I am considering a purchase as a student although it is really expensive.
What are your major criticisms of the framework laptop?
E.g.
- I have heard that it discharges battery even while powered off (a very serious issue IMO).
Also, I will be using win10/11 and fedora most likely. So any Linux-related issues (e.g. hardware support) I would really like to know.
Thanks for any ideas.
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I’m on day 8 of AMD R5 onwership and it’s my first framework. I run Windows 11 and Linux Mint on it. Mint is only used as a clean os, so if I’m at a client’s site and need to double check a clear setup i use Mint.
My biggest issues are…
Battery life - today with Windows 11 in power saver mode I got 6 hours with 25% left. I often will work from places with no steady power or just moving about. So battery life is important to me.
Lack of ports - I love the concept of the expansion cards. There just aren’t that many slots.
Fans - When plugged in, with the case open. They ramp up really quickly.
To give a balanced opinion things I love…
Build quality - Is excellent. Keyboard - Brilliant. Best I’ve used in quite some time. Screen - Couldn’t ask for better Performance - For the R5 I have. I can play all the games I want (Left for dead 2, GTAV) at better than my previous desktop that admittedly only had a RX470 in.
My previous was a R5 5500u Dell Inspiron 14. The battery on that was better than the Framework and it was 1/3 the cost. I could be on the train from 7am until 4pm without plugging in.
I love my AMD Ryzen, had it for a month or so now. I do pretty well with the battery, but yes, I used to have a Dell Lattitude which had an extreme battery!
It woul dbe nice to see if Framework could make a double USBC expansion card.
So I don’t have any concerns and I am a Framework AMD Ryzen 7 user. Was in batch 2 and been happy since delivery. My observations:
Is it loud under full load? No louder than any other laptop.
Does it discharge when powered off? Not any more than any other laptop does, and the battery life I get is great. Lasts a day for general use (word processing etc). All batteries discharge when not being used.
Display brightness is very good, aspect ratio is the reason I purchased it.
Hinges - don’t really understand the issue, they are good and secure (think people talking about hinge issues are referring to previous/older versions. On the AMD version this is not an issue at all).
Speakers, sound ok, no worse than my HP 840G which itself is an expensive laptop (work) and they on my HP are B&O speakers.
Is it an investment? No laptop is, but its upgradeable fixable and when you’re really done with it, its environmental recyclable credentials are very good. I like that.
Is it expensive? No, I don’t think so compared with my HP laptop, which is very poor in relation to being upgradeable/fixable. I broke the USBC port on my HP 840G and it cost £250 to fix. With my Framework laptop, I can just buy another port for around £10.
Is it a great laptop? Yes, I think so.
Are there better laptops on the market? Probably, it depends what is important to you. For me its important primarily that its not a Mac, their “ecosystem” is boring and their treatment of customers is shockingly bad. Apple’s supply chain has very questionable human rights issues and their right to repair is too little too late for me. Being flexible and repairable is a win win for me.
My thoughts :) let us know what you decide to do.
Apple has no right no repair. They are so big yet so myopic on this.
Framework is exactly what I want but sadly they do not sell in my country, and I feel they never might.That’s a shame. I thought they did have a right to repair on iphones now? If not, then that’s terrible!
11th gen i5 owner here. my main (and only really) criticisms are the speakers and battery life.
Battery and you really need to consider every portion of the laptop. Updating drivers, ensuring the ssd chosen is low powered, enough ram at the right timing etc.
I got my AMD 13 two days ago. Using Fedora 39. The most disappointing things for me so far are the touchpad (it’s nowhere near the macbook ones) and the battery life. I would absolutely pay for a higher capacity battery. On the other hand, FW is light and maybe it’s time for me to invest in a powerbank.
It doesn’t have buttons on trackpad like thinkpad.
My main complaint is the fans are loud and they seem to ramp up to full speed quite often.
That being said, I’d rather deal with noisy fans than thermal issues.
The weak speakers is the biggest thing I’ve noticed. They just aren’t loud enough if you want to cue up a video and show it to a few people. They can’t cut though the background noise.
Sometimes if I bump it really hard, the trackpad registers a false click.
There are cheaper ways to get a laptop with the same specs as a framework, but the thing to consider is not just the upfront cost, but the long term cost of ownership. If something breaks or you want to upgrade, you can swap out the components instead of replacing the whole thing.
eg. instead of spending $1500 every 2 years on a new laptop, you can spend $2000 now, then $1000 every 2 years on upgrades.Interesting as I find the speakers are much louder than the past few laptops I’ve owned. I also presume that some third party replacement speaker upgrades will hit the market soon.
I’ve read a few posts from people saying after upgrading to the AMD motherboard, the speakers got louder.
The keyboard isn’t great, it feels cheap for the pricetag. Also the layout is a little daft in places.
For the Framework 13 Laptop AMD Ryzen 7040 Series, you need to be mindful of the following for Fedora:
- Step 6 matters. Specifically, the link off to this page (scroll down). Follow our guide, it’s a great experience. Fedora is constantly improving things.
Others here will have their own feedback, but this is mine.
Appreciate that!
I don’t find it that expensive compared to other high end laptop, for similar specs it seems to me Lenovo Thinkpads or Apple products are more expensive.
For me the only problem is that I’ve been used to Lenovo Trackpoint in the middle of keyboard, and going back to a trackpad where you need to move your hand out of the keyboard when you want to use mouse is a big setback. So many non necessary hand an arm movements.
Not the product, but company: they don’t accept foreign bank cards. The laptop is awesome!
Why dont you use a bitcoin wallet or a virtual card then?
- Battery life is below average, seems to be around 6-7 hours on my 7840U w/ Fedora on 25% brightness (Still quite bright)
- Speakers are tinny at high volume
- Seems there is no hibernate mode, so I lose about 8-10% battery overnight if not plugged inThe pros outweigh the cons though
I have an 11th gen intel, but I had to do some manual legwork to make hibernate mode work. Once I followed the online guides, my 11th gen hibernates just fine. I would guess you need to do the same.
On my unsupported Ubuntu 23.04 and mainline 6.5 kernel hibernate works just fine, although I do lose the running applications occasionally. It’s not exposed in the UI though - I have to manually run
systemctl hibernate
- speakers suck
- no touch screen option
Literally just those two things
If they fix those (and keep releasing new updates every year with regular cadence) then I really have a dream laptop option whenever I need an upgrade
Edit: oh also… the framework logo button on the keyboard… it’s an entire keyboard button! In a prominent corner spot. What is it for? Opening the framework website? That’s just dumb. It’s a super prominent keyboard key. Find a proper use for it, or just release a utility to let us customise it as an action button which can do whatever we want. It’s super bizarre. A minor issue - but very bizarre
If you’re on Linux, there should be an option in keyboard shortcuts to create a custom command for pressing that button.
Battery Life and no Touchscreen. That’s kind of it to be honest.