort that it's official vs not to do things as small as upgrade the screen out of cycle from upgrading the rest of the machine. Framework is, unfortunately, positioned in every way for exactly the type of person who would do this (high end, willing to assemble, Linux compatibility, customization - it's all exactly that kind of power user target). I mean I'd like it to make sense, it just doesn't.
Same with replacing parts vs customizing them on equivalent "standard" laptops. I've had to replace the keyboard on my laptops due to failure/damage once in the last 10 years, each time it took less than 15 minutes. Would it be nice if it was 3 minutes? Sure, but how much is 12 minutes really worth paying for and what do I lose for it in terms of the sturdiness problems with Framework.
Barring the decision to go with something like the 395 where standard RAM wouldn't make sense for it anyways (which is why Framework didn't make the RAM modular in the desktop version) there is nothing special about Framework that lets you reuse RAM between upgrades giving Framework an advantage. Every other normal x86 laptop I've ever used has had swappable RAM I've taken advantage of without paying $1800 for even the entire laptop, let alone the upgrade board.
There is some subjective preference in it all of course, but it seems that is just for a lot fewer people than it might have seemed. I.e. I don't see average people buying $500 laptops ever going for this and it almost feels like it has already reached its peak interest in the tech crowd too.
This is the first time I've ever even heard of unofficial screen upgrades even being _possible_, and I'm at least two standard deviations from the mean on the "likes to tinker" scale.
I can't even begin to think about how a laptop screen upgrade would go. Who's manufacturing them? How do I get just one? How do I make sure I don't spend a month waiting for shipping and get a fake? How do I make sure the housing is going to fit right? How do I make sure the pin outs match?
... and etc etc. An official upgrade pathway eliminates all of that. Sure, it's not bringing you back to "average person", but Framework have been super clear that's not who they're after. They want people in my bracket. To be honest, as a cohort, we've proven we're willing to (over)pay for this kind of thing, too. It's why the PC Market still exists despite graphics cards being overpriced by about double.
Upgradable to what? The ability to upgrade is well and good, but suppose the āendgameā configuration of an upgradable laptop was worse than the very base model of a non-upgradable. Why would you care about upgradability then?
Upgrading to a new processor, or in the case of Framework, perhaps better hinges or keyboards or the like is IMO much more important to the long term desirability of a laptop than a 5% better keyboard or trackpad or RGB LEDs on the chassis.
I feel like the term "endgame" has completely lost its meaning - an "endgame" laptop is likely to be wholly irrelevant in at most ten years, especially so if you buy a super high end machine and expect high end machine things from it long term.
Yeah, itās a dumb term, sorry. Top spec? Whatever it is.
Certainly itās fair to argue that the top spec will continue to grow year over year, like happens with long lived desktop CPU sockets. Framework is bearing this out! But that spec does have to actually be GOOD!
This is the hard part about what they are trying to do. Is a 12th gen in a Framework better than a 10th gen in an fully integrated laptop? If not, what does being able to upgrade to 12th gen mean?
The IBM PC platform worked so well because every annual component upgrade was an immense step forward. The macs, by contrast, began to dominate when the annual upgrades began to provide less benefit than seamless vertical integration didā¦
Itās an extreme framing for the sake of thought experiment. More specifically, I believe for āupgradableā to be a meaningful sellable feature you need something like this:
LaptopA costs more than low-spec LaptopB. But LaptopB can be user upgraded post-purchase to be strictly superior to LaptopA (even though this costs a bit more in the end)
Or
LaptopA costs more than LaptopB. But LaptopB can be upgraded and customized to be superior than LaptopA under certain parameters (say, a high quality display) for a lower total price than LaptopA.
The idea of upgrading a laptop may sound great at first, but I don't think most people really want that.
After 2-3 years, my laptop is pretty beat up from carrying it around in a bag daily. I usually buy premium laptops, but still the hinges get loose, the corners bent, scratches everywhere, ports loose. Usually superficial issues like that make me buy a replacement before I really need upgraded chips.
> but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability
Back in the day we used to have upgradeable laptops that weren't rattling tin cans with uncomfortable displays. Making something worse than it was 20 years ago for more money isn't a value.
I'm torn on your take, because on one hand I agree wholeheartedly (I own a Framework 13, and considered the repairability to be a part of the price, and a little added bulk to be a trade off I was comfortable with), but on the other, I think there's just some entirely-reasonable human psychology at work here that expects a ā¬2k laptop to be premium in fit, finish, and polish.
But I do think Framework still has a ways to go when it comes to polish and build quality. I've had my 13 since August 2022, and had a ton of problems with it (thermal issues) that were only resolved nearly two years later, after lots of frustrating back-and-forth with support. I'm very happy with the laptop these days, but it shouldn't have taken that long to get there. I now have the 2023 Intel mainboard (the final resolution to my support case), and I'm looking forward to upgrading it to whatever the 2026 model turns out to be[0].
For me, Framework has been sort of a "stick with it for a while and it will get better" type of experience. And while it's worked out, that shouldn't be how it works. It should work well on day one. And frankly, based on the author's description of the Framework 16, it sounds like the 16 is not even up to the 13's level of polish.
[0] Well, we'll see what DRAM prices look like next year, as I have 64GB of DDR4 in my current laptop, and that same amount of DDR5 is not something I'd want to pay for right now.
> the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn
That value proposition isn't good enough for the machine you have to live with day after day. I think a lot of people get the value proposition, but Framework just isn't a good enough machine. Even if it might be an interesting platform.
And, the world still needs better Linux laptops. The value proposition in that demand apparently isn't resulting in them.
Is it fair to say that maybe the author doesn't value repairability? Maybe they just want a 'premium' laptop in the way the Apple laptops are premium, but want x86 and Linux/Windows? Surely for as large as a market there is for Apple laptops there is for a non-macOS equivalent.
The author begins by stating that "the absolute nightmare that is opening [the X1 Carbon] up to replace parts or clean them properly" rules it out.
He then eliminates the MacBook because if "something needs replacing I basically have an expensive paperweight, because everything is soldered together".
This would suggest that the author does, in theory at least, value repairability.
One can move the word "almost" to make more sense: it's only almost a market even if everyone in it is rabid about those features.
It's not a substantial share of the overall laptop market because, quoting from aboveā¦
people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience ... will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop
The flip side is technorati gripe about Apple (lack of) repairability, but their revealed preference then shifts back to this: a claim to want reliability but actions of shoppings for premium performance and fit and finish in slim value-holding form factors. To achieve those, particularly with durable value (and resale value to prove it), there's a way to make things that "repairability" generally makes compromises from.
Research has suggested Apple's approach ā laptops with 4x the usable and resalable life span ā results in less e-waste per capita than both the disposable and repairable ecosystems.
I guess repair-ability only matters if you expect the laptop to break. And there's no benchmarks for durability. But yeah I agree that upgrade-ability is of dubious value for most people.
Enterprises that buy ThinkPads do care about maintainability and Lenovo does provide parts and detailed instructions to repair almost every aspect of their machines.
Apple continues to be the elephant in the repairability room. You want something that likely wonāt need repair ever for its useful lifetime, a current MacBook is worth looking at. Upgradeability, nope.
Yup, Apple user since 2001, desktop and laptop, 20ish years in an office environment used for 8+ hours a day, now 5 years retired. Total faults - zero. Desire to upgrade RAM before rest of machine needed updates (eg storage+CPU+screen) - zero. Dissatisfaction with "Apple model": zero.
But... lately I've felt a hankering to run Linux as a first-class citizen rather than a VM and that's definitely a gap in Mac functionality. I wouldn't sacrifice the five years I enjoy MacOS on my machines for the ability to then move them to Linux, but it would still be nice.
I think the farther allow non-free implementations of technology to go, the harder it will be to bring us back from the brink.
We sacrifice our freedom now, because of convenience and feature sets thinking everything is going to work out in the end. In 25 years I think we are all going to look back on this moment and wish we didn't make the choices we did, myself included.
Having managed fleets of Macs (along with Windows and Linux machines) at last three $worksplace, repair/replace is no more hassle with Apple than Lenovo.
Arguably less, as if you have the right relationship with Apple, you can let your employee walk into any Genius Barā¢ for fix, or walk into Apple Store or visit your own smart hands crew (with inventory on hand), for an incredibly straightforward swap.
Sorry I didn't buy framework laptop but did find their prices high. Regarding assigning premium to repairability, wonder what's really premium about that? I mean in terms of materials used. Ignoring premiums paid for branding, I would think it's fair to charge premium if offering such feature comes with higher cost.
It depends on what "premium"/"luxury" mean to you. For some, red leather that has been masterfully tanned and stitched lining the interior of their car is premium. For others, the ability to transport you hundreds of thousands of miles in any terrain and any conditions with equipment failures that are rare and easy to fix is "premium". Being swaddled in high cost materials while stuck on the side of the road in a snowstorm isn't exactly a "premium" experience.
Likewise, for some, there is nothing premium about a product that 1) becomes a paperweight when a single component fails or is no longer sufficient to satisfy the user's changing desires. 2) Hasn't had engineering time and BOM on high-cost materials devoted to making the device easy-to-repair, or has had engineering resources spent making the device hostile to repair.
Framework doesn't just give you permission to repair and modify their product, they have engineered and designed a product that is easy and intuitive to repair and modify, and made out of materials that are designed and selected to endure being touched and manipulated, one great example that probably comes to mind for many FW13 owners that have opened the device is the touchpad cable finger loop in the FW13.
As any technician or DIY enthusiast might tell you, the materials e.g. Apple uses that you interact with during disassembly aren't exactly robustly made, and there is no sign that care or good taste was used when designing the disassembly procedures. But again, it depends on what you want, for some fragility enhances their experience of an object as premium and they have no interesting in upgrading/repairing their own device so the quality of that experience is irrelevant.
> "People (not necessarily the author, [...] will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price."
I desire sturdyness and repairability but anything larger than a 14-inch machine (and then only either as detachable or at least convertible) is completely inacceptable to me. And that 14-incher better be a dream. In other words: As small and light as possible, as big and heavy as neccessary.
>Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
I'm convinced that a lot of people have Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to niche products like Framework. The fact that Framework exists at all is amazing, and like you said, it's frustrating to see the lack of understanding of the core value proposition of Framework both in this post and HN.
The author seems to be very aware of the benefit of upgradability, but thats not an excuse for the shoddy experience. Some of the issues the author mentions are just absurd. Sharp edges, panels that creak? Come on.
The sharp edges are exclusively an issue with the Framework 16 due to the spacers that allow you to change the alignment of the trackpad. It's definitely been one of my main annoyances with my F16 that I didn't experience with my F13. I've been scratched by them and had my arm hair caught and pulled.
However, Framework has already indicated that they are looking into providing an input module that spans the entire width of the device to eliminate the need for the spacers.
I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
> I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
I think the comment was referring to the noise of the spacers, unless the author also thought it was in relation to the display. So to clarify, the display makes no noise whatsoever and neither do the hinges. The noise shown in the video is specifically about the trackpad and keyboard spacers.
I had a 12th-gen 13", and I had severe thermal throttling problems that took two years for Framework to resolve to my satisfaction (eventually they gave me a free 13th-gen upgrade that "solved" it).
I think the "I have X and don't see problems the author has" is a generally useless statement. Well, duh, sure, it's pretty rare that everyone will have the same problems. And some people will end up having no problems at all. But that doesn't invalidate the experiences of the people who do have problems.
One of the issues with the 16 is itās just a way worse value proposition than the 13.
The 13 is great. Iād even go as far as calling it a good deal, cheap even, especially if you DIY and bring your own memory and storage.
The 16 just gets badly outclassed by alternatives.
I think the problem is that once you get into that big laptop territory people start wanting more specific use cases like gaming or other performance metrics. There has to be a reason to want a big bulky laptop.
Plus, bigger laptops more frequently come with better repeatability.
I also find that thereās a lot more PC competition in the 15-16ā screen sizes. The framework 13ā is actually uniquely small/light. The Framework 16ā is somewhat worse packaging than its competitors.
The 16ā really needs to have an option for a 5070Ti and 5080.
You're not calling out the upgrade ability enough.
Most people comparing the price of a Framework seem to miss the long view. After the initial purchase, every upgrade is cheap compared to buying an entire laptop over and over again. Bonus that you can repurpose or sell the old mainboard.
There are better laptops than Framework when compared as one-to-one at a certain point in time, but that's missing the point of Framework's approach.
The point is that a laptop is a tool that you use every day. It needed to be reliable and very usable. Framework is compromising on usability in the service of upgradeability. It seems like you can have refined tool, or a repairable one.
Framework 13 11th gen has been my daily driver for years. It's reliable and very usable. Is it a $4k MBP? No. But compared to the bulk of laptops out there, one might even say it's refined I suppose. It's a sleek 3lb aluminum laptop. Like I said, there nicer laptops out there, but the Framework is a very capable tool.
I think youāve brought a really interesting point up. A lot of these laptops are the way they are because miniaturisation. Framework trades that off. But for some, this tradeoff isnāt in the right spot.
The challenge for framework is to build a modern laptop, that doesnāt have these tradeoffs. Which is an impossible challenge, hence why all of the other manufacturers ditched it. (That and repairability being bad for business)
So, a framework laptop, thatās as light, thin and fast as a mbp, while being a comparable price and being able to pull tabs to swap ram. The better their engineering, the closer they get to this and the more customers they can please.
There are weirdos out there. I am looking for a bulkier and more hackable laptop! I bought a ThinkPad P14s Gen5 AMD which has turned out to be a flimsy, plastic (not magnesium like the Intel units), disappointing piece of shit with frequent (but known) GPU crash issues, which I bought because I had a certain moment when I needed a computer and the Framework 16 was still on last-gen hardware, which felt silly to buy so close to an inevitable upgrade. I wish I had, though. Not much difference between an 8840HS and a 7840HS, but a huge difference between even a fairly upgradable ThinkPad like the P14s and a Framework.
I bought a Framework 13 because I wanted to send a signal to the industry that there was a market for repairable devices with good Linux support.
I also wouldn't be buying anything from them in the future one because supporting a certain individual developer, DHH, who holds political opinions incompatible with my existence very easily makes the "buying Framework for political reasons" bit moot. Their CEO avoiding the issue and throwing a red herring (Hyprland) into the discussion didn't help either.
I know I'm certainly not the only one who feels this way.
I actually agree with boycotts not being effective. I'm not exactly boycotting Framework - but I will not accept getting less value than I could get elsewhere for the signaling power for repairability anymore. I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now, and Nirav wouldn't even address these concerns head-on (there is a thread; he posted in it; he hasn't mentioned Omarchy, RubyCon or DHH with one word).
It's unfortunate I feel similarly (though less strong) about Louis Rossman/FUTO, because I like it when right to repair has strong advocates.
> I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now
Are you? Or is it just that they are capable of working with people who have different political views to them? DHH is clearly right wing but I don't think it's abhorrent to work with right wing people full stop.
And yeah I've read the supposedly awful things he's written. I don't agree with them but they aren't that bad. I am centre-left for what it's worth (in the UK, which is probably just left in the US). But I also have the ability to understand other people's viewpoints.
I am not fucking around when I say incompatible with my existence. Of course I don't mean getting murdered, but advocating conversion therapy gets pretty close.
Is 2000 eur even a lot of money? I think that gets you into better than dogshit laptop territory but I'd hesitate to claim that a 2000 eur purchase every >5 years puts you in "luxury" territory.
For a good laptop it wouldn't be too bad, i.e. my X1 Carbon cost me about the same back in 2019 if I remember correctly. But it's ultimately about the price/quality trade-off, and this is where I feel Framework has some work to do, at least with the 16 inch model.
> The Framework 16 weights about 2.2 kg according to my kitchen scale. For comparison, my X1 Carbon weights 1.3 kg. That may not seem like a big difference, but the extra kilogram makes carrying around the Framework 16 more difficult. In particular, I don't feel comfortable carrying it with just one hand while this isn't a problem with the X1.
The author wanted a bigger laptop but the straight goes and compares it to x1 carbon.
Modular ports
> Like the keyboard area the design is a bit janky though, with visible lines/space between the adapters and the case, though this at least is something you won't notice unless you're explicitly looking for it.
Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Yeah I never get this complaint about 16" laptops. Hell, I don't really get 16" laptops at all: they're huge! You're making a very strange trade off: they're only barely portable, and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop.
Maybe for a very small person or someone who strictly travels light? But Iāve never had any problem with 15ā or 16ā laptops even while traveling internationally.
> and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop
This isnāt really true any more unless your desktop is a gaming monster or full of multiple drives or something. I can have a 128GB RAM laptop with ultra fast CPU on the go now and itās not a problem.
You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
Laptops are thermally inefficient and require throttling even with active cooling, meaning mobile chipsets are programmed to emit less heat over time. You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
Then there's the fact that mobile chips are TDP capped at much lower rates than desktops, both to save power and to limit heat.
Theoretically, your mobile chipset has a better $/Wh rate, but you leave some performance on the table compared to desktops.
> You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
So? I canāt carry a full desktop or even Mini ITX build around just in case I need to run a very long sustained load at absolute peak performance.
My 16ā MacBook Pro has no problem consuming 80W or more at a time. The fans spin up, but itās fine. Itās basically near desktop level performance for everything Iām actually doing on the go.
I think people talking about the sacrifices of laptops are either comparing to extreme high end builds or theyāre stuck thinking about laptops from 6 years ago.
A 16ā MacBook Pro is basically a high end Mac Mini or a base Mac Studio with a battery and screen built in. They only really start to diverge from the bigger machines when you get into the really expensive Mac Studio builds.
> You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
If youāre looking for sustained high performance computing then a laptop is a bad choice, I agree. But what are we even talking about here? Even for compiling large codebases or exporting a YouTube length video project, you donāt need the full thermal solution of a desktop anymore.
Throttling also isnāt a hard stop where the system comes to a halt any more. It just means the system is 60-80% as fast as it could be, which is still very fast. Throttling has become a bogeyman but really, itās fine. Iāll take the boost for compiling that big project for several minutes. Itās great.
Iām guessing some of these comments are coming from people who havenāt experienced modern MacBook Pro level laptops?
I have a 17" XPS and it's great as a computer for that floor of the house. Ie: for sitting at the kitchen table or the couch. I have a 13" for portability which is great because it's so small and light.
MacBook pros these days are really heavy. Having a MBP and an Air is actually a fair inventory but the MBP is just so expensive.
I do like the desktop form factor of keyboard and monitor but the 17"er is nice to use while I'm up making coffee in the morning or while sitting on the couch at night
My vision gets worse as I age. A larger screen lets me continue working with the same amount of code, etc. as when I was younger with a smaller screen.
The majority of 16"+ machines are being made specifically as portable desktops. The target audience is college kids. If you live in a dorm that you have to move in and out of yearly, it is leagues easier to travel with a bulky laptop than even a small form factor desktop machine, because of all the peripherals needed to run it.
So basically this article is 50/50 insightful and helpful feedback from a Framework customer, mixed with gripes by someone who bought the wrong laptop for them. Part of the reason this is getting a sour response is that most laptop companies don't even offer the choice of a larger, more expandable model. Framework does, and you bought it despite not actually wanting that, then dinged it for the compromises inherent in the design you chose. It seems like the 13.5" Framework was the obvious fit for your needs?
To use a silly food analogy, imagine there's a popular salsa company. The customer base has been clamoring for them to release an extra-hot salsa that also has corn in it, though that's a polarizing combination. A purchaser gives it a bad review because, in addition to some very legitimate critiques of the spice flavors, it's too hot and corn doesn't belong in salsa. People who wanted the extra-hot salsa with corn have a point when they say that person should have reviewed the medium salsa without corn.
All of the complaints you had are extremely reasonable reasons to not want the Framework 16 (or any Framework). While I personally am quite happy with mine, I very much believe that it is not for everyone, and in fact has quite a niche audience. That being said, most of your complaints should have been obvious from viewing images or reading any of the numerous reviews. So yes, I agree with the GP comment that you seem to have bought the computer without knowing what you wanted and/or what the Framework offered/was.
Being more expensive, heavier, and worse "fit and finish" is pretty much the tradeoff for upgradeability and repairability. Not everyone values those things to the same degree, and deciding that those tradeoffs are not worth it is completely reasonable. I just don't understand how you could get wind up buying one without knowing those were the tradeoffs you were making. I've read almost every one of these complaints in previous reviews. It's not exactly a secret.
I don't recommended getting a Framework to anyone who isn't interested specifically in repairability, as it has its quirks and doesn't feel like something which should cost this much. I've broken something in every laptop I've ever owned (+the butterfly keyboard in a company 2019 MBP), so to me it's an important feature.
That being said my previous device - a "gaming" laptop - was essentially e-waste two years after purchase because firmware updates stopped despite there being unresolved issues and the official parts store didn't even have basic items like fans, which I had to get from AliExpress instead. Eventually it was the cheapo Intel SSD which did it in, as it slowed to a crawl from being 80% full for too long.
I think there's a problem with my 1yo FW16's keyboard as during intense gaming the "D" key temporarily just stops responding, but if it ever fails completely I can order a new keyboard and once it arrives replace it literally within a minute.
Other parts take longer, but the general idea is that any sort of malfunction is manageable.
> This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't sitting in the bottom right corner of your eye when you look at the display.
This is about the power LED and it makes me wonder how dark is the author's environment? Is that healthy?
I have two Framework 13 DIY, top of the line (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 96 GB of RAM, 2TB WD BLACK SN850X). Well, TBH just one, the other one was stolen with less than one month, but that's a different story.
Can't be happier with this choice.
First of all, now I feel confident I can easily tinker with my laptop, open it and replace any components. No, I'm not repeating their Marketing, I'm truly confident now. Some months ago my previous Lenovo X1 Carbon stopped charging and I was scared as hell. Sure, I have everything in version control and cloud drives blah blah blah but if it doesn't charge, it's dead. Sure, I can extract the NVMe (is it easy at all?) and rsync the data (for a faster recovery) but is that easy, feasible, can I do it on the go (X1 stopped charging while I was on a trip).
The Framework 13 DIY I built it in less than 10 minutes. I can easily disassemble again in a heartbeat. This is priceless.
Other than this, build quality is higher than expected, and several other people said exactly the same when I showed my unit. Powerful? Most than any desktop out there. Perfectly portable. Works well OOB with Linux. What else do I need? Nothing, it's my laptop and will be the next one.
(Actually the next one may be cheaper, as I may only need to replace the motherboard, we will see)
TBH I haven't deeply tested it yet. Laptop is a few days old and I'm still "automating the install" (Ubuntu autoinstall + Ansible tasks for post-installation including BIOS upgrade and install Nix + Nix and home manager to install everything else; post(s) upcoming), so I haven't done "production use" yet.
Anyway, and while I love long battery life, it's not my main concern. Most of the time I have a power socket available and/or a nice portable battery pack that does the job. Laptop feels so much faster than my X1 Carbon that everything else seems to be a distant second feature.
P.S. Hi, Yorick, again, not the first time we cross paths ;)
As a long time Linux user I only recently tried my first framework (12), and shortly after got the 13 too because I realized that this is the laptop for me.
I wish I had realized it earlier.
But it's so refreshing as a linux user to use a laptop actually designed for linux, and have everything work so great out of box like battery and wifi.
Sure I've always used Laptops famously Linux-friendly, but it was still hit or miss, especially with new releases, and you always felt like you were breaking warranty somehow.
The entire experience buying a Framework, and using it, has been amazing. I'm hooked.
Yes, that does sound good, but if someone wants an inexpensive laptop that is also āactually designed for Linuxā, they should keep in mind Chromebooks. I donāt think of these as competitors to the framework, but as a lower end alternative that is usually overlooked.
kinda similar experience with my thinkpad t14s gen 2 amd (what a name.) I like framework's philosophy, but there's so many refurbished business laptops out there (many unused) that I like upgrading every few years to a 3-4 yr old laptop.
Getting a laptop that's linux certified has been better than I thought, things like sleep and power management "Just Work" whereas on other laptops I'd spend more time configuring TLP or even just hibernating every time because I couldn't get a good sleep experience. Hope this inspires the other manufacturers to work on getting this working out of the box.
"My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7... A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working. I decided it was time to look for a replacement."
Isn't that like deciding to replace your bike because some of the cables are rusted? Like a new set of cables, a new keyboard is a small expense compared to a whole new laptop.
Like replacing bike cables, swapping in a new Carbon X7 keyboard might be slightly challenging for an amateur. iFixit calls the keyboard replacement "moderate" in difficulty [1] taking about an hour with a new keyboard running about a hundred bucks. But it would be a simple job for a repair shop. So it seems hard to justify the expense of a whole new one rather than just the new part.
Of course, sometimes you just want a new laptop, because the bike analogy breaks down a little: unlike bikes, newer ones are inherently faster.
Generation 7. I realize you acknowledged the hardware age, but it's really the difference in my own workflows and experience.
I'm still on a Gen 8 i7 (with 40 GB RAM, to boot) T480s. I take pretty good care of my machine, so it's still in superb physical shape.
But, given today's massive webapps and video calls while having my workspace programs open, I'm in Hell. A failing keyboard would probably push me to repurpose the current machine and upgrade as well (and still replace the keyboard for kicks).
If I wasn't strapped for cash, I would have bought an AMD Framework eons ago.
Your analogy wonāt hold scrutiny with a competitive cyclist: newer bikes are also faster given the same rider, even if not as meaningfully as a new CPU.
And modern bikes do make with the need for cable replacement or breakage (hydro lines and electric shifting, while more expensive to service, also require much less of it).
Life tip: Noone appreciates and there's no utility in nitpicking analogies. They're never the actual point of the message and it's incredibly rude and socially inept to lock onto a side quest like that.
idk, the OP is all about the author misunderstanding what they bought. Hence a comment about bikes not understanding bikes deserves just as much scrutiny.
My own life tip: there are plenty of good analogies, so no need to choose use an example you are not familiar with.
With this comment you completely validate izacus (shaky) judgement call: when you write "a comment about bikes not understanding bikes" you are clearly more interested in being rude than pointing out a flaw in the analogy.
We all see that OP does understand bikes in the general sense, indeed the fact you are nitpicking instead of trying to explain one of the many fundamental difference means you think that as well.
To me, it suggests that analogies aren't as useful as we'd like them to be. Either the analogy is perfect, in which case nothing is any simpler, or it's imperfect, in which case you're now distracted by the differences.
They're not totally without value but I find that it's generally better to avoid a analogies. Look for some other route to make the point.
> One option is the Framework 13 given that it solves at least some issues I have with the Framework 16 (e.g. it's bulkiness and inability to lower the brightness further), but it also seems to share many of the other issues such as poor speaker quality and (at least from hat I could find) worse heat regulation, and a (possibly) worse battery.
The speakers are bad, but as a 13 owner I don't see or understand the heat or battery complaints specifically vs. the 16, it's considerably better on both fronts in the current iterations of the 13.
Unless you're comparing them to a Mac running macOS? It isn't clear, but in which case yeah, obviously it's worse than a Mac.
What I don't understand is why you bought the 16 instead of the 13. You didn't seem to need or use the discrete GPU, which is arguably the entire reason it exists. The only other feature you mention as useful that the 13 doesn't have is QMK support.
Yeah, and as others have noted here in the comments, it doesn't make sense.
You don't want bulk, but you chose the bulkiest option. You want a display with more even brightness and colors, but you chose the model intentionally built around a more refresh-performant but uneven display. You either don't care about or didn't bother measuring GPU performance, but you chose the model designed entirely around novel GPU features.
You cite unsourced reports of 13s having anti-properties, but it reads like you didn't research either newer 13s or the 16 at all.
I'm by no means an HP fan, but EliteBooks have pretty great repairability and (unintentionally) great Linux support. Though they are a bit bulky compared to laptops that have been soldered together. So there are definitely more options.
I dual boot Asahi and Mac OS X on my Macbook Air, and haven't had any problems with suspend. IMO the two biggest problems are lack of USB-C display output (although this is less of a problem with the Macbook Pro since you can use HDMI) and having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop).
It seems like he's looking for a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options there. I'm not sure why he even considered the Framework, it's pretty obvious from looking at it that the downside for the configurability is the laptop not being as solidly built as less configurable/repairable alternatives. I would have suggested a Dell XPS if he's ruled out the X1 Carbon, but it looks like Dell still hasn't backtracked from their decision to ruin the XPS keyboard by replacing the function keys with an even less functional ripoff of the Apple touchbar from 10 years ago. I guess the best move is to suck it up and go with the X1 Carbon and deal with the screen resolution for the IPS version being 1200p.
As far as I'm aware, all of the Snapdragon ARM laptops are existing chassis designs with different motherboards. I'm not sure how ARM affects build quality. Moreover, Snapdragon X support on Linux is still heavily a work in progress with issues with sound, power management, webcam support, and video acceleration. I don't know why anyone would go with a Snapdragon laptop today when Intel Lunar Lake excels at the exact same workloads Snapdragon X does, has similar battery life, and Intel actually works on getting device support upstreamed in a timely manner.
Just curious in case somebody knows. Are OLED displays in laptops bad at low light? He cites that as a reason he doesnāt want OLED, but Iāve never noticed such a problem on OLED phones.
I'd say the inverse is true: OLEDs are the best in low light, as they generally dim well and black means zero illumination of the pixel. Author is ill-informed. Also, OLED burn-in is a non-issue with current displays in any normal situation (e.g. not a kiosk or arcade or other sort of always-on static dashboard).
I'm using an OLED X1 Carbon right now in the UK. I use it all the time in low light.
I just turned all the lights off (even the Christmas tree) and ran through a handful of usage situations and couldn't see any issues. I turned some lights on and did the same, I couldn't see any issues. I asked Claude, and got told to do the finger test, and that is barely perceptible. I then used my phone to record the screen and yes - I can confirm that there is an effect that my pixel 9a's camera picks up, barely noticeable at 240Hz, and definitely noticeable at 480Hz.
Maybe the guy is particularly sensitive, but from the framing of the rest of the article I think he's blowing a few things out of proportion.
I probably should've done a better job at clarifying this, but my issue with OLEDs isn't just that (at least historically) they tend to be too bright even at lower brightness, but also the other issues they come with such as burn-in and text potentially looking less pleasant compared to IPSs displays. Burn-in is probably my biggest concern here, especially since it really seems to be a case of winning the lottery or not (i.e. for some it's fine for years, others get burn-in after just a few months).
Basically I just trust IPS more than any other technology :)
Burn-out probably depends on the model, not a lottery, but shouldn't be a major concern for typical usage patterns in recent models. The text issue is caused by a pentile subpixel layout which are no longer common. I love OLED for low-light evening usage because IPS displays always have some backlight bleed, whereas OLEDs can display true blacks/pure warm tones which I find much more pleasant in the evenings. IMO power consumption is the only major downside of OLED displays for general-purpose laptops and phones.
I've only recently bought OLED laptops so I can't speak to burn-in but out of the three I've tested, they have a lower minimum brightness than my other IPS laptops.
In terms of text clarity, "2k" OLEDs (1920x1200) are a bit blurry. IPSs and 3k OLEDs are noticeably sharper, with not much difference between each other.
A lot of computers with OLED displays use PWM for the low brightness levels, and he seems like the type of person who would be sensitive to that sort of thing.
PWM is the only useful way to drive an LED and the people who deny this are, to me, hilarious. In fact for the author's stated use case of low light conditions PWM really is the only way to do it without wrecking accuracy (and efficiency).
Most server and embedded oriented software has been compiled for ARM 7 & 8 for a while now, but in my experience, software you'd use on a desktop might not have ARM builds unless it's popular with RPi or handheld gaming enthusiasts.
Author doesn't cite how they decided that only MacBook or Framework would fit their needs. I've never had trouble with Dell laptops with any Linux distro I cared about. If I wanted a powerful Linux laptop, I'd probably look at something like Dell's premium model:
I bought a few refurbished Dell laptops/desktops in recent years, and while older models hold fine, more recent models broke down quite easily within a year. Sure all of them are refurbished models (purchased through official website) that cost from $400 CAD to $800 CAD but I'm sketchy of the build quality of recent models.
What model did you buy? Was it a new one? I'm looking for anything that can live up to 5+ years. I have seen all kinds of issues, and the most frustrating thing is, most of the issues are small but deal-breaking.
My first laptop back in 2005ish or so was a Dell Latitude. Ran XP until Vista came out and I switch to Linux which it ran for a couple years until it was stolen from my car. I recall unimaginable pain and suffering due to wifi, which, IIRC, I side-stepped by buying replacing the stock Broadcom card with an Atheros card and I'm certain is not nearly much of an issue as it used to be.
I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardware thing, but both would sometimes act as if there was a phantom touch somewhere on the trackpad which messed with my actual input. One of them had a keyboard where key caps of frequently used keys (super, shift, ctrl) would split in two after a ~year of use; this was not fixed under warranty, I paid out of pocket after a year of ownership, another year later it happened again.
After those two Dell XPS laptops, I got a MacBook Pro 2021 with an M1 Pro instead of getting the keyboard fixed again. No issues. Linux support isn't great, but at least macOS is a relatively competent UNIX so it's fine.
I might consider another non-Mac laptop in the future. But it's not gonna be a Dell.
Mostly Arch Linux at the time, though I've had Elementary OS on it as well. I used to run i3 (and eventually Sway) on it, which worked well since I could have a keyboard-centric workflow and not rely o bc the trackpad.
Interestingly, the touch screen of the 2-in-1 worked really well! I often relied on the touch screen to do light web browsing when the trackpad was acting up.
I did briefly look into the XPS series but it seems this series isn't really a thing anymore? I also found a lot of comments describing recurring issues with the trackpad (or was it the keyboard? I can't remember). Basically it seemed like too much of a gamble.
I'm not a massive fan of the hardware or anything, but most Dell laptops (including this premium one I linked) are tested to work with Ubuntu. If you're ok to use an Ubuntu-derivative as your distro, you should almost always have that as an option. Much like the Framework, it should be easily returnable if you have an issue.
If your company demands/keeps buying the shittiest, cheapest plastic Dell laptops instead of XPSes or higher end Latitudes/Precisions, that's not Dell's fault.
My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.
I've had a Framework 13 for nearly a year, been very happy with it, I've taken it on international work trips but it mostly sits on my desk with external displays attached. I ran Windows on it until I switched jobs, now its Ubuntu.
I also have an X1 Nano, which I love too, its the around-the-house laptop and a great little machine but whenever it dies, if I replace it at all, it will likely be with another Framework (perhaps the 12")
The real test will be in 2-3 years when I'm itching for an upgrade, assuming Framework is still around, I'll be able to swap out the MoBo and leave everything else as-is. We'll see.
Same. I'm very happy with my FW13 too. It replaces the MBA for my purposes -- dev on linux (mostly webdev on this machine, have a remote machine for gpu/heavy work), web browsing, streaming, some very light gaming (portal 2 on steam).
I'm waiting on that test too :) a few more cpu generations and I'll be itching to upgrade. I'm excited to for that to happen.
I ordered a framework desktop and got it "by accident" - in that I forgot that I had put down a deposit on a fully maxed out Ai MAX395+. After a few days of using it, I decided to keep it, and given how incredibly expensive 8tb NVMe drives and DDR5-8000 has beocme since then (even if you could get DDR-8000 on desktop form factor) - I don't regret that decision at all. It's a great little box - and AI is getting closer to colser to being a good experience.
That said, I have run into a set of frustrations with it:
1) The PCIEx is completely useless on the board. Forget about room for the slot - it's not exposed, there isn't enough exposure inside of the case. This is a real miss - It seems perfect for a occulink port or another USB4 port.
2) USB4 + PCIe tunneling was a mess. Seems to be working better now.
3) There are some real thermal envelopes that are resulting in similar systems with the exact same architecture running 10% faster then this box. That's a big bummer - apparently it's tunable in their bios, but framework really limits the bios settings.
4) Randomly right now, the latest kernel on Ubuntu seems to freeze on boot. No idea why - I can move to the older .5 kernel, and it;s working.
All that said, for what it offers - Framework offers a lot. I really honestly believe that either Mac or Framework is the way to go if you need significant compute power on the desktop.
I feel ya on the PCIe slot. And the on-board NICs are sub-par Realtek garbage, unacceptable both on features and quality. However, you can fit a small SFP+ card inside if you (a) cut out a correctly shaped hole in your case, and (b) turn the fan on at 40% instead of letting it turn off. The card will sit at a small angle but work fine, and with some 3D printing I even got a mounting bracket in to keep it stable. A lower profile connector, like USB 4, might fit outright.
Yeah, I was thinking of running a Occulink connector to the side of the case, the problem is that this would need a riser, and I don't think that occulink - even with a redriver, would do well with two additional physical connectors.
On the 5GB realtek - i think their 5G is far better then their 1g or 2.5g devices where.
Why would an OLED display not make sense in a low light livingroom situation? I really donāt understand it, what is the issue in this specific scenario?
I can't speak to the rest of the text or the laptops themselves, but as someone who works with color reproducibility in video and print, those photos comparing colors of two different screens are worse than useless.
Uncalibrated screens photographed at different angles in different lighting conditions are not a valid basis for comparison. If you want properly calibrated displays, you need to purchase hardware (datacolor makes one such device) and calibrate them.
Even "factory-calibrated" monitors will benefit from this, because the quality of that calibration varies widely and your color reproduction is going to vary based on ambient lighting conditions etc.
The photos are just meant to illustrate the difference to the reader, not to be anything scientific. Of course manual calibration is ideal, but having a somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine.
Problem is, display profile support for Wayland has been, at best, spotty until recently - and, there should be multiple accurate targets available on any good display panel.
My factory-seconds F13 (using 11th-gen Intel, still the best in terms of power savings) shipped with the older glossy display, which had a known, disclosed-as-cheaper LUT issue at lower brightness settings. After a couple of calibration rounds, it is spot-on and my go-to PC laptop.
Decent keyboard, too.
Of course, things are often more expensive in Europe (compared to the US) for zero good reason, so the F16 will always be at a proportional disadvantage compared to the F13. You may find that a much better fit.
I can add anecdata for the factory profile being very over-red - it's quite obvious out of the box. Not as bad as many Samsung OLED phones you see in stores (typically set to some crazy "enhanced" mode), but it's certainly closer to them than a calibrated screen.
One thing that has bugged me for a while though: why isn't it possible to make my own color profile by hand? Everything seems to imply that you can only get a profile definition file from a calibration device, and I don't have one... but I can eyeball it significantly better than the default profile. Is there something software out there that will let me adjust my curves, like the OS already does with night-mode color balance changes?
Sorry your product experience was sub-par. We have four of the various revisions and the quality is on par with the other laptops in the price bracket. Framework versus MacBook - Not even a comparison - One of them you can do whatever you want with, and the other not so much. Linux is the best option for these computers, as with Windozers the battery life is worse. Baseline CPU idle on a clean linux install is like 0.5% - this results in a low power use battery life of about 7 hours on the 13" model under web browsing/audio playing loads.
My Framework seems to get worse battery life on Linux than Windows. Different tools like powertop help close the gap, but inevitably if I put the framework in a bag for a week, it'll be dead when I take it out
If your laptop is using a recent AMD Ryzen based SoC:
ACPI C4 power state (for powering down more of the SoC during S0ix suspend) is not supported on Linux yet, for recent (last couple years) AMD processors.
Patches submitted for 6.18 were described as "laying the foundation for AMD C4 support". So, maybe won't be fully supported until 6.19 or even later; Sorry, I haven't followed up to see what has actually landed.
I shut mine down completely and haven't had the battery drain issue, but on "modern standby," yes these don't last very long. Probably 2-3% per hour on standby and worse than that if anything is plugged into the expansion slots.
Rather subjective. I'm really happy with a used "16 gaming laptop, top performance, memory ssd extendable, extremely good display for ~1200ā¬. Build quality is "ok" and creeks a bit, but magnitudes better value than a Thinkpad/Mac, even used ones.
I probably should have returned mine. I still love the idea of the device, but the speakers, display, and trackpad are subpar. I get that I'm spoiled by the quality of a MacBook Pro in those areas, but they still feel worse than other laptops I've tried.
Also he says he's never heard the fans spin up but I've had the system spin the fans up very high and they get loud. And the spin-up was definitely valid the times when I checked because the device was extremely hot, I think from charging.
Now the laptop is being used as a server. Ended up being good for Jellyfin because I can have the GPU handle transcoding and tonemapping of 4K HDR movies.
Would be cool if Framework would sell speakers, a display, trackpad and housing comparable in quality to a MacBook Pro. It would have a high pricetag but you could slowly upgrade your machine. Especially since swapping out speakers or a trackpad is so easy.
Right now the Laptop 13 speaker kit is ā¬20 but they could offer a ā¬150 option that performs similar to a MacBook Pro for people who value sound.
It's not only a matter of having better hardware (though it certainly helps a lot). For example, Apple does a lot of software tuning and tweaking to make the Macbook speakers sound as good as they do. And it's been fascinating to read the extent of work Asahi Linux had to do to recreate the software portion of Macbook's audio stack.
They should be able to offer a better trackpad module (and I've been hoping that they eventually do). The speakers seem like a harder problem to solve. The acoustic engineering that goes into designing a good speaker involves every element that can interact with the sound waves, not just the driver itself.
The problem is you need correction EQ built into to the drivers tuned to the enclosure (in addition to loudspeakers that are also designed accounting for their directionality, position, and the volume of the enclosure).
I don't understand the author, on the one hand he complains about the repairability of the thinkpads (which is weird in itself, they are still the most repairable laptops bar framework, especially because it's trivial to find resellers for pretty much all the parts. If finding all the screws is a problem, then you can just look at the repair manuals which are freely available. But after complaining about repairability he the looks at apples as alternative, which are like orders of magnitude less repairable than thinkpads.
>A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working
For a couple decades I was running exclusively Thinkpads, and always loved replacing the keyboard because it made it feel like an entirely new laptop. It also usually was quite easy and inexpensive. Probably worth doing in this case if there are no good alternatives.
Unfortunately, the X1 Carbon is, due to the form factor, a bit tricky, but probably won't take more than an hour or two depending on your skill level. You have to go in through the back, and there are around 100 screws that need to be removed and reinstalled.
Could be worse though, I replaced a friends daughter's keyboard in her Dell, and that was a similar remove-the-motherboard operation, but the keyboard was plastic welded in place.
TL;dr Framework isn't worth the price. If you put it apples to apples with a great product like the M1, Framework loses everywhere.
I had the same conclusion after daily driving both for 2 years; until yesterday, when my water bottle opened in my backpack and soaked them.
When I got home, I ripped apart my Framework and dried each piece. I left the M1 by my heater and tried to dry it out. This morning, I put the Framework back together, and everything except the keyboard works. The M1 won't boot.
While I did pay a ridiculous amount for my Framework, the keyboard is 50$ to replace. After the M1 design had me feeling it was more premium, it ultimately failed first.
Any repair shops specialized in saving devices from water in your area?
Haven't had a laptop rescued yet, but there was a phone simply dropped in water in my family. I put it in a 1 kg rice bag, drove to the repair shop. I don't know what magic they did but it worked for 2 more years until we upgraded it.
As the multiple siblings say, let it sit. Some desiccant next to it to suck moisture out of the air will help - rice is famously OK for this - no need to put it in the desiccant. A little bit of airflow is also good.
You may also find that rotating it into different positions accelerates it.
To be fair I once spilled water all over my Macbook's keyboard. It wouldn't boot for weeks afterward. I got a new computer and then checked back a few months later and my Macbook was magically able to boot.
I'm quite happy with mine, and like the keyboard in general though I can see why a coming from a decent Thinkpad would feel like a downgrade. I like it a lot better than the "butterfly" keyboards Apple insisted on, however, and have used quite a few more-expensive laptops with much worse keyboards. And I have gotten WAY more use out of the swappable ports than I expected, that's a killer feature imo.
The price is a "put your money where your mouth is" purchase for me on repairability - it's absolutely not competitive with a same-priced machine. But it's not too crazy if you upgrade or replace damaged parts, the significantly lower costs there add up extremely quickly.
The speakers though. Holy cow. They're truly awful and I think they drag down the entire product - put them over 50% and they blow out the sound and distort extremely badly. They really need to change them, I'd happily pay a premium to get something more usable.
Nothing beats a MacBook Air if youāre not chasing raw performance.
I ended up with two machines:
- MacBook Air (16GB)
- MINISFORUM UM870 with 48GB RAM
The Air is unbeatable for portability and battery life. The MinisForum is still āportable enoughā and gives me real horsepower when I need it.
I flew SF -> NY -> SF with the MinisForum and a portable monitor as carry-on. Everything fit in a Trader Joeās tote bag. I even presented a conference talk using that setup.
For ~$2k total, you can buy:
- a MacBook Air
- a small PC + one or two portable monitors
- and still have money left
IMO the era of $2-3ā4k ādo-everythingā laptops is over. I don't see how and why they're competitive.
So basically the same price as an already decently upgradable Thinkpad P1 G8 on sale, but with a terrible screen and janky chassis. Plus it costs about the same to upgrade as getting a new machine, but then you no longer have the ability to throw Linux on the old one and donate it to a school or less fortune person. Tough sell.
There is a lot of weight put into this number...and it seems that everyone forgot why US makers prices have inflated to this point. It's not to polish the "premium" experience, it's tariffs spread on the whole customer base.
Framework 16 owner here, had mine for a year and a half. While most of this post is also true in my experience, I just donāt care. These are largely small cosmetic nitpicks that you need to look for to notice. The only complaints here that I really share are the jankiness of the spacers (a little jarring at first, but now Iām used to it), and the speakers really are noticeably worse than any of my other devices. So? I donāt watch movies on it, or listen to music, thatās what I have a TV and headphones for.
Seems inarguable that you can get a much more āpremiumā laptop for about the same cost. But I didnāt buy a framework for a āpremiumā feelā¦ I was hoping to buy the last laptop Iāll ever need. And so far Iām happy with the result!
PS: the battery life is by far the best of any laptop Iāve owned. Maybe that just shows that my previous ones were junk, but Iām quite happy with it
PPS: I should note my employer was willing to buy it for me, so price was much less of a concern. Not everyone is so lucky ofc
I know, the repairability isnāt great, and theyāre not upgradable at all. macOS can be annoying and restrictive. But life is short, so I just buy MacBook Pros. I wasted too many hours in my 20s getting Linux to work on the desktop (not to mention a laptop).
The Framework 16 seems like a pretty unappealing device to me due to the bulk and cost, which is unfortunate. I have a 13 and absolutely love it, but the one thing is that I wish it had a direct PCI-e extension slot that I could use with an e-GPU. Thunderbolt is just too slow.
Im in a frustrating situation now where my laptop has a way faster CPU than my desktop, and my desktop has a way faster GPU than the laptop. I really wish I could use my big fancy GPU with my laptop without a massive performance loss.
> A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, -, = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent.
I had the same problem on my X1 Carbon generation 6 and managed to fix it simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the keyboard ribbon cable. It's a very easy fix, the only thing you have to unscrew is the bottom cover.
I may be wrong here but IIRC at least with the 7th generation you have to disassemble the whole thing to get to the keyboard. I'll have to take a look though, because if it's really that simple then I may be able to make my life a bit easier. Thanks for the suggestion :)
I ran linux for 15 years on a range of different machines. Desktop the most successfully. For laptops I tried everything but once I switched to a mac Iāve never gone back. The hardware is at least twice as good as any other laptop.
Iāve seen framework getting a lot of mind share recently. Especially with DHH singing their praises. I have come to loathe apple software over the years but canāt get over terrible build quality.
I thought framework was supposed to be the premium linux option but after reading this it looks same quality as all those windows turned linux machines.
I was in a similar situation to OP: my Carbon X1 Gen 8 keys, notably `/` and some arrows keys, stopped functioning. Sometimes they did, but it was very erratic.
Luckily, when I replaced the battery (got a lot from iFixit) and tightened all other screws, the keys magically started working again.
I bought an early framework 13. It cost a little more. Iāve since upgraded the main board to get a faster/newer experience. The overall cost has been less than 2 laptops.
Some of this depends if youāre playing the long game
Or just buy a MBP and use MacOS and not worry about any of these problems. I use Linux for everything but my laptop, but Iām not about to deal with a subpar experience when decent laptops are already so expensive.
I'm on a Framework 13. Aside from the wretched 4:3 screen size (which I knew in advance, it was a tradeoff, but my god I miss 16:10) I really do like it. No battery issues, the thing is incredibly fast. I've had the pleasure of repairing parts of it (screen, keyboard) and it has been super easy. The touchpad's button click could be a little more "tuned" (I miss physical separate buttons), but that's my only functional gripe.
But seriously, make a 14" 16:10 Framework please. I will buy a new one just for that.
I think if you compare on price alone, yeah there are quality tradeoffs when you purchase a Framework. They don't get everything right, and often an equivalent model from Lenovo or HP is going to feel superior. But... buying Framework is putting a stake into having somewhat open laptops that you can service and upgrade yourself. Lenovo laptops have become less and less reparable (following the MacBook formula) and it's very important a company like Framework continues to exist.
At the same time, this kind of user feedback is very important, to help Framework identify the areas where they can or have to improve. Framework is a very reactive company and while hardware takes time, they typically address issues in their next models.
> Knowing my luck I'd also run into OLED burn-in the moment the warranty expires.
Not being aware of the author's history of luck, that's an extraordinary claim. OLED screens are commonplace in modern devices -- phones, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors etc. If burn-in is still a real and significant concern, manufacturers would not have released so many devices, often with OLED screen as the only option. You would see videos on YouTube and TikTok warning you about OLED screens everywhere.
If anything, battery life is a bigger issue.
I really wish the author had done more research before making the decision or writing this piece.
I have a Framework 16 from one of the early batches (2023, think it was ~1000usd).
> Not only does [the spacers] look weird, you can also feel the gap and edges when resting your palm on them ... and the edges are quite sharp. If you have arm hairs you may consider shaving them off or risk getting them stuck. I also suspect gunk will build up in these edges over time.
> There's also a practical problem: due to the flex of the spacers if you try to hold the laptop on its sides it will actually "wobble" a bit. Combined with the weight I suspect that unless you hold on to this laptop for dear life, you will at some point drop it.
I can confirm the spacers are raised with an edge (though sharp might be overstating it). It's even at a slightly different height than the touchpad, which is probably more defect than intentional. But I'm not picky about the aesthetics so I don't mind the lines / colors.
Can't say I've had issues with the spacers actually flexing or accumulating gunk though. And I carry it one-handed by gripping the corner with the spacer all the time.
> The keycaps are a little mushy, which isn't too bad but not great either.
Yeah this is an apt description. My biggest gripe is that the keycaps are near impossible to remove / clean without breaking something.
> The display isn't terrible, but it's not great either.
I had the chance to compare my framework (ips, 165hz, 2560x1600) with some newer laptops recently (3x oled, 2x ips). I was pretty impressed with the colors, very little difference compared to the OLEDs and much better than the shitty IPSs. Text was as sharp as the 3k OLEDs and sharper than the 2k OLEDs. But OLEDs (obviously) had the advantage for darker / high-contrast images.
> I didn't do any proper testing of battery usage, but it seems to be on par with other Linux capable laptops based on my usage thus far. This means you'll likely be looking at 6-8 hours of battery per charge for average programming usage.
Pretty much. Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life. I clocked maybe 16 hours browsing the web / watching youtube.
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a ā¬1200-ā¬1500 laptop at best and certainly doesn't deliver a premium experience.
Yeah premium price without the specs and aesthetic to match. But I guess the premium is because of the modularity and (presumably) low production count. Plus I trust Framework's QA a hell of a lot more than any of the dozen HP / Lenovos I've owned. And it is nice that a failed keyboard / touchpad doesn't force me to buy a new machine (which has happened to me because of a spill).
> Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life.
Framework seems to offer the "H" variants only, though. Looking at specs, the "V" variants appear much lower performance and less capable. (Maybe a good trade off, but... YMMV.)
You are allowed (1) USB-C port. This is in a > $2200 laptop.
$200 netbooks had all this (minus the Ethernet port) standard 10 years ago.
This is unacceptable. An artificial limit imposed by the mechanicals of the inefficiently large port modules - an idea that should have never left a whiteboard, let alone made it into a production laptop.
On the bright side you are forced into configuring them as all USB-C, you can reuse the man purse you used to carry all your dongles from an earlier generation Macbook.
I think they have another USB-C on the back if you get the upgraded video module. I wish all desktop replacement laptops had copious ports on the back like my Dell from ~2010 did. Who wants video cables jutting out sideways across your desk?
Given my past experiences with X1 Carbon laptops breaking outside of warranty and the frustration that comes with replacing their components, I decided it was time to look for a replacement.
[...]
There are also some other issues with the X1 line in general, such as poor CPU cooling and the absolute nightmare that is opening them up to replace parts or clean them properly.
Maintaining an X1 is certainly possible, but it's incredibly frustrating and based on my past experiences with this series I strongly suspect other components will also fail in the near future.
my tip to people who don't like mac os. buy a macbook pro, disable System Integrity Protection (SIP), gut the OS, live in the terminal and browser. works way better than linux (10h+ battery life, SoC with a lot of memory) and you will barely notice that you're on mac os.
It's not windows. there will be no forced updates and surprises.
Also install the GNU coreutils (or I guess uutils). If you're begrudgingly using macOS then you're going to hate the differences between BSD and GNU utilities.
Personally I just can't, I really hate the UI and the software stack.
Sure as long as you are in the terminal you don't notice it but at some point you are going to need to open Finder (and Finder really sucks, sorry) and you are going to need to install software and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
I'm still chugging along on a Dell XPS Developer Edition that came with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. It's not as repairable as a Framework but it's been very reliable.
If I had to get a new laptop for personal use today I'd probably go for an X1 Carbon. Those seem to have very good luck with Linux even without OEM installs.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
Huh? I thought OLED would make a lot of sense with a pure black background theme in your IDE. Less light in your eyes?
The battery life doesn't appear to be all that better than conventional laptops when running Linux. This isn't entirely surprising because of a lot of the battery improvements on macOS are the result of the software and hardware integration, not just the hardware
The issue is the kernel here, not just the hardware. Linux power management is meh.
I'd return my Framework laptop if that was still an option. First they sent me bad RAM, and left me on my own to sort it out with Crucial, which never went anywhere. The mainboard has some weird power issue that prevents the modular ports, which are otherwise a cool idea, from working properly, and I went back and forth with support about that for two years before they finally told me it was out of warranty so I was SoL.
They replaced the hinges on a batch 5 this year for free when I finally complained about it. I just asked nicely and showed them a video of a fan blowing the screen down. New ones are tuned as expected.
I have the similar ThinkPad like the author, except Gen 3, I7, 16Gb. Have Omarchy on it, works like a charm, even camera is not bad. Battery works but I can plug it in the same dock my macbook is (two usb-c dock).
While you can change keyboard or battery on your Thinkpad, they are cheap enough, around $500 that you can just get a new one. I get why he wanted Framework, they say 13" are much better and more useful deal then 16".
I wish Framework 12" is better, but it is not. Maybe Apple can dazzle us at this form factor.
Considering this customer's gripes, I might suggest the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14. It's even lighter than their X1 Carbon, has great battery life, is silent, and has a spectacular display.
Putting aside anything specific to Framework, this article really puts into perspective just how piss poor the laptop market is right now.
Macs have fantastic hardware, but of course only really run macOS. The future of Asahi Linux is very questionable and, like the author, is not something I'm interested in relying on. I don't hate macOS by any means but I much prefer running Arch with Hyprland.
PC laptop hardware is just shit in comparison. Like the author, my X1 Carbon (Gen 11) has keys that intermittently fail, and the cooling is pretty bad (I actually love the OLED display, though, and don't really understand the author's concerns here).
I haven't found any non-Mac laptops that beat the X1 Carbon line, though (relatively low bar that it is). Frameworks are cool if you are fine with the tradeoffs, but personally I'm just not -- I much prefer to tinker with desktops/servers, and am totally fine with laptops being a physically-closed "appliance," as long as that results in great battery life, cooling, and adequate performance (I can always offload heavy tasks to my desktop if need be).
Which is all to say: what I want is Mac equivalent hardware that can reliably run Linux.
For now, I've landed on using my extremely beefy Arch desktop when at home, and my M1 MacBook Air (which is still running great 5 years on) when mobile. Even accepting that I'll be using an Apple device when mobile, though, there's still room for improvement in this setup: I'd love LTE support (no, a hot spot isn't a good replacement), a nano-texture display (which appears to be locked to the MacBook Pro line), and either an even smaller footprint (like the old 12-inch MacBook) or a little bit of active cooling to offset the performance regressions in macOS. An iPad might make sense, but I own one and frankly hate it due to OS limitations, such as only a single stream of audio at a time (which causes lots of bugs -- watching a YouTube video while scrolling Reddit will cause the YouTube video to pause whenever you scroll past a video on Reddit, even if it's muted), a lack of terminal, etc. I want a "real" OS, so tablets are out of the question entirely.
I don't understand why absolutely zero PC manufacturers have even tried to take on Apple's laptop offerings. Sure, Apple Silicon is great, but Intel and AMD have done an admirable job at increasing battery efficiency since its release; it's not the only component that makes Mac laptops so great. I'm sure these manufacturers know what they're doing in this regard and have decided it doesn't make business sense to take on Apple. But man, I just wish someone would at least try.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
I don't know how many laptops people own to rule out every possible model. My own experience is owning several various versions of Lenovo Legion for gaming and work, and currently an Acer Nitro 16.
None of them have given me a single issue.
Great screens, great keyboards, great performance, easy to upgrade the SSD or RAM. Short of really intense gaming, the fans aren't audible.
And they are all around $1000-1200 USD. All with AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. Doesn't seem like they are unicorns.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
What? Low light is ideal for OLED compared to most LCDs where in low light contrast is poor due to bleed-through on the black areas via the backlight. The problem here isn't the laptop, it's between the keyboard and chair.
> I narrowed it down to two options: Buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Macbook and run Asahi Linux Buy a Framework
...or stop being a dogmatic baby about your OS and run MacOS, which is infinitely better than Linux as a desktop OS?
> I looked at some other brands but it appears that in 2025 there's just aren't many good options for Linux users
A market of less than 1% has terrible options? *gasp*
The only people still using Linux on desktop are people who think that *twenty five years* into "the year of the linux desktop" this will be the year that Linux doesn't stop being the worst option for a desktop OS.
If 2/3rds of the current linux distros hung up the hat and went to go help with other distros, there _might_ actually be progress on this front - but the nerds are too interested in fighting over asinine personal preference type things nobody else cares about, to actually make a distro that works properly and reliably. The Linux world is so hopelessly fragmented and there's thousands of people doing the same work as at least 6 other people all because they think their particular way of installing a linux package is better or their file layout is best.
Variety is great, but idk why anyone would buy anything other than MacBook for programming or media work in the age of Apple Silicon. Unless they specifically need CUDA or a particular version of Linux or some Windows features, or actually want to tinker with/ tweak the computer continuously.
I'm a programmer but I can't stand macOS, so a MacBook isn't an option, as much as I like the hardware. I've looked at Asahi Linux, but, while they've done an amazing job with no documentation, it doesn't meet my needs.
So Debian on a Framework 13 it is. And it's fine! I'd agree that Apple hardware is probably the best, but the difference doesn't really matter to me all that much in practice.
I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I canāt help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
People (not necessarily the author, but likely many commentators that make similar complains about the frameworks price) will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price.
I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience, but thatās is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Rergardless, what I feel like we see here (along with a lack of scale from a small company) is the core tradeoffs that weād have to make to get back repairability, etc. framework certainly isnāt above criticism, but if you donāt care about these things then why look at this machine? A large established brand is always going to offer a a better value on the things you care about.
I want Framework to succeed, but the author's objection isn't unreasonable:
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a ā¬1200-ā¬1500 laptop at best... two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd
For most people the long-term total cost of ownership is going to be a major factor when they consider a more repairable laptop. Sure, generating less e-waste is nice, but saving money is probably the main point. What the author is asserting here is that to get the repairable laptop you need to spend 50% more for the same specs! As well as accept that the form factor is bulkier etc. At a 50% premium you do have to question whether you're going to save a meaningful amount of money in the long run.
For me I probably would - I find uses for machines that are a decade old and the repurposability of Framework components is pretty interesting. But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
I think the Framework 16 is too expensive. They can access a niche market at these price points but to get bigger they will need to find a way to deal with the cost issue. PC World's review of the Framework 13 this year was: "A steep price for a compelling upgrade."
The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody. Reliable machines rarely need repairs outside of owner mistreatment, and most people I know who are technically capable enough to care about upgrading generally do it maybe once every 4-6 years, by which point hardware has usually advanced far enough that buying a new laptop is easy to justify.
So while upgradability and repairability are great to have, their material impact on day to day user experience is minimal, except maybe for people who have a tendency to severely underspec their initial hardware purchases. On the other hand, things like chassis rigidity, cooling performance, fan noise, and battery life being subpar are constant reminders that you spent a pretty penny on a laptop that's not meeting your needs.
The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
As an aside, I believe that Framework could probably get closer to that ideal if they unchained themselves from the port module idea. Yes it's cool, but it forces all sorts of design compromises that otherwise wouldn't be necessary, and I'd bet that something like 80-90% of Framework buyers would be just as happy if changing ports required opening up the chassis, swapping out side plates, and doing a little bit of internal wiring.
> hardware has usually advanced far enough
That's not what we're experiencing.
Screens have seen improvements, but not in a significant way within these 4-6 years. Keyboards haven't improved leaps and bounds. Track pads either. Laptop casings haven't seen innovation either.
The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
> port module idea.
That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
I wish I could do that right now. The only reason I haven't one of their laptop is their stubborn refusal to ship outside a dozen or so countries.
The modules are just inset usb-c dongles.
Handy that you can have them fully encased but thereās nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Maybe some people really want the enclosed module so they have fewer things to carry, but thatās a pretty small advantage that Iām not sure many people will value.
I could get something like this ( https://satechi.net/products/undefined/products/pro-hub-slim ) for my MacBook Air and come out ahead on weight and size.
Iāll contest that on the screens. Mini-LED backlighting is a substantial step up for contrast, backlights in general have gotten brighter, IPS panels have gained notability better color gamuts and contrast, and OLED panels are now widely available even in budget machines. The screens on the M1-M4 MBPs look quite visibly nicer than those MBPs used up until 2019.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen thatās moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as wouldāve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something thatās still possible.
I have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.
> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
Laptop motherboards arenāt like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If youāre lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.
> That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
With all due respect -- meh.
I have a fairly old-ish laptop that I am not bothered to upgrade because a Ryzen 5500U is super capable to this day (and I don't do local LLMs) and it has a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 Type-A port. And an SD card reader.
I bought a hub. I put the laptop on a stand and plug its Type-C 10Gbps slot in the hub. Job done.
All this clamoring about being able to replace ports surely resonates with many people but to this day I don't view it as a true advantage. If you have to carry your laptop to a dedicated office, a stand and a hub are table stakes anyway. And that's not even touching a proper big display, keyboard and a mouse.
And furthermore, if making the ports flexible leads to too many design compromises then to me that means that I am making a bad deal.
I am periodically inspecting Framework laptops and I still find them lacking. Their appeal to tinkerers has IMO peaked and they should pivot to another pitch or they might not survive. Though I really, really hope they do. We need the competition.
This. My idea of a repairable laptop is the Thinkpads up until around 2015. And I absolutely agree that the port modules forces Framework to limit the number of ports to the point that I'd hesitate to purchase one because I'd be swapping ports all the time.
The replacement parts aren't cheap either as Framework has very little used parts market.
I can rehouse a Thinkpad or most other high volume laptops for a quarter or less the cost of a Framework, making the total lifetime cost much lower. Framework will sell you a new housing with screen for $399, but at that point I can buy an 11th gen Thinkpad for half the cost.
I want the economics to work, but even with free labor it makes no sense.
Have you ever tried dealing with Lenovo for parts or repairs ? My only experience with them was bleak and I never heard good stories on this front.
As the owner of a Framework 13, you're exactly right. It only has 4 ports, at least one of which is pretty much always for charging, and let's face it you will always want a USB-A, so that leaves two. If you want to be ready for HDMI output or SD cards, that occupies them both, better hope you didn't want another USB-A or whatever.
Oh, and there's a permanent headphone jack, for some reason.
Compare to my last Thinkpad (a T460), which had a charger jack, three USB-A, HDMI, RJ45, MiniDP, a headphone jack, and an SD slot. I didn't need to swap adapters because everything was just already there. (I never used the MiniDP or the headphone jack, but everything else, yeah.)
If the Framework had 2 or 3 permanent USB-C's in addition to the 4 swappable ports, or just had 6 or 7 swappable ports, I'd be much happier. But as it sits, carrying a baggie of modules in my backpack is just silly.
That said, it can do something super cool: Charge from either side. Because there are USB-C ports on both the left and right, and any of them can be a power inlet, I'm presently laying on my side in bed, with the charger plugged into the "top" side, i.e. the one that's not leaning into the mattress. When I roll over, I'll just move the cord.
When I was shopping for my "next" (present) machine, I was able to find one Ideapad that claimed it had USB-C ports on both sides, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. I couldn't get Lenovo's site to tell me which cheaper models had this, and their support people couldn't produce such a list either. Finally in frustration, I decided to give my money to Framework instead, and the either-side charging is a trick I rely on frequently.
My current load-out is two USB-C and two USB-A, one of each on each side.
Also the fact that hardware is pretty stagnant and upgrades arenāt that important anymore for most stuff. I bought an Acer in 2012 and over the next 5 years I upgraded the RAM from 4 gb to 8gb and swapped the hdd for an ssd. Those were enormous upgrades! Then I bought a MacBook Pro with 16gb and an ssd and didnāt need another computer until this year (still didnāt NEED one but I found a good deal on a 4 year old MBP).
This is an insane take.
The number of MacBooks Iāve seen shipped back to repair center for weeks, over a single non functional key, is astonishing.
But how common of a problem is this, now that Apple is well clear of the butterfly keyboard mess? I havenāt had to get my MacBooks repaired even once in the past decade and change, and thatās despite two of the machines Iād used during that time being the butterfly/touch bar models!
That being said, yes itād be better if such a repair were quick and easy, but Iām not sure that itās so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that. A laptop thatās bad at being a laptop isnāt worth a whole lotā¦
You are correct that example has been made very much better.
As opposed to taking the part out of a Framework laptop, shipping it back to the repair center for weeks, and then reinstalling it when it comes back?
Or if time is of the essence, ordering the brand new part to skip the repair process and then installing it yourself when it arrives later?
Contrast this with the amount of time my coworker spent hauling his laptop charger everywhere and obsessively topping up his laptop battery while traveling because the battery drain during sleep was a problem at that time. This added extra wear and tear on the battery, of course, but I guess he could replace it himself?
You just order a new key, and install it. And not have the downtime. (You can remap key or use an external keyboard.)
And yeah, replacing the battery is easy. Not a Framework, but I replaced a laptop battery some years ago, was glad I had that option, because lithium battery lifetime always decreases eventually.
Iām old enough to remember when many phones and some laptops had removable batteries. Switch to a spare, and boom instantly full, you didnāt need to tether it to a wall.
Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. Framework offers repairable laptops at a fixed price. To some the repairability adds enough value to warrant the higher prices, to some it doesn't. (As well as customizability and mainline Linux kernel support).
I've found that if you're in the habit of repairing laptops, Frameworks may come cheap to you as you might have spare storage and ram around. Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
What is the implication of this? You're not allowed to criticize a product unless you're being forced to buy it? What is the list of companies you're allowed to levy any critiques of, then? Your electricity provider? You could always move, right?
Is this the mentality that leads people to only ever criticize government power and let all others off the hook?
I sometimes feel like people criticize products as if they were offered to them personally. The pricing of a product may be absurd to them but if it were absurd to everyone there wouldn't be a market for it.
You can objectively compare the features between two products and criticize them that way. But to criticize the price you need to attach a monetary value to those features. With a framework one of those features is repairability, which to some is worth nothing, and to others it's worth a whole lot.
So is the frameworks pricing absurd? That depends on the person buying.
So you're not allowed to criticize pricing unless you're forced to buy it?
> Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
To be fair at least Lenovo and to some extent dell also offer this for individual customers.
It usually is not an option on the latest processors for premium models though as soldered RAM becomes more prevalent there. A minor problem of the author might be that they are looking at the relatively high tier models, which ime have less options for "saving" money, while something like a thinkpad e14 might also have been a good candidate instead.
I think the people criticizing would be potential customers who are voicing the issues that are preventing them from purchacing one. For example, I would criticize the lack of a trackpoint equivalent. And in fact, I'm not purchasing one because it doesn't have a trackpoint. If they listened to my complaint, I'd be much more inclined to buy one. (Not right away ā I'm not on the market for a laptop right now ā maybe 3 years down the line.)
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
This happens all the time, especially with Apple. Complaints about the inability to side load or use alternative stores for example. Nobody forced you to buy it. It's stupid when people do it for Apple and it's stupid when they do it for Framework.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience, but thatās is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Buying one of the original Frameworks and a Macbook Air at roughly the same time made me realize how little I actually care about upgradeability and repairability. This feeling took me by surprise. Modern Macbooks are just so much better in terms of feel it's like comparing tech from a different decade.
(it also turns out that having a defect that the manufacturer doesn't make right can cause a person to feel a few different things, but gratitude for the product's repairability isn't at the top of the list)
Agree. I want rock solid Linux compatibility with mac like hardware quality / battery life and a Thinkpad like toughness and keyboard. I don't really need it to be upgradable as long as it lasts 8 years.
IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.
I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.
We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.
Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%.
TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.
I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.
Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.
Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).
My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..
This is exactly what I want.
Some people around me prolesytize these modern Macbooks endlessly but I don't quite get it. I've tried them but I still love my Framework 16 to bits and I'd take it any day of the week. The Macbooks are great machines, and one thing I can say in their favor is the battery life is phenomenal, but I prefer my Framework's aesthetics and feel - it feels more like I'm holding something I've worked on and made my own vs just bought, I prefer the shiny metal over the dull gray of the Macbooks, the keyboard and trackpad are just as good (and I love the rgb pad I have in place of a numpad), and taking it apart/replacing modules just feels so cool. I've also saved those friends various times by lending an expansion card, usually usb-A.
Yeah I agree. You can get two base MacBook Airs for the price of that laptop. A base MacBook Air is a very very capable machine.
Your comment is sensible, so long as repair parts aren't duds all the time, and repairs don't cost you the same as a purchase.
For most laptops, including macs, replacing things like batteries and screens is not what makes them irreparable, but it is things like the cpu, discrete gpu, etc.. I applaud framework on what they're doing, but it isn't there yet. If anything on the mothrerboard breaks, you're looking at a hefty repair bill to replace it. If they keep a decent stock of original,tested and quality parts long-term (10+ years) that would be one thing, but if "repair" means upgrading to the latest stuff, then it is just saving you on a replacement.
Ideally, I would purchase replacement components at the time of purchase, so if I have a loose $300 after the initial purchase, I might spend it on a spare ram, cpu, or gpu. Now, with that money, I can only buy cosmetic/casing parts, battery, connectors and such. Again, I appreciate their direction, and if we're spending to support them alone, that's great. But they have been around for a while, and some constructive criticism regarding value might be good.
> In contrast, Framework laptops has many supposed benefits: they're upgradable, repairable
Why would you propose that the author does not care about these things? They clearly do, they are simply not a single issue voter ā and who is, when buying something as complex as a laptop? There is a trade-off and the one that Framework made here is not hitting the mark for the author, and they go into some detail to explain as to why.
I am super excited about Framework stuff: They are clearly getting somewhere with this; it's nicer than anything that came before with comparable repairability. I think it's super plausible that we don't exhaust the physical limitations that arise through repairability before it's so nice, that the trade-off will be negligible for most folks.
IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. If you are doing this I think you are missing the point. This isn't a apples to apples comparison.
I also feel the frustration of the parent, and I also see that many people don't want to pay or consider the ramifications of where we we are at right now in this given time. Most devices are designed to be throwaway, manufactures cut corners, operate at a loss. These are byproducts from our badly designed technology from a suitability perspective that have driven prices down in a unhealthy way IMHO.
Its like trying to compare prices between now and fifty years ago. If you want the world to be more sustainable, you need to consider that its going to cost more, its not going to be comparable to whats out there right now, and you are going to need to deal with the growing pains.
Comparing Framework laptop to whats out there today in terms of features is a losing proposition. The market is built around a lack of sustainability.
> IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability.
But is it really more sustainable to have a poor quality but easily repairable/swappable laptop where you had to exchange multiple parts over e.g. 10 years, compared to a high quality laptop that lasted the full 10 years and didn't need any repairs? And that is not unusual, my 10 year old X1 carbon is still going strong, I just had to take change the battery at some point, but that was not very difficult.
I don't know if I consider Framework laptops poor quality. I wonder if you are considering the impact to the planet though. We have tons of waste everyday from devices that are not built with sustainability in mind. Yes Framework has a ways to go with that, but its the only company that I know thats really doing something about it. We have all these devices that if they are not built around sustainability in contributes to a worse climate and I worry what kind of world we are leaving behind for our children.
Value wise when trying to spec out my personal Lenovo laptop on framework, it'd never get anywhere close to being worth it even if I completely made use of the hardware after a future upgrade.
Framework makes sense if you're going in on the sustainability idea, but other than that it's really just an expensive laptop that's not compelling against its competitors
The pricing when I looked was similar. I went with a Lenovo last time because the Framework 16 hadn't quite matured, but premium anything is never going to make financial sense.
Buying and repairing a framework is never going to be cheaper than going through consumable trash laptops, and buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
What you're paying for right now is the customization capabilities and the ideology. Upgrading and customizing a single platform with a community, vs. a fixed one-off design that'll be lost next time you upgrade.
If Framework isn't already compelling to you at this time, then you're not the target audience. They might drop in price, but they'll never win a race to the bottom.
I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
Get away from Intel and management engine.
Or you could just buy a MacBook Air for like $900 (or one of the windows snapdragon machines, but it you care about avoiding Intel Iām assuming you want Linux and doubt the support is as good as asahi on Macs)
Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.
Edit: though it should be said that what I think is good might be a far cry from you think is good. I did use a Thinkpad X13s as my primary work machine for 6 months, though.
I mean, this could literally be the last laptop shell, screen, keyboard and power adapter you ever buy. That's a fantastic sustainability story. Not to mention that if it dies you are never at risk of having to replace the whole thing unless it melts in a fire.
It could beā¦ but it wonāt be. Internals will be outmoded quickly, and I would be shocked if logic boards from ~5 years from now will still be compatible just as needs evolve (especially around cooling and power delivery)ā¦ and this is all before physical wear and tear on screen/keyboard/ports.
I would be very surprised if many frameworks are upgraded ship of Theseus style for decades, or if the total cost of ownership (and even ecological impact, most of the nastiness is going to be the electronic internals, not the metal casing) is lower than for someone buying a more integrated laptop ever 5-6 years.
In the context of the massive amount of throwaway packaging involved in the food supply chain, or every other part of the supply chain for every consumable we use, how big a deal is that? Are electronics uniquely impactful in terms of sustainability versus eg plastic clamshells to transport apples?
Literally just picked up a 13" M4 Air for $750 from Best Buy for my wife. It was spend $500 to replace her older MBA screen or a bit extra for a whole new device.
Macbook air = small keyboard, small screen, limited battery, all parts expensive to service, etc. Try hacking a Mac Mini instead: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini
A MacBook Air is just a Mac mini with a keyboard, screen, and battery. You can choose to attach the same peripherals to your MacBook, and have the flexibility of a laptop when you need it. Paying a couple hundred dollar premium for this is a good deal.
The MacBook Air has a standard size keyboard.
> I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
You can't do that with the 16, only the 13 [0] and you can't upgrade ram on it. Which is kind of the problem in a nutshell. Over time fewer user modifications make sense due to the context of the whole computer as an integrated system.
0. https://frame.work/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard
nobody ever does. maybe 2 people on the planet...
for everybody else, a Mac is perfect ;-)
> but I canāt help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
On the contrary, I think a lot of people completely understand the value proposition. Itās just that once you evaluate it against all of the tradeoffs and other priorities, it reveals that upgradeability is not as valuable as the other priorities. Most consumers arenāt single-issue voters who purchases hardware based on a single axis of features.
With Framework laptops specifically Iāve started to feel like ābut itās upgradable!ā is becoming a tired rebuttal to any discussion of the tradeoffs you take one when you buy one of these machines.
In theory I enjoy an upgradeable machine, too. But in practice Iām not willing to give up much now in exchange for the possibility of maybe upgrading part of it later.
This is a classic example of revealed preference in product design. When you ask people in a vacuum if they want features like upgradeability, swappable batteries, or tiny phones that fit in your pocket the answer is always āYes, obviously!ā Then when the product comes to market and people have to vote with their wallets they survey the options and pick the laptop thatās light and highly integrated, the phone with a built-in battery thatās compact and sturdy, and the phone with a screen big enough to not feel cramped. This leaves a vocal minority trying to tell everyone else that theyāre making the wrong choice or they have their priorities wrong, but the simpler answer is that these products are best reserved for the minority of people who prize singular design goals like upgradeability options to such an extreme that theyāre willing to compromise or ignore everything else.
I have a FW13, 3 yrs old, battery was getting weak, i just ordered one from FW and popped out the old one and put in a new one. Same for SSD and memory. This alone makes me stay with FW.
Not trying to change your mind but at least when it comes to exchanging the SSD and battery, you can do the same thing with practically all Thinkpads and Dells?
Just did it with my old Dell a couple days ago ā I was done in 5 minutes.
Replacing battery, KB, RAM, SSd in most Elitebook, Latitudes used to be easy. Not anymore atleast with Dell. Most RAM soldered.
But if it lasts 3-4 years I guess many end up upgrading anyway. My Latitude 5330 has everything soldered even the disk but going strong for 3.5 years.
You can do this with EliteBooks, and HP replaced my battery for free.
Dave2D made the argument that you could buy another laptop for the same price as upgrading the Framework 16. This makes it hard to accept the quality tradeoffs.
I think whatās lost here is when the framework project was launched, all the companies were moving to SoC designs and reliability was unknown.
Replacing a stick of ram is still much cheaper than buying a whole new MacBook, but these systems seem to be reliable enough that ram failures arenāt front of mind. Same for SSDs.
> replacing a stick of ram
How often does your RAM fail you?
The use case is to replace an existing working stick with a higher capacity stick, not just for repairs.
On my experience, every time Iāve been in the situation of looking for more capacity because the software requirements have gone up, Iām 1-2 generations of DDR behind and it doesnāt really make sense to do the upgrade anyway.
How often are you actually going to do that though? My desktop from 12 years ago has 16GB of RAM and Apple only just upgraded their base specs to 16GB.
Ok granted my new desktops have 128GB, but that's massive overkill so I can have like 12 VSCode's open. For normal people 16GB has been the sensible amount for at least a decade.
I tend to agree. But some people at least want the option. I would also say only in 2025 has that shifted for me as well. I've been perfectly fine with 16gb of ram for at least a decade, but local LLMs have me wanting for more.
Gaming laptops tend to have replaceable RAM and SSD so the advantage of Framework 16 is much less.
The current benefit for a Framework is that you can swap out the entire inner/guts without being an expert and everything still works together. Most of the laptops I have provide 2 SO-DIMM slots and a slot for either NVME or SATA for storage.
So for me, there is little value in that in most scenarios. There are a few laptop chassis that I am very fond of and have wished I could "use that chassis with that hardware", but even then I haven't seen Framework chassis designs that give me that impression. I'm not saying they're crappy, but I'm thinking of different types of brushed metal, magnesium alloy stuff, etc.
It makes me wonder who their audience is if they are targeting users that will pay a premium for an upgradable system, but are afraid of modifying the guts of the computer.
you get another mainboard to use as a sever or resell
If I wanted the innards of my laptop to be upgradable, I would want the only part of it that would stay with me for the next decade or two (the chassis) to be damn near perfect.
There's a reason why there are enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads. These things were built like a German executive sedan.
> enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads
This. It baffles me that companies like System76 and Framework refuse to borrow from an existing successful solution like ThinkPad. I remember asking System76 representative over the phone about trackpoint; from time to time I revisit that one thread on Framework forums about trackpoint keyboard... No progress there.
The only explanation I have is that they obviously can't copy, but designing something like an old ThinkPad is intrinsically hard and costs way too much for a small company.
I donāt know about today but once upon a time those trackpoints were encumbered by patent issues.
I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. While it can be compared to laptops without modular RAM, SSDs, or Wi-Fi cards, the real comparison is to laptops with modular ones of those for significantly less and suddenly the amount of upgradeability value drops significantly. Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well. The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability - especially with the breadth of selection so far. In the meantime, you're paying significantly more for less quality to have said ability.
To me, the core value proposition of the Framework is actually more in customization than about upgradeability. That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout, your order builds up without really assuming you want a charger, RAM, and SSD to be included. If you don't particularly care about those things or you can find a laptop which matches what you want up front then it just leaves you questioning the massive price increase to do it the Framework way instead.
I'd really like to enjoy the idea of fully upgradeable laptops, but I think trying out a Framework laptop just made me realize how much it doesn't work out like I'd hoped rather than making me more excited for it. I ended up returning it and, ironically, getting a 395 laptop with soldered RAM (in my defense, Framework sells a desktop with this as well).
I don't see why upgrading a motherboard to one with a newer generation CPU is not valuable. Or why going 16 to 32 GB RAM a few years after buying it first isn't.
Yes full upgradability of each component would be pretty nice but now we have a desktop and factors like compactness and "premium feel" would be even worse
I only said the value is not that high, not that it's not valuable at all. Paying a premium up front and on the upgrade to swap out the CPU + Motherboard (also forcing the GPU on certain Framework models) eats heavily into that limited value vs just buying lower cost laptops that aren't as modular.
Regarding the RAM, again, you don't need to pay for a Framework to do be able to do that. Same for the SSD. These are probably the two most reasonable components to upgrade, and it's not novel to have options to do so.
That full upgradeability actually doesn't make sense in the end is my exact point/realization I had trying it out. You can get somewhat upgradeable laptops where it makes sense already, and compromising every which way to be more upgradable is a hugely diminishing return.
> I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. [..,] Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well.
The Framework's screen is officially upgradeable, though, and I see that as a strength: while you or I might not blink at doing an unofficial screen replacement for some other laptop, I'm sure most people would be afraid to attempt something like that.
I've also (officially) replaced the webcam (new one is definitely better) and speakers (new ones are better but still meh). When my battery starts to go, I'll replace it with the higher-capacity battery that's available now.
So it's definitely quite a bit more than just RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi.
> The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability
I agree on the RAM: I have a Framework 13, and my next mainboard upgrade will require new RAM (which is of course crazy expensive right now), as my current board uses DDR4. But I view that as a forced upgrade; if I didn't have to go to DDR5, I'd probably stick with DDR4, and I'm sure it would be fine, even if not optimal.
But I really don't understand or agree with your comment about the SSD. I have a 2TB NVMe drive in my current laptop, and I expect I'll be using the same drive for years to come, certainly through my next mainboard upgrade, and probably even the following one.
> That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout,
Right, agreed: I have not changed the layout of my ports in more than a year at this point, and I never changed the keyboard style/layout. It was nice to be able to easily replace the keyboard when my original one developed issues a few months ago (not Framework's fault... it was my cat's fault), at least.
But I think all of this is a matter of taste. I expect there are some people who change out their expansion ports fairly often. It's fine that I don't value that feature as much as I expected I would.
My expectation is that I'll have this laptop chassis for another 10 or so years, probably with 2-3 mainboard upgrades in that time. My prior two (non-Framework) laptops were in the $1800-$2000 range, each of which lasted three years, and had significantly less RAM than my Framework does (those two laptops weren't even offered with 32GB, let alone the 64GB I have now).
My next mainboard upgrade will likely be the cost of that new laptop, given the crazy cost of DDR5 right now (though it looks like I'd be paying Dell around $2400 for a 13" laptop with 64GB; I could probably do the Framework mainboard upgrade plus RAM for $1800 or so). But maybe the next-next mainboard upgrade will still use DDR5, and I'll get a brand-new computer for around $1k. That's a really great value prop for me.
"Most people" don't upgrade individual components of their desktop or spend thousands on their computer either, especially beyond the storage and RAM, so I'm not sure who the average person it's supposed to comfort that it's official vs not to do things as small as upgrade the screen out of cycle from upgrading the rest of the machine. Framework is, unfortunately, positioned in every way for exactly the type of person who would do this (high end, willing to assemble, Linux compatibility, customization - it's all exactly that kind of power user target). I mean I'd like it to make sense, it just doesn't.
Same with replacing parts vs customizing them on equivalent "standard" laptops. I've had to replace the keyboard on my laptops due to failure/damage once in the last 10 years, each time it took less than 15 minutes. Would it be nice if it was 3 minutes? Sure, but how much is 12 minutes really worth paying for and what do I lose for it in terms of the sturdiness problems with Framework.
Barring the decision to go with something like the 395 where standard RAM wouldn't make sense for it anyways (which is why Framework didn't make the RAM modular in the desktop version) there is nothing special about Framework that lets you reuse RAM between upgrades giving Framework an advantage. Every other normal x86 laptop I've ever used has had swappable RAM I've taken advantage of without paying $1800 for even the entire laptop, let alone the upgrade board.
There is some subjective preference in it all of course, but it seems that is just for a lot fewer people than it might have seemed. I.e. I don't see average people buying $500 laptops ever going for this and it almost feels like it has already reached its peak interest in the tech crowd too.
This is the first time I've ever even heard of unofficial screen upgrades even being _possible_, and I'm at least two standard deviations from the mean on the "likes to tinker" scale.
I can't even begin to think about how a laptop screen upgrade would go. Who's manufacturing them? How do I get just one? How do I make sure I don't spend a month waiting for shipping and get a fake? How do I make sure the housing is going to fit right? How do I make sure the pin outs match?
... and etc etc. An official upgrade pathway eliminates all of that. Sure, it's not bringing you back to "average person", but Framework have been super clear that's not who they're after. They want people in my bracket. To be honest, as a cohort, we've proven we're willing to (over)pay for this kind of thing, too. It's why the PC Market still exists despite graphics cards being overpriced by about double.
Upgradable to what? The ability to upgrade is well and good, but suppose the āendgameā configuration of an upgradable laptop was worse than the very base model of a non-upgradable. Why would you care about upgradability then?
Upgrading to a new processor, or in the case of Framework, perhaps better hinges or keyboards or the like is IMO much more important to the long term desirability of a laptop than a 5% better keyboard or trackpad or RGB LEDs on the chassis.
I feel like the term "endgame" has completely lost its meaning - an "endgame" laptop is likely to be wholly irrelevant in at most ten years, especially so if you buy a super high end machine and expect high end machine things from it long term.
Yeah, itās a dumb term, sorry. Top spec? Whatever it is.
Certainly itās fair to argue that the top spec will continue to grow year over year, like happens with long lived desktop CPU sockets. Framework is bearing this out! But that spec does have to actually be GOOD!
This is the hard part about what they are trying to do. Is a 12th gen in a Framework better than a 10th gen in an fully integrated laptop? If not, what does being able to upgrade to 12th gen mean?
The IBM PC platform worked so well because every annual component upgrade was an immense step forward. The macs, by contrast, began to dominate when the annual upgrades began to provide less benefit than seamless vertical integration didā¦
>Upgrading to a new processor You cannot upgrade the processor yourself. This is either an expensive repair or replacement of the entire motherboard.
That's a weird argument/hypothetical, because the Framework is not worse than the very base model of a non-upgradeable laptop.
Itās an extreme framing for the sake of thought experiment. More specifically, I believe for āupgradableā to be a meaningful sellable feature you need something like this:
LaptopA costs more than low-spec LaptopB. But LaptopB can be user upgraded post-purchase to be strictly superior to LaptopA (even though this costs a bit more in the end)
Or
LaptopA costs more than LaptopB. But LaptopB can be upgraded and customized to be superior than LaptopA under certain parameters (say, a high quality display) for a lower total price than LaptopA.
The idea of upgrading a laptop may sound great at first, but I don't think most people really want that.
After 2-3 years, my laptop is pretty beat up from carrying it around in a bag daily. I usually buy premium laptops, but still the hinges get loose, the corners bent, scratches everywhere, ports loose. Usually superficial issues like that make me buy a replacement before I really need upgraded chips.
> but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability
Back in the day we used to have upgradeable laptops that weren't rattling tin cans with uncomfortable displays. Making something worse than it was 20 years ago for more money isn't a value.
Also buying a laptop thatās not subsidized by ads and shovelware.
Please subsidize it by ads and shovelware, I'm not going to use the factory image anyways.
Take heart Steve Jobsā warning. If/When ads/shovelware are what are bringing in the money then they are the ones that end up running the company.
Happy Framework 13 user here to say this.
I recently realized the 32Gb I had originally spec'd isn't enough for work lately. Easy fix, I just ordered more RAM.
Pretty straightforward value prop here. If that's not why you want, buy a different device.
I'm torn on your take, because on one hand I agree wholeheartedly (I own a Framework 13, and considered the repairability to be a part of the price, and a little added bulk to be a trade off I was comfortable with), but on the other, I think there's just some entirely-reasonable human psychology at work here that expects a ā¬2k laptop to be premium in fit, finish, and polish.
But I do think Framework still has a ways to go when it comes to polish and build quality. I've had my 13 since August 2022, and had a ton of problems with it (thermal issues) that were only resolved nearly two years later, after lots of frustrating back-and-forth with support. I'm very happy with the laptop these days, but it shouldn't have taken that long to get there. I now have the 2023 Intel mainboard (the final resolution to my support case), and I'm looking forward to upgrading it to whatever the 2026 model turns out to be[0].
For me, Framework has been sort of a "stick with it for a while and it will get better" type of experience. And while it's worked out, that shouldn't be how it works. It should work well on day one. And frankly, based on the author's description of the Framework 16, it sounds like the 16 is not even up to the 13's level of polish.
[0] Well, we'll see what DRAM prices look like next year, as I have 64GB of DDR4 in my current laptop, and that same amount of DDR5 is not something I'd want to pay for right now.
> the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn
That value proposition isn't good enough for the machine you have to live with day after day. I think a lot of people get the value proposition, but Framework just isn't a good enough machine. Even if it might be an interesting platform.
And, the world still needs better Linux laptops. The value proposition in that demand apparently isn't resulting in them.
Is it fair to say that maybe the author doesn't value repairability? Maybe they just want a 'premium' laptop in the way the Apple laptops are premium, but want x86 and Linux/Windows? Surely for as large as a market there is for Apple laptops there is for a non-macOS equivalent.
The author begins by stating that "the absolute nightmare that is opening [the X1 Carbon] up to replace parts or clean them properly" rules it out.
He then eliminates the MacBook because if "something needs replacing I basically have an expensive paperweight, because everything is soldered together".
This would suggest that the author does, in theory at least, value repairability.
> an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine
The market assigns almost no value to these tenets, nor do the consumers participating in it.
Your assertion seems to be trivially proven false, given that Framework still exists as a going concern.
Though I suppose what you say is perhaps still true, if you allow "almost" to do a lot of work.
One can move the word "almost" to make more sense: it's only almost a market even if everyone in it is rabid about those features.
It's not a substantial share of the overall laptop market because, quoting from aboveā¦
people donāt consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a āpremiumā experience ... will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop
The flip side is technorati gripe about Apple (lack of) repairability, but their revealed preference then shifts back to this: a claim to want reliability but actions of shoppings for premium performance and fit and finish in slim value-holding form factors. To achieve those, particularly with durable value (and resale value to prove it), there's a way to make things that "repairability" generally makes compromises from.
Research has suggested Apple's approach ā laptops with 4x the usable and resalable life span ā results in less e-waste per capita than both the disposable and repairable ecosystems.
I guess repair-ability only matters if you expect the laptop to break. And there's no benchmarks for durability. But yeah I agree that upgrade-ability is of dubious value for most people.
Enterprises that buy ThinkPads do care about maintainability and Lenovo does provide parts and detailed instructions to repair almost every aspect of their machines.
Apple continues to be the elephant in the repairability room. You want something that likely wonāt need repair ever for its useful lifetime, a current MacBook is worth looking at. Upgradeability, nope.
Yup, Apple user since 2001, desktop and laptop, 20ish years in an office environment used for 8+ hours a day, now 5 years retired. Total faults - zero. Desire to upgrade RAM before rest of machine needed updates (eg storage+CPU+screen) - zero. Dissatisfaction with "Apple model": zero.
But... lately I've felt a hankering to run Linux as a first-class citizen rather than a VM and that's definitely a gap in Mac functionality. I wouldn't sacrifice the five years I enjoy MacOS on my machines for the ability to then move them to Linux, but it would still be nice.
I think the farther allow non-free implementations of technology to go, the harder it will be to bring us back from the brink.
We sacrifice our freedom now, because of convenience and feature sets thinking everything is going to work out in the end. In 25 years I think we are all going to look back on this moment and wish we didn't make the choices we did, myself included.
Having managed fleets of Macs (along with Windows and Linux machines) at last three $worksplace, repair/replace is no more hassle with Apple than Lenovo.
Arguably less, as if you have the right relationship with Apple, you can let your employee walk into any Genius Barā¢ for fix, or walk into Apple Store or visit your own smart hands crew (with inventory on hand), for an incredibly straightforward swap.
And to your point, it's almost never needed.
They are less repairable but not impossible. My M1 Air has had a new usb port and screen. Battery probably soon.
Sorry I didn't buy framework laptop but did find their prices high. Regarding assigning premium to repairability, wonder what's really premium about that? I mean in terms of materials used. Ignoring premiums paid for branding, I would think it's fair to charge premium if offering such feature comes with higher cost.
It depends on what "premium"/"luxury" mean to you. For some, red leather that has been masterfully tanned and stitched lining the interior of their car is premium. For others, the ability to transport you hundreds of thousands of miles in any terrain and any conditions with equipment failures that are rare and easy to fix is "premium". Being swaddled in high cost materials while stuck on the side of the road in a snowstorm isn't exactly a "premium" experience.
Likewise, for some, there is nothing premium about a product that 1) becomes a paperweight when a single component fails or is no longer sufficient to satisfy the user's changing desires. 2) Hasn't had engineering time and BOM on high-cost materials devoted to making the device easy-to-repair, or has had engineering resources spent making the device hostile to repair.
Framework doesn't just give you permission to repair and modify their product, they have engineered and designed a product that is easy and intuitive to repair and modify, and made out of materials that are designed and selected to endure being touched and manipulated, one great example that probably comes to mind for many FW13 owners that have opened the device is the touchpad cable finger loop in the FW13.
As any technician or DIY enthusiast might tell you, the materials e.g. Apple uses that you interact with during disassembly aren't exactly robustly made, and there is no sign that care or good taste was used when designing the disassembly procedures. But again, it depends on what you want, for some fragility enhances their experience of an object as premium and they have no interesting in upgrading/repairing their own device so the quality of that experience is irrelevant.
> "People (not necessarily the author, [...] will lament how manufacturers donāt have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price."
I desire sturdyness and repairability but anything larger than a 14-inch machine (and then only either as detachable or at least convertible) is completely inacceptable to me. And that 14-incher better be a dream. In other words: As small and light as possible, as big and heavy as neccessary.
2000 euros was a premium price 10 years ago, today it is closer to mid range
Uhh... What?
Not sure why youāre being downvoted, thatās a ridiculous statement. 2000ā¬ for a laptop is definitely premium pricing, not mid range.
I wouldnāt call anything with less than 64gb of memory premium, and if we look at macbooks were already looking above 3000
I agree, if they had a framework it would have been trivial to swap to a new keyboard.
Also I get annoyed where they say they donāt like it but donāt yet have an alternative.
>Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
I'm convinced that a lot of people have Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to niche products like Framework. The fact that Framework exists at all is amazing, and like you said, it's frustrating to see the lack of understanding of the core value proposition of Framework both in this post and HN.
The author seems to be very aware of the benefit of upgradability, but thats not an excuse for the shoddy experience. Some of the issues the author mentions are just absurd. Sharp edges, panels that creak? Come on.
I have a 12th Gen 13. No problems like that.
The sharp edges are exclusively an issue with the Framework 16 due to the spacers that allow you to change the alignment of the trackpad. It's definitely been one of my main annoyances with my F16 that I didn't experience with my F13. I've been scratched by them and had my arm hair caught and pulled.
However, Framework has already indicated that they are looking into providing an input module that spans the entire width of the device to eliminate the need for the spacers.
I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
I had a 12th-gen 13", and I had severe thermal throttling problems that took two years for Framework to resolve to my satisfaction (eventually they gave me a free 13th-gen upgrade that "solved" it).
I think the "I have X and don't see problems the author has" is a generally useless statement. Well, duh, sure, it's pretty rare that everyone will have the same problems. And some people will end up having no problems at all. But that doesn't invalidate the experiences of the people who do have problems.
One of the issues with the 16 is itās just a way worse value proposition than the 13.
The 13 is great. Iād even go as far as calling it a good deal, cheap even, especially if you DIY and bring your own memory and storage.
The 16 just gets badly outclassed by alternatives.
I think the problem is that once you get into that big laptop territory people start wanting more specific use cases like gaming or other performance metrics. There has to be a reason to want a big bulky laptop.
Plus, bigger laptops more frequently come with better repeatability.
I also find that thereās a lot more PC competition in the 15-16ā screen sizes. The framework 13ā is actually uniquely small/light. The Framework 16ā is somewhat worse packaging than its competitors.
The 16ā really needs to have an option for a 5070Ti and 5080.
You're not calling out the upgrade ability enough.
Most people comparing the price of a Framework seem to miss the long view. After the initial purchase, every upgrade is cheap compared to buying an entire laptop over and over again. Bonus that you can repurpose or sell the old mainboard.
There are better laptops than Framework when compared as one-to-one at a certain point in time, but that's missing the point of Framework's approach.
The point is that a laptop is a tool that you use every day. It needed to be reliable and very usable. Framework is compromising on usability in the service of upgradeability. It seems like you can have refined tool, or a repairable one.
Framework 13 11th gen has been my daily driver for years. It's reliable and very usable. Is it a $4k MBP? No. But compared to the bulk of laptops out there, one might even say it's refined I suppose. It's a sleek 3lb aluminum laptop. Like I said, there nicer laptops out there, but the Framework is a very capable tool.
I think youāve brought a really interesting point up. A lot of these laptops are the way they are because miniaturisation. Framework trades that off. But for some, this tradeoff isnāt in the right spot.
The challenge for framework is to build a modern laptop, that doesnāt have these tradeoffs. Which is an impossible challenge, hence why all of the other manufacturers ditched it. (That and repairability being bad for business)
So, a framework laptop, thatās as light, thin and fast as a mbp, while being a comparable price and being able to pull tabs to swap ram. The better their engineering, the closer they get to this and the more customers they can please.
I for one am delighted with my Framework laptop that started out as an Intel, is now an AMD, and has seen 3 rounds of in life upgrades. Zero regrets.
The author should have just bought a MacBook.
There are weirdos out there. I am looking for a bulkier and more hackable laptop! I bought a ThinkPad P14s Gen5 AMD which has turned out to be a flimsy, plastic (not magnesium like the Intel units), disappointing piece of shit with frequent (but known) GPU crash issues, which I bought because I had a certain moment when I needed a computer and the Framework 16 was still on last-gen hardware, which felt silly to buy so close to an inevitable upgrade. I wish I had, though. Not much difference between an 8840HS and a 7840HS, but a huge difference between even a fairly upgradable ThinkPad like the P14s and a Framework.
I bought a Framework 13 because I wanted to send a signal to the industry that there was a market for repairable devices with good Linux support.
I also wouldn't be buying anything from them in the future one because supporting a certain individual developer, DHH, who holds political opinions incompatible with my existence very easily makes the "buying Framework for political reasons" bit moot. Their CEO avoiding the issue and throwing a red herring (Hyprland) into the discussion didn't help either.
I know I'm certainly not the only one who feels this way.
I feel the same.
When I learned that Framework started sponsoring DHH's distro, my immediate thought was that I'm not going to buy anything from them ever again.
On the other hand, you can boycott only so many companies before you start boycotting yourself out of existence. One has to draw the line somewhere.
I just hope Framework is going to come to its senses and eventually stop supporting distros that are controlled by an openly racist individual.
I actually agree with boycotts not being effective. I'm not exactly boycotting Framework - but I will not accept getting less value than I could get elsewhere for the signaling power for repairability anymore. I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now, and Nirav wouldn't even address these concerns head-on (there is a thread; he posted in it; he hasn't mentioned Omarchy, RubyCon or DHH with one word).
It's unfortunate I feel similarly (though less strong) about Louis Rossman/FUTO, because I like it when right to repair has strong advocates.
> I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now
Are you? Or is it just that they are capable of working with people who have different political views to them? DHH is clearly right wing but I don't think it's abhorrent to work with right wing people full stop.
And yeah I've read the supposedly awful things he's written. I don't agree with them but they aren't that bad. I am centre-left for what it's worth (in the UK, which is probably just left in the US). But I also have the ability to understand other people's viewpoints.
I am not fucking around when I say incompatible with my existence. Of course I don't mean getting murdered, but advocating conversion therapy gets pretty close.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/bad-therapy-08849dc9
I wouldn't be around if this was policy where I live (Let's put aside that the UK is in fact pretty fucked on that)
I feel like Framework wasnāt for this customer. They would have been happier with a Lenovo or something or a Mac.
I agree, although I do not think even Lenovo would be enough.
Is 2000 eur even a lot of money? I think that gets you into better than dogshit laptop territory but I'd hesitate to claim that a 2000 eur purchase every >5 years puts you in "luxury" territory.
2000 euros gets you a 5070ti, i7 , 240hz screen, 32gb ram and 2tb storage. And with some left over.... That's a pretty nice laptop.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/16-3xs-gamer-5070-ti-qhdplus...
>Is 2000 eur even a lot of money?
Itās my entire professional lifeās computer investment - a MacBook Pro in 2013 and an m1 MacBook on 2020.
For a good laptop it wouldn't be too bad, i.e. my X1 Carbon cost me about the same back in 2019 if I remember correctly. But it's ultimately about the price/quality trade-off, and this is where I feel Framework has some work to do, at least with the 16 inch model.
> The Framework 16 weights about 2.2 kg according to my kitchen scale. For comparison, my X1 Carbon weights 1.3 kg. That may not seem like a big difference, but the extra kilogram makes carrying around the Framework 16 more difficult. In particular, I don't feel comfortable carrying it with just one hand while this isn't a problem with the X1.
The author wanted a bigger laptop but the straight goes and compares it to x1 carbon.
Modular ports
> Like the keyboard area the design is a bit janky though, with visible lines/space between the adapters and the case, though this at least is something you won't notice unless you're explicitly looking for it.
Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Yeah I never get this complaint about 16" laptops. Hell, I don't really get 16" laptops at all: they're huge! You're making a very strange trade off: they're only barely portable, and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop.
> they're only barely portable,
Maybe for a very small person or someone who strictly travels light? But Iāve never had any problem with 15ā or 16ā laptops even while traveling internationally.
> and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop
This isnāt really true any more unless your desktop is a gaming monster or full of multiple drives or something. I can have a 128GB RAM laptop with ultra fast CPU on the go now and itās not a problem.
You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
Laptops are thermally inefficient and require throttling even with active cooling, meaning mobile chipsets are programmed to emit less heat over time. You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
Then there's the fact that mobile chips are TDP capped at much lower rates than desktops, both to save power and to limit heat.
Theoretically, your mobile chipset has a better $/Wh rate, but you leave some performance on the table compared to desktops.
> You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
So? I canāt carry a full desktop or even Mini ITX build around just in case I need to run a very long sustained load at absolute peak performance.
My 16ā MacBook Pro has no problem consuming 80W or more at a time. The fans spin up, but itās fine. Itās basically near desktop level performance for everything Iām actually doing on the go.
I think people talking about the sacrifices of laptops are either comparing to extreme high end builds or theyāre stuck thinking about laptops from 6 years ago.
A 16ā MacBook Pro is basically a high end Mac Mini or a base Mac Studio with a battery and screen built in. They only really start to diverge from the bigger machines when you get into the really expensive Mac Studio builds.
> You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
If youāre looking for sustained high performance computing then a laptop is a bad choice, I agree. But what are we even talking about here? Even for compiling large codebases or exporting a YouTube length video project, you donāt need the full thermal solution of a desktop anymore.
Throttling also isnāt a hard stop where the system comes to a halt any more. It just means the system is 60-80% as fast as it could be, which is still very fast. Throttling has become a bogeyman but really, itās fine. Iāll take the boost for compiling that big project for several minutes. Itās great.
Iām guessing some of these comments are coming from people who havenāt experienced modern MacBook Pro level laptops?
I have a 17" XPS and it's great as a computer for that floor of the house. Ie: for sitting at the kitchen table or the couch. I have a 13" for portability which is great because it's so small and light.
MacBook pros these days are really heavy. Having a MBP and an Air is actually a fair inventory but the MBP is just so expensive.
I do like the desktop form factor of keyboard and monitor but the 17"er is nice to use while I'm up making coffee in the morning or while sitting on the couch at night
My vision gets worse as I age. A larger screen lets me continue working with the same amount of code, etc. as when I was younger with a smaller screen.
The majority of 16"+ machines are being made specifically as portable desktops. The target audience is college kids. If you live in a dorm that you have to move in and out of yearly, it is leagues easier to travel with a bulky laptop than even a small form factor desktop machine, because of all the peripherals needed to run it.
> The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Indeed, I just pressed a "Buy now" button without a moment's thought. Clearly the fault is all mine.
So basically this article is 50/50 insightful and helpful feedback from a Framework customer, mixed with gripes by someone who bought the wrong laptop for them. Part of the reason this is getting a sour response is that most laptop companies don't even offer the choice of a larger, more expandable model. Framework does, and you bought it despite not actually wanting that, then dinged it for the compromises inherent in the design you chose. It seems like the 13.5" Framework was the obvious fit for your needs?
To use a silly food analogy, imagine there's a popular salsa company. The customer base has been clamoring for them to release an extra-hot salsa that also has corn in it, though that's a polarizing combination. A purchaser gives it a bad review because, in addition to some very legitimate critiques of the spice flavors, it's too hot and corn doesn't belong in salsa. People who wanted the extra-hot salsa with corn have a point when they say that person should have reviewed the medium salsa without corn.
All of the complaints you had are extremely reasonable reasons to not want the Framework 16 (or any Framework). While I personally am quite happy with mine, I very much believe that it is not for everyone, and in fact has quite a niche audience. That being said, most of your complaints should have been obvious from viewing images or reading any of the numerous reviews. So yes, I agree with the GP comment that you seem to have bought the computer without knowing what you wanted and/or what the Framework offered/was.
Being more expensive, heavier, and worse "fit and finish" is pretty much the tradeoff for upgradeability and repairability. Not everyone values those things to the same degree, and deciding that those tradeoffs are not worth it is completely reasonable. I just don't understand how you could get wind up buying one without knowing those were the tradeoffs you were making. I've read almost every one of these complaints in previous reviews. It's not exactly a secret.
I don't recommended getting a Framework to anyone who isn't interested specifically in repairability, as it has its quirks and doesn't feel like something which should cost this much. I've broken something in every laptop I've ever owned (+the butterfly keyboard in a company 2019 MBP), so to me it's an important feature.
That being said my previous device - a "gaming" laptop - was essentially e-waste two years after purchase because firmware updates stopped despite there being unresolved issues and the official parts store didn't even have basic items like fans, which I had to get from AliExpress instead. Eventually it was the cheapo Intel SSD which did it in, as it slowed to a crawl from being 80% full for too long.
I think there's a problem with my 1yo FW16's keyboard as during intense gaming the "D" key temporarily just stops responding, but if it ever fails completely I can order a new keyboard and once it arrives replace it literally within a minute.
Other parts take longer, but the general idea is that any sort of malfunction is manageable.
> This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't sitting in the bottom right corner of your eye when you look at the display.
This is about the power LED and it makes me wonder how dark is the author's environment? Is that healthy?
I have two Framework 13 DIY, top of the line (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 96 GB of RAM, 2TB WD BLACK SN850X). Well, TBH just one, the other one was stolen with less than one month, but that's a different story.
Can't be happier with this choice.
First of all, now I feel confident I can easily tinker with my laptop, open it and replace any components. No, I'm not repeating their Marketing, I'm truly confident now. Some months ago my previous Lenovo X1 Carbon stopped charging and I was scared as hell. Sure, I have everything in version control and cloud drives blah blah blah but if it doesn't charge, it's dead. Sure, I can extract the NVMe (is it easy at all?) and rsync the data (for a faster recovery) but is that easy, feasible, can I do it on the go (X1 stopped charging while I was on a trip).
The Framework 13 DIY I built it in less than 10 minutes. I can easily disassemble again in a heartbeat. This is priceless.
Other than this, build quality is higher than expected, and several other people said exactly the same when I showed my unit. Powerful? Most than any desktop out there. Perfectly portable. Works well OOB with Linux. What else do I need? Nothing, it's my laptop and will be the next one.
(Actually the next one may be cheaper, as I may only need to replace the motherboard, we will see)
What's the battery life you're getting out of the Ryzen AI 9?
TBH I haven't deeply tested it yet. Laptop is a few days old and I'm still "automating the install" (Ubuntu autoinstall + Ansible tasks for post-installation including BIOS upgrade and install Nix + Nix and home manager to install everything else; post(s) upcoming), so I haven't done "production use" yet.
Anyway, and while I love long battery life, it's not my main concern. Most of the time I have a power socket available and/or a nice portable battery pack that does the job. Laptop feels so much faster than my X1 Carbon that everything else seems to be a distant second feature.
P.S. Hi, Yorick, again, not the first time we cross paths ;)
As a long time Linux user I only recently tried my first framework (12), and shortly after got the 13 too because I realized that this is the laptop for me.
I wish I had realized it earlier.
But it's so refreshing as a linux user to use a laptop actually designed for linux, and have everything work so great out of box like battery and wifi.
Sure I've always used Laptops famously Linux-friendly, but it was still hit or miss, especially with new releases, and you always felt like you were breaking warranty somehow.
The entire experience buying a Framework, and using it, has been amazing. I'm hooked.
Yes, that does sound good, but if someone wants an inexpensive laptop that is also āactually designed for Linuxā, they should keep in mind Chromebooks. I donāt think of these as competitors to the framework, but as a lower end alternative that is usually overlooked.
kinda similar experience with my thinkpad t14s gen 2 amd (what a name.) I like framework's philosophy, but there's so many refurbished business laptops out there (many unused) that I like upgrading every few years to a 3-4 yr old laptop.
Getting a laptop that's linux certified has been better than I thought, things like sleep and power management "Just Work" whereas on other laptops I'd spend more time configuring TLP or even just hibernating every time because I couldn't get a good sleep experience. Hope this inspires the other manufacturers to work on getting this working out of the box.
OP wrote:
"My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7... A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working. I decided it was time to look for a replacement."
Isn't that like deciding to replace your bike because some of the cables are rusted? Like a new set of cables, a new keyboard is a small expense compared to a whole new laptop.
Like replacing bike cables, swapping in a new Carbon X7 keyboard might be slightly challenging for an amateur. iFixit calls the keyboard replacement "moderate" in difficulty [1] taking about an hour with a new keyboard running about a hundred bucks. But it would be a simple job for a repair shop. So it seems hard to justify the expense of a whole new one rather than just the new part.
Of course, sometimes you just want a new laptop, because the bike analogy breaks down a little: unlike bikes, newer ones are inherently faster.
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X1+Carbon+7th+G...
Generation 7. I realize you acknowledged the hardware age, but it's really the difference in my own workflows and experience.
I'm still on a Gen 8 i7 (with 40 GB RAM, to boot) T480s. I take pretty good care of my machine, so it's still in superb physical shape.
But, given today's massive webapps and video calls while having my workspace programs open, I'm in Hell. A failing keyboard would probably push me to repurpose the current machine and upgrade as well (and still replace the keyboard for kicks).
If I wasn't strapped for cash, I would have bought an AMD Framework eons ago.
Your analogy wonāt hold scrutiny with a competitive cyclist: newer bikes are also faster given the same rider, even if not as meaningfully as a new CPU.
And modern bikes do make with the need for cable replacement or breakage (hydro lines and electric shifting, while more expensive to service, also require much less of it).
Life tip: Noone appreciates and there's no utility in nitpicking analogies. They're never the actual point of the message and it's incredibly rude and socially inept to lock onto a side quest like that.
idk, the OP is all about the author misunderstanding what they bought. Hence a comment about bikes not understanding bikes deserves just as much scrutiny.
My own life tip: there are plenty of good analogies, so no need to choose use an example you are not familiar with.
With this comment you completely validate izacus (shaky) judgement call: when you write "a comment about bikes not understanding bikes" you are clearly more interested in being rude than pointing out a flaw in the analogy.
We all see that OP does understand bikes in the general sense, indeed the fact you are nitpicking instead of trying to explain one of the many fundamental difference means you think that as well.
To me, it suggests that analogies aren't as useful as we'd like them to be. Either the analogy is perfect, in which case nothing is any simpler, or it's imperfect, in which case you're now distracted by the differences.
They're not totally without value but I find that it's generally better to avoid a analogies. Look for some other route to make the point.
> One option is the Framework 13 given that it solves at least some issues I have with the Framework 16 (e.g. it's bulkiness and inability to lower the brightness further), but it also seems to share many of the other issues such as poor speaker quality and (at least from hat I could find) worse heat regulation, and a (possibly) worse battery.
The speakers are bad, but as a 13 owner I don't see or understand the heat or battery complaints specifically vs. the 16, it's considerably better on both fronts in the current iterations of the 13.
Unless you're comparing them to a Mac running macOS? It isn't clear, but in which case yeah, obviously it's worse than a Mac.
What I don't understand is why you bought the 16 instead of the 13. You didn't seem to need or use the discrete GPU, which is arguably the entire reason it exists. The only other feature you mention as useful that the 13 doesn't have is QMK support.
I literally mention the reason in the article in the "Configuration" section (https://yorickpeterse.com/articles/im-returning-my-framework...)...
Yeah, and as others have noted here in the comments, it doesn't make sense.
You don't want bulk, but you chose the bulkiest option. You want a display with more even brightness and colors, but you chose the model intentionally built around a more refresh-performant but uneven display. You either don't care about or didn't bother measuring GPU performance, but you chose the model designed entirely around novel GPU features.
You cite unsourced reports of 13s having anti-properties, but it reads like you didn't research either newer 13s or the 16 at all.
I'm by no means an HP fan, but EliteBooks have pretty great repairability and (unintentionally) great Linux support. Though they are a bit bulky compared to laptops that have been soldered together. So there are definitely more options.
I dual boot Asahi and Mac OS X on my Macbook Air, and haven't had any problems with suspend. IMO the two biggest problems are lack of USB-C display output (although this is less of a problem with the Macbook Pro since you can use HDMI) and having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop).
It seems like he's looking for a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options there. I'm not sure why he even considered the Framework, it's pretty obvious from looking at it that the downside for the configurability is the laptop not being as solidly built as less configurable/repairable alternatives. I would have suggested a Dell XPS if he's ruled out the X1 Carbon, but it looks like Dell still hasn't backtracked from their decision to ruin the XPS keyboard by replacing the function keys with an even less functional ripoff of the Apple touchbar from 10 years ago. I guess the best move is to suck it up and go with the X1 Carbon and deal with the screen resolution for the IPS version being 1200p.
> a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options
Thereās been a bunch of Windows ARM laptops that aim to directly compete with the M series Macs. Linux compatibility will depend on make on model.
As far as I'm aware, all of the Snapdragon ARM laptops are existing chassis designs with different motherboards. I'm not sure how ARM affects build quality. Moreover, Snapdragon X support on Linux is still heavily a work in progress with issues with sound, power management, webcam support, and video acceleration. I don't know why anyone would go with a Snapdragon laptop today when Intel Lunar Lake excels at the exact same workloads Snapdragon X does, has similar battery life, and Intel actually works on getting device support upstreamed in a timely manner.
Just curious in case somebody knows. Are OLED displays in laptops bad at low light? He cites that as a reason he doesnāt want OLED, but Iāve never noticed such a problem on OLED phones.
I'd say the inverse is true: OLEDs are the best in low light, as they generally dim well and black means zero illumination of the pixel. Author is ill-informed. Also, OLED burn-in is a non-issue with current displays in any normal situation (e.g. not a kiosk or arcade or other sort of always-on static dashboard).
I'm using an OLED X1 Carbon right now in the UK. I use it all the time in low light.
I just turned all the lights off (even the Christmas tree) and ran through a handful of usage situations and couldn't see any issues. I turned some lights on and did the same, I couldn't see any issues. I asked Claude, and got told to do the finger test, and that is barely perceptible. I then used my phone to record the screen and yes - I can confirm that there is an effect that my pixel 9a's camera picks up, barely noticeable at 240Hz, and definitely noticeable at 480Hz.
Maybe the guy is particularly sensitive, but from the framing of the rest of the article I think he's blowing a few things out of proportion.
I probably should've done a better job at clarifying this, but my issue with OLEDs isn't just that (at least historically) they tend to be too bright even at lower brightness, but also the other issues they come with such as burn-in and text potentially looking less pleasant compared to IPSs displays. Burn-in is probably my biggest concern here, especially since it really seems to be a case of winning the lottery or not (i.e. for some it's fine for years, others get burn-in after just a few months).
Basically I just trust IPS more than any other technology :)
Burn-out probably depends on the model, not a lottery, but shouldn't be a major concern for typical usage patterns in recent models. The text issue is caused by a pentile subpixel layout which are no longer common. I love OLED for low-light evening usage because IPS displays always have some backlight bleed, whereas OLEDs can display true blacks/pure warm tones which I find much more pleasant in the evenings. IMO power consumption is the only major downside of OLED displays for general-purpose laptops and phones.
I've only recently bought OLED laptops so I can't speak to burn-in but out of the three I've tested, they have a lower minimum brightness than my other IPS laptops.
In terms of text clarity, "2k" OLEDs (1920x1200) are a bit blurry. IPSs and 3k OLEDs are noticeably sharper, with not much difference between each other.
For the brightness issue, if you are running X:
allow dimming display beyond normal max dimming:
restore to normal brightness range: (substitute the actual output name for your display instead of eDP; run xrandr without args to list)nice! didn't know about that. Thanks!
Someone was upset about it. The comment was down voted?
Try to be helpful.
A lot of computers with OLED displays use PWM for the low brightness levels, and he seems like the type of person who would be sensitive to that sort of thing.
PWM is the only useful way to drive an LED and the people who deny this are, to me, hilarious. In fact for the author's stated use case of low light conditions PWM really is the only way to do it without wrecking accuracy (and efficiency).
OLED phones are bad because of flicker
On iPhones at least you can disable PWM dimming at lower brightness level at the expense of color accuracy. It's in Accessibility/Display settings.
Now tell me a model which has this given that OLEDs are here since iPhone X
Hint: the only one was released in a year that ends with 25
> having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop)
How so? Is this because some proprietary software that isn't available on ARM on Linux?
Most server and embedded oriented software has been compiled for ARM 7 & 8 for a while now, but in my experience, software you'd use on a desktop might not have ARM builds unless it's popular with RPi or handheld gaming enthusiasts.
Author doesn't cite how they decided that only MacBook or Framework would fit their needs. I've never had trouble with Dell laptops with any Linux distro I cared about. If I wanted a powerful Linux laptop, I'd probably look at something like Dell's premium model:
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/dell-16-p...
I bought a few refurbished Dell laptops/desktops in recent years, and while older models hold fine, more recent models broke down quite easily within a year. Sure all of them are refurbished models (purchased through official website) that cost from $400 CAD to $800 CAD but I'm sketchy of the build quality of recent models.
Good to know. My most recent is from 2021 and it holds up quite well.
What model did you buy? Was it a new one? I'm looking for anything that can live up to 5+ years. I have seen all kinds of issues, and the most frustrating thing is, most of the issues are small but deal-breaking.
My first laptop back in 2005ish or so was a Dell Latitude. Ran XP until Vista came out and I switch to Linux which it ran for a couple years until it was stolen from my car. I recall unimaginable pain and suffering due to wifi, which, IIRC, I side-stepped by buying replacing the stock Broadcom card with an Atheros card and I'm certain is not nearly much of an issue as it used to be.
2005 is a really long time ago.
When it comes to WiFi on Linux, 2005 experiences are irrelevant to today.
I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardware thing, but both would sometimes act as if there was a phantom touch somewhere on the trackpad which messed with my actual input. One of them had a keyboard where key caps of frequently used keys (super, shift, ctrl) would split in two after a ~year of use; this was not fixed under warranty, I paid out of pocket after a year of ownership, another year later it happened again.
After those two Dell XPS laptops, I got a MacBook Pro 2021 with an M1 Pro instead of getting the keyboard fixed again. No issues. Linux support isn't great, but at least macOS is a relatively competent UNIX so it's fine.
I might consider another non-Mac laptop in the future. But it's not gonna be a Dell.
I think I may have the same 2015 13" model you are describing. Which distro were you running out of curiosity?
Mostly Arch Linux at the time, though I've had Elementary OS on it as well. I used to run i3 (and eventually Sway) on it, which worked well since I could have a keyboard-centric workflow and not rely o bc the trackpad.
Huh. I wonder if they were both hardware issues. I've run arch on my laptop with no issues.
I have had many Dells that have been great with FreeBSD and with Linux. You do have to do your research though.
Frankly, I wouldn't expect any touchscreen to work with Linux. That's not a Dell issue though.
The XPS I bought in 2018 has a Wacom digitiser for touch/pen and I believe those are very well supported.
A clean install of Ubuntu and the touchscreen and all pen features worked perfectly and never had a hiccup since.
Interestingly, the touch screen of the 2-in-1 worked really well! I often relied on the touch screen to do light web browsing when the trackpad was acting up.
I did briefly look into the XPS series but it seems this series isn't really a thing anymore? I also found a lot of comments describing recurring issues with the trackpad (or was it the keyboard? I can't remember). Basically it seemed like too much of a gamble.
I'm not a massive fan of the hardware or anything, but most Dell laptops (including this premium one I linked) are tested to work with Ubuntu. If you're ok to use an Ubuntu-derivative as your distro, you should almost always have that as an option. Much like the Framework, it should be easily returnable if you have an issue.
How is Dell's firmware security story?
I can't think of many things I care less about than firmware security, so I am personally not sure.
Sure, it's only a place for permanent rootkits and bootkits to proliferate, why care about it at all?
Please don't trigger my Dell PTSD. This is garbage tier hardware designed to harass employees.
If your company demands/keeps buying the shittiest, cheapest plastic Dell laptops instead of XPSes or higher end Latitudes/Precisions, that's not Dell's fault.
My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.
Nothing says quality like a display option with a picture comparable to a cheap portable DVD player from 2007.
This is a good call.
I wonder what this means:
> featuring up to 80W of performance
Probably marketing reading the power adapter
Yeah but why is marketing regarding the power adapter in the headline?
Ok
I've had a Framework 13 for nearly a year, been very happy with it, I've taken it on international work trips but it mostly sits on my desk with external displays attached. I ran Windows on it until I switched jobs, now its Ubuntu.
I also have an X1 Nano, which I love too, its the around-the-house laptop and a great little machine but whenever it dies, if I replace it at all, it will likely be with another Framework (perhaps the 12")
The real test will be in 2-3 years when I'm itching for an upgrade, assuming Framework is still around, I'll be able to swap out the MoBo and leave everything else as-is. We'll see.
Same. I'm very happy with my FW13 too. It replaces the MBA for my purposes -- dev on linux (mostly webdev on this machine, have a remote machine for gpu/heavy work), web browsing, streaming, some very light gaming (portal 2 on steam).
I'm waiting on that test too :) a few more cpu generations and I'll be itching to upgrade. I'm excited to for that to happen.
I ordered a framework desktop and got it "by accident" - in that I forgot that I had put down a deposit on a fully maxed out Ai MAX395+. After a few days of using it, I decided to keep it, and given how incredibly expensive 8tb NVMe drives and DDR5-8000 has beocme since then (even if you could get DDR-8000 on desktop form factor) - I don't regret that decision at all. It's a great little box - and AI is getting closer to colser to being a good experience.
That said, I have run into a set of frustrations with it: 1) The PCIEx is completely useless on the board. Forget about room for the slot - it's not exposed, there isn't enough exposure inside of the case. This is a real miss - It seems perfect for a occulink port or another USB4 port. 2) USB4 + PCIe tunneling was a mess. Seems to be working better now. 3) There are some real thermal envelopes that are resulting in similar systems with the exact same architecture running 10% faster then this box. That's a big bummer - apparently it's tunable in their bios, but framework really limits the bios settings. 4) Randomly right now, the latest kernel on Ubuntu seems to freeze on boot. No idea why - I can move to the older .5 kernel, and it;s working.
All that said, for what it offers - Framework offers a lot. I really honestly believe that either Mac or Framework is the way to go if you need significant compute power on the desktop.
I feel ya on the PCIe slot. And the on-board NICs are sub-par Realtek garbage, unacceptable both on features and quality. However, you can fit a small SFP+ card inside if you (a) cut out a correctly shaped hole in your case, and (b) turn the fan on at 40% instead of letting it turn off. The card will sit at a small angle but work fine, and with some 3D printing I even got a mounting bracket in to keep it stable. A lower profile connector, like USB 4, might fit outright.
Yeah, I was thinking of running a Occulink connector to the side of the case, the problem is that this would need a riser, and I don't think that occulink - even with a redriver, would do well with two additional physical connectors.
On the 5GB realtek - i think their 5G is far better then their 1g or 2.5g devices where.
Why would an OLED display not make sense in a low light livingroom situation? I really donāt understand it, what is the issue in this specific scenario?
Yeah doesn't make sense, if anything its the opposite.
Burn in is probably a valid concern though.
I think the author is confused here. Low-light conditions are one of the important use cases for OLED, due to the vastly better blacks.
I can't speak to the rest of the text or the laptops themselves, but as someone who works with color reproducibility in video and print, those photos comparing colors of two different screens are worse than useless.
Uncalibrated screens photographed at different angles in different lighting conditions are not a valid basis for comparison. If you want properly calibrated displays, you need to purchase hardware (datacolor makes one such device) and calibrate them.
Even "factory-calibrated" monitors will benefit from this, because the quality of that calibration varies widely and your color reproduction is going to vary based on ambient lighting conditions etc.
The photos are just meant to illustrate the difference to the reader, not to be anything scientific. Of course manual calibration is ideal, but having a somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine.
Problem is, display profile support for Wayland has been, at best, spotty until recently - and, there should be multiple accurate targets available on any good display panel.
My factory-seconds F13 (using 11th-gen Intel, still the best in terms of power savings) shipped with the older glossy display, which had a known, disclosed-as-cheaper LUT issue at lower brightness settings. After a couple of calibration rounds, it is spot-on and my go-to PC laptop.
Decent keyboard, too.
Of course, things are often more expensive in Europe (compared to the US) for zero good reason, so the F16 will always be at a proportional disadvantage compared to the F13. You may find that a much better fit.
I can add anecdata for the factory profile being very over-red - it's quite obvious out of the box. Not as bad as many Samsung OLED phones you see in stores (typically set to some crazy "enhanced" mode), but it's certainly closer to them than a calibrated screen.
One thing that has bugged me for a while though: why isn't it possible to make my own color profile by hand? Everything seems to imply that you can only get a profile definition file from a calibration device, and I don't have one... but I can eyeball it significantly better than the default profile. Is there something software out there that will let me adjust my curves, like the OS already does with night-mode color balance changes?
I too would be interested in such a tool. I've had some luck finding close-enough ICC profiles, but it would be great to dial it in.
Welcome to Apple, enjoy your M1/M2 :)
Sorry your product experience was sub-par. We have four of the various revisions and the quality is on par with the other laptops in the price bracket. Framework versus MacBook - Not even a comparison - One of them you can do whatever you want with, and the other not so much. Linux is the best option for these computers, as with Windozers the battery life is worse. Baseline CPU idle on a clean linux install is like 0.5% - this results in a low power use battery life of about 7 hours on the 13" model under web browsing/audio playing loads.
My Framework seems to get worse battery life on Linux than Windows. Different tools like powertop help close the gap, but inevitably if I put the framework in a bag for a week, it'll be dead when I take it out
If your laptop is using a recent AMD Ryzen based SoC:
ACPI C4 power state (for powering down more of the SoC during S0ix suspend) is not supported on Linux yet, for recent (last couple years) AMD processors.
Patches submitted for 6.18 were described as "laying the foundation for AMD C4 support". So, maybe won't be fully supported until 6.19 or even later; Sorry, I haven't followed up to see what has actually landed.
Thank you - Good info
I shut mine down completely and haven't had the battery drain issue, but on "modern standby," yes these don't last very long. Probably 2-3% per hour on standby and worse than that if anything is plugged into the expansion slots.
If you're going to put it in a bag for a week, why not use some kind of hibernation feature?
Rather subjective. I'm really happy with a used "16 gaming laptop, top performance, memory ssd extendable, extremely good display for ~1200ā¬. Build quality is "ok" and creeks a bit, but magnitudes better value than a Thinkpad/Mac, even used ones.
I probably should have returned mine. I still love the idea of the device, but the speakers, display, and trackpad are subpar. I get that I'm spoiled by the quality of a MacBook Pro in those areas, but they still feel worse than other laptops I've tried.
Also he says he's never heard the fans spin up but I've had the system spin the fans up very high and they get loud. And the spin-up was definitely valid the times when I checked because the device was extremely hot, I think from charging.
Now the laptop is being used as a server. Ended up being good for Jellyfin because I can have the GPU handle transcoding and tonemapping of 4K HDR movies.
Would be cool if Framework would sell speakers, a display, trackpad and housing comparable in quality to a MacBook Pro. It would have a high pricetag but you could slowly upgrade your machine. Especially since swapping out speakers or a trackpad is so easy.
Right now the Laptop 13 speaker kit is ā¬20 but they could offer a ā¬150 option that performs similar to a MacBook Pro for people who value sound.
It's not only a matter of having better hardware (though it certainly helps a lot). For example, Apple does a lot of software tuning and tweaking to make the Macbook speakers sound as good as they do. And it's been fascinating to read the extent of work Asahi Linux had to do to recreate the software portion of Macbook's audio stack.
https://asahilinux.org/docs/sw/audio-userspace/ https://github.com/AsahiLinux/asahi-audio
They should be able to offer a better trackpad module (and I've been hoping that they eventually do). The speakers seem like a harder problem to solve. The acoustic engineering that goes into designing a good speaker involves every element that can interact with the sound waves, not just the driver itself.
The problem is you need correction EQ built into to the drivers tuned to the enclosure (in addition to loudspeakers that are also designed accounting for their directionality, position, and the volume of the enclosure).
I don't understand the author, on the one hand he complains about the repairability of the thinkpads (which is weird in itself, they are still the most repairable laptops bar framework, especially because it's trivial to find resellers for pretty much all the parts. If finding all the screws is a problem, then you can just look at the repair manuals which are freely available. But after complaining about repairability he the looks at apples as alternative, which are like orders of magnitude less repairable than thinkpads.
>A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working
For a couple decades I was running exclusively Thinkpads, and always loved replacing the keyboard because it made it feel like an entirely new laptop. It also usually was quite easy and inexpensive. Probably worth doing in this case if there are no good alternatives.
Unfortunately, the X1 Carbon is, due to the form factor, a bit tricky, but probably won't take more than an hour or two depending on your skill level. You have to go in through the back, and there are around 100 screws that need to be removed and reinstalled.
Could be worse though, I replaced a friends daughter's keyboard in her Dell, and that was a similar remove-the-motherboard operation, but the keyboard was plastic welded in place.
TL;dr Framework isn't worth the price. If you put it apples to apples with a great product like the M1, Framework loses everywhere.
I had the same conclusion after daily driving both for 2 years; until yesterday, when my water bottle opened in my backpack and soaked them.
When I got home, I ripped apart my Framework and dried each piece. I left the M1 by my heater and tried to dry it out. This morning, I put the Framework back together, and everything except the keyboard works. The M1 won't boot.
While I did pay a ridiculous amount for my Framework, the keyboard is 50$ to replace. After the M1 design had me feeling it was more premium, it ultimately failed first.
Any repair shops specialized in saving devices from water in your area?
Haven't had a laptop rescued yet, but there was a phone simply dropped in water in my family. I put it in a 1 kg rice bag, drove to the repair shop. I don't know what magic they did but it worked for 2 more years until we upgraded it.
As the multiple siblings say, let it sit. Some desiccant next to it to suck moisture out of the air will help - rice is famously OK for this - no need to put it in the desiccant. A little bit of airflow is also good.
You may also find that rotating it into different positions accelerates it.
To be fair I once spilled water all over my Macbook's keyboard. It wouldn't boot for weeks afterward. I got a new computer and then checked back a few months later and my Macbook was magically able to boot.
As the sibling says, itās definitely worth waiting at least a week or two to see if the M1 recovers. Iāve had the same experience.
I'm quite happy with mine, and like the keyboard in general though I can see why a coming from a decent Thinkpad would feel like a downgrade. I like it a lot better than the "butterfly" keyboards Apple insisted on, however, and have used quite a few more-expensive laptops with much worse keyboards. And I have gotten WAY more use out of the swappable ports than I expected, that's a killer feature imo.
The price is a "put your money where your mouth is" purchase for me on repairability - it's absolutely not competitive with a same-priced machine. But it's not too crazy if you upgrade or replace damaged parts, the significantly lower costs there add up extremely quickly.
The speakers though. Holy cow. They're truly awful and I think they drag down the entire product - put them over 50% and they blow out the sound and distort extremely badly. They really need to change them, I'd happily pay a premium to get something more usable.
Nothing beats a MacBook Air if youāre not chasing raw performance.
I ended up with two machines:
- MacBook Air (16GB)
- MINISFORUM UM870 with 48GB RAM
The Air is unbeatable for portability and battery life. The MinisForum is still āportable enoughā and gives me real horsepower when I need it.
I flew SF -> NY -> SF with the MinisForum and a portable monitor as carry-on. Everything fit in a Trader Joeās tote bag. I even presented a conference talk using that setup.
For ~$2k total, you can buy:
- a MacBook Air
- a small PC + one or two portable monitors
- and still have money left
IMO the era of $2-3ā4k ādo-everythingā laptops is over. I don't see how and why they're competitive.
So basically the same price as an already decently upgradable Thinkpad P1 G8 on sale, but with a terrible screen and janky chassis. Plus it costs about the same to upgrade as getting a new machine, but then you no longer have the ability to throw Linux on the old one and donate it to a school or less fortune person. Tough sell.
> two thousand Euros
There is a lot of weight put into this number...and it seems that everyone forgot why US makers prices have inflated to this point. It's not to polish the "premium" experience, it's tariffs spread on the whole customer base.
Framework 16 owner here, had mine for a year and a half. While most of this post is also true in my experience, I just donāt care. These are largely small cosmetic nitpicks that you need to look for to notice. The only complaints here that I really share are the jankiness of the spacers (a little jarring at first, but now Iām used to it), and the speakers really are noticeably worse than any of my other devices. So? I donāt watch movies on it, or listen to music, thatās what I have a TV and headphones for.
Seems inarguable that you can get a much more āpremiumā laptop for about the same cost. But I didnāt buy a framework for a āpremiumā feelā¦ I was hoping to buy the last laptop Iāll ever need. And so far Iām happy with the result!
PS: the battery life is by far the best of any laptop Iāve owned. Maybe that just shows that my previous ones were junk, but Iām quite happy with it
PPS: I should note my employer was willing to buy it for me, so price was much less of a concern. Not everyone is so lucky ofc
I know, the repairability isnāt great, and theyāre not upgradable at all. macOS can be annoying and restrictive. But life is short, so I just buy MacBook Pros. I wasted too many hours in my 20s getting Linux to work on the desktop (not to mention a laptop).
Tbh I just bought a 250ā¬ refurb laptop, it has 14k cpu benchmark and 16gb ram, 256gb ssd.
Honestly do you need more to do terminal emulation? No, you don't.
Ok I won't play bg3 on this but that's good, it means I'll be productive !
> I read various reports of the Framework 13 having issues with poor battery life, fan noise, heating, etc
Intriguing, I read the same but instead for the Framework 16. I ended up getting the AMD 7040 Framework 13 because of those reviews.
The Framework 16 seems like a pretty unappealing device to me due to the bulk and cost, which is unfortunate. I have a 13 and absolutely love it, but the one thing is that I wish it had a direct PCI-e extension slot that I could use with an e-GPU. Thunderbolt is just too slow.
Im in a frustrating situation now where my laptop has a way faster CPU than my desktop, and my desktop has a way faster GPU than the laptop. I really wish I could use my big fancy GPU with my laptop without a massive performance loss.
> A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, -, = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent.
I had the same problem on my X1 Carbon generation 6 and managed to fix it simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the keyboard ribbon cable. It's a very easy fix, the only thing you have to unscrew is the bottom cover.
I may be wrong here but IIRC at least with the 7th generation you have to disassemble the whole thing to get to the keyboard. I'll have to take a look though, because if it's really that simple then I may be able to make my life a bit easier. Thanks for the suggestion :)
I ran linux for 15 years on a range of different machines. Desktop the most successfully. For laptops I tried everything but once I switched to a mac Iāve never gone back. The hardware is at least twice as good as any other laptop.
Iāve seen framework getting a lot of mind share recently. Especially with DHH singing their praises. I have come to loathe apple software over the years but canāt get over terrible build quality.
I thought framework was supposed to be the premium linux option but after reading this it looks same quality as all those windows turned linux machines.
I was in a similar situation to OP: my Carbon X1 Gen 8 keys, notably `/` and some arrows keys, stopped functioning. Sometimes they did, but it was very erratic.
Luckily, when I replaced the battery (got a lot from iFixit) and tightened all other screws, the keys magically started working again.
Saved me quite a few dollars.
A new keyboard for X1 Carbon 7th gen is available on e-bay for the price of $50-100.
A faulty keyboard is IMO not a good reason to replace a whole computer.
Display being bright even on the lowest setting:
I wonder about rshifting the raster bytes...
kind of short sided on the laptop choices. M1/2 for Asahi or Framework. What?
Plenty of options from HP, not to mention German-assembled Tuxedo, and System76. Even moreso if going used
I bought an early framework 13. It cost a little more. Iāve since upgraded the main board to get a faster/newer experience. The overall cost has been less than 2 laptops.
Some of this depends if youāre playing the long game
The X1 Carbon is fine, not sure what is wrong with the 2k IPS display.
Do you need 4k for a 13 inch laptop?
Or just buy a MBP and use MacOS and not worry about any of these problems. I use Linux for everything but my laptop, but Iām not about to deal with a subpar experience when decent laptops are already so expensive.
I'm on a Framework 13. Aside from the wretched 4:3 screen size (which I knew in advance, it was a tradeoff, but my god I miss 16:10) I really do like it. No battery issues, the thing is incredibly fast. I've had the pleasure of repairing parts of it (screen, keyboard) and it has been super easy. The touchpad's button click could be a little more "tuned" (I miss physical separate buttons), but that's my only functional gripe.
But seriously, make a 14" 16:10 Framework please. I will buy a new one just for that.
The 3:2 screen on the 13" is fantastic, I disagree and won't buy another shorter screen again.
I think if you compare on price alone, yeah there are quality tradeoffs when you purchase a Framework. They don't get everything right, and often an equivalent model from Lenovo or HP is going to feel superior. But... buying Framework is putting a stake into having somewhat open laptops that you can service and upgrade yourself. Lenovo laptops have become less and less reparable (following the MacBook formula) and it's very important a company like Framework continues to exist.
At the same time, this kind of user feedback is very important, to help Framework identify the areas where they can or have to improve. Framework is a very reactive company and while hardware takes time, they typically address issues in their next models.
> Knowing my luck I'd also run into OLED burn-in the moment the warranty expires.
Not being aware of the author's history of luck, that's an extraordinary claim. OLED screens are commonplace in modern devices -- phones, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors etc. If burn-in is still a real and significant concern, manufacturers would not have released so many devices, often with OLED screen as the only option. You would see videos on YouTube and TikTok warning you about OLED screens everywhere.
If anything, battery life is a bigger issue.
I really wish the author had done more research before making the decision or writing this piece.
Thanks for review, the framework is a great idea in theory but in practise is still raw
I'm still schlepping around with various used thinkpads. Maybe we get another HP Dev One that sells well this time.
I have a Framework 16 from one of the early batches (2023, think it was ~1000usd).
> Not only does [the spacers] look weird, you can also feel the gap and edges when resting your palm on them ... and the edges are quite sharp. If you have arm hairs you may consider shaving them off or risk getting them stuck. I also suspect gunk will build up in these edges over time. > There's also a practical problem: due to the flex of the spacers if you try to hold the laptop on its sides it will actually "wobble" a bit. Combined with the weight I suspect that unless you hold on to this laptop for dear life, you will at some point drop it.
I can confirm the spacers are raised with an edge (though sharp might be overstating it). It's even at a slightly different height than the touchpad, which is probably more defect than intentional. But I'm not picky about the aesthetics so I don't mind the lines / colors.
Can't say I've had issues with the spacers actually flexing or accumulating gunk though. And I carry it one-handed by gripping the corner with the spacer all the time.
> The keycaps are a little mushy, which isn't too bad but not great either.
Yeah this is an apt description. My biggest gripe is that the keycaps are near impossible to remove / clean without breaking something.
> The display isn't terrible, but it's not great either.
I had the chance to compare my framework (ips, 165hz, 2560x1600) with some newer laptops recently (3x oled, 2x ips). I was pretty impressed with the colors, very little difference compared to the OLEDs and much better than the shitty IPSs. Text was as sharp as the 3k OLEDs and sharper than the 2k OLEDs. But OLEDs (obviously) had the advantage for darker / high-contrast images.
> I didn't do any proper testing of battery usage, but it seems to be on par with other Linux capable laptops based on my usage thus far. This means you'll likely be looking at 6-8 hours of battery per charge for average programming usage.
Pretty much. Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life. I clocked maybe 16 hours browsing the web / watching youtube.
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a ā¬1200-ā¬1500 laptop at best and certainly doesn't deliver a premium experience.
Yeah premium price without the specs and aesthetic to match. But I guess the premium is because of the modularity and (presumably) low production count. Plus I trust Framework's QA a hell of a lot more than any of the dozen HP / Lenovos I've owned. And it is nice that a failed keyboard / touchpad doesn't force me to buy a new machine (which has happened to me because of a spill).
> Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life.
Framework seems to offer the "H" variants only, though. Looking at specs, the "V" variants appear much lower performance and less capable. (Maybe a good trade off, but... YMMV.)
Framework 16 has a 6 port maximum.
6.
That means if you want:
- HDMI
- Ethernet (a must if you're doing real work)
- an audio jack (why is this even an option?)
- SD reader
- USB-A port
You are allowed (1) USB-C port. This is in a > $2200 laptop.
$200 netbooks had all this (minus the Ethernet port) standard 10 years ago.
This is unacceptable. An artificial limit imposed by the mechanicals of the inefficiently large port modules - an idea that should have never left a whiteboard, let alone made it into a production laptop.
On the bright side you are forced into configuring them as all USB-C, you can reuse the man purse you used to carry all your dongles from an earlier generation Macbook.
I think they have another USB-C on the back if you get the upgraded video module. I wish all desktop replacement laptops had copious ports on the back like my Dell from ~2010 did. Who wants video cables jutting out sideways across your desk?
can't he just replace the keyboard? I'd imagine that won't be too hard?
Did you miss the following parts?
Maintaining an X1 is certainly possible, but it's incredibly frustrating and based on my past experiences with this series I strongly suspect other components will also fail in the near future.my tip to people who don't like mac os. buy a macbook pro, disable System Integrity Protection (SIP), gut the OS, live in the terminal and browser. works way better than linux (10h+ battery life, SoC with a lot of memory) and you will barely notice that you're on mac os.
It's not windows. there will be no forced updates and surprises.
Also install the GNU coreutils (or I guess uutils). If you're begrudgingly using macOS then you're going to hate the differences between BSD and GNU utilities.
I hate the fact the keyboard is non-standard, the mental hoop to jump between my normal keyboard on my desktop and the macbook pro one is a no-go.
I told my job I prefered an old lenovo thinkpad than this dumb, vendor-locked, thing.
Personally I just can't, I really hate the UI and the software stack.
Sure as long as you are in the terminal you don't notice it but at some point you are going to need to open Finder (and Finder really sucks, sorry) and you are going to need to install software and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
> and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
Homebrew runs against a curated and tested package repository maintained by a dedicated team of vetted maintainers.
NPM is free-for-all with zero curation. Anyone can upload whatever they want.
I'm still chugging along on a Dell XPS Developer Edition that came with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. It's not as repairable as a Framework but it's been very reliable.
If I had to get a new laptop for personal use today I'd probably go for an X1 Carbon. Those seem to have very good luck with Linux even without OEM installs.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
Huh? I thought OLED would make a lot of sense with a pure black background theme in your IDE. Less light in your eyes?
I'd return my Framework laptop if that was still an option. First they sent me bad RAM, and left me on my own to sort it out with Crucial, which never went anywhere. The mainboard has some weird power issue that prevents the modular ports, which are otherwise a cool idea, from working properly, and I went back and forth with support about that for two years before they finally told me it was out of warranty so I was SoL.
Then there's the screen that falls backwards.
Should've bought an old Thinkpad, instead.
They replaced the hinges on a batch 5 this year for free when I finally complained about it. I just asked nicely and showed them a video of a fan blowing the screen down. New ones are tuned as expected.
I have the similar ThinkPad like the author, except Gen 3, I7, 16Gb. Have Omarchy on it, works like a charm, even camera is not bad. Battery works but I can plug it in the same dock my macbook is (two usb-c dock).
While you can change keyboard or battery on your Thinkpad, they are cheap enough, around $500 that you can just get a new one. I get why he wanted Framework, they say 13" are much better and more useful deal then 16".
I wish Framework 12" is better, but it is not. Maybe Apple can dazzle us at this form factor.
Considering this customer's gripes, I might suggest the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14. It's even lighter than their X1 Carbon, has great battery life, is silent, and has a spectacular display.
He bought the last likely to be compatible and oversized option.
Of course he didn't like it.
What about Qualcomm's Windows ARM M1 competitor?
X Elite is mostly regarded as a dud.
Putting aside anything specific to Framework, this article really puts into perspective just how piss poor the laptop market is right now.
Macs have fantastic hardware, but of course only really run macOS. The future of Asahi Linux is very questionable and, like the author, is not something I'm interested in relying on. I don't hate macOS by any means but I much prefer running Arch with Hyprland.
PC laptop hardware is just shit in comparison. Like the author, my X1 Carbon (Gen 11) has keys that intermittently fail, and the cooling is pretty bad (I actually love the OLED display, though, and don't really understand the author's concerns here).
I haven't found any non-Mac laptops that beat the X1 Carbon line, though (relatively low bar that it is). Frameworks are cool if you are fine with the tradeoffs, but personally I'm just not -- I much prefer to tinker with desktops/servers, and am totally fine with laptops being a physically-closed "appliance," as long as that results in great battery life, cooling, and adequate performance (I can always offload heavy tasks to my desktop if need be).
Which is all to say: what I want is Mac equivalent hardware that can reliably run Linux.
For now, I've landed on using my extremely beefy Arch desktop when at home, and my M1 MacBook Air (which is still running great 5 years on) when mobile. Even accepting that I'll be using an Apple device when mobile, though, there's still room for improvement in this setup: I'd love LTE support (no, a hot spot isn't a good replacement), a nano-texture display (which appears to be locked to the MacBook Pro line), and either an even smaller footprint (like the old 12-inch MacBook) or a little bit of active cooling to offset the performance regressions in macOS. An iPad might make sense, but I own one and frankly hate it due to OS limitations, such as only a single stream of audio at a time (which causes lots of bugs -- watching a YouTube video while scrolling Reddit will cause the YouTube video to pause whenever you scroll past a video on Reddit, even if it's muted), a lack of terminal, etc. I want a "real" OS, so tablets are out of the question entirely.
I don't understand why absolutely zero PC manufacturers have even tried to take on Apple's laptop offerings. Sure, Apple Silicon is great, but Intel and AMD have done an admirable job at increasing battery efficiency since its release; it's not the only component that makes Mac laptops so great. I'm sure these manufacturers know what they're doing in this regard and have decided it doesn't make business sense to take on Apple. But man, I just wish someone would at least try.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
I don't know how many laptops people own to rule out every possible model. My own experience is owning several various versions of Lenovo Legion for gaming and work, and currently an Acer Nitro 16.
None of them have given me a single issue.
Great screens, great keyboards, great performance, easy to upgrade the SSD or RAM. Short of really intense gaming, the fans aren't audible.
And they are all around $1000-1200 USD. All with AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. Doesn't seem like they are unicorns.
...and battery life that is nowhere near a Mac. And consistently shit speakers.
I'm sorry but if you can't see that a $1,000 Acer doesn't compare to a Mac by any conceivable hardware metric then we don't have much to talk about.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
What? Low light is ideal for OLED compared to most LCDs where in low light contrast is poor due to bleed-through on the black areas via the backlight. The problem here isn't the laptop, it's between the keyboard and chair.
> I narrowed it down to two options: Buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Macbook and run Asahi Linux Buy a Framework
...or stop being a dogmatic baby about your OS and run MacOS, which is infinitely better than Linux as a desktop OS?
> I looked at some other brands but it appears that in 2025 there's just aren't many good options for Linux users
A market of less than 1% has terrible options? *gasp*
The only people still using Linux on desktop are people who think that *twenty five years* into "the year of the linux desktop" this will be the year that Linux doesn't stop being the worst option for a desktop OS.
If 2/3rds of the current linux distros hung up the hat and went to go help with other distros, there _might_ actually be progress on this front - but the nerds are too interested in fighting over asinine personal preference type things nobody else cares about, to actually make a distro that works properly and reliably. The Linux world is so hopelessly fragmented and there's thousands of people doing the same work as at least 6 other people all because they think their particular way of installing a linux package is better or their file layout is best.
Variety is great, but idk why anyone would buy anything other than MacBook for programming or media work in the age of Apple Silicon. Unless they specifically need CUDA or a particular version of Linux or some Windows features, or actually want to tinker with/ tweak the computer continuously.
I'm a programmer but I can't stand macOS, so a MacBook isn't an option, as much as I like the hardware. I've looked at Asahi Linux, but, while they've done an amazing job with no documentation, it doesn't meet my needs.
So Debian on a Framework 13 it is. And it's fine! I'd agree that Apple hardware is probably the best, but the difference doesn't really matter to me all that much in practice.
It's true, they're unbeatable as consumer products now, especially after Intel dropped the ball so hard