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Comment by xvector | Hacker News Reader

The Framework has half the battery life of similarly sized alternatives. No one was lying to you.

Could you provide some sources to back up that claim? My first choice for laptop reviews (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-5-Review-I...) did not show that to be the case

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-light... Battery test section

We suspect the Framework's high-brightness, high-resolution display is the culprit for its relatively poor battery life—the XPS 13 at the top of the chart is a 1080p non-touch model, as is the Acer Swift below it. Directly comparing 3:2 resolutions with 16:9 or 16:10 resolutions is an exercise in frustration—but the Framework's display offers noticeably higher pixel density than its competitors here, and that does not come for free.

As battery tech gets better, you can replace it. And the glued-in battery in the macbook pro won't be 100% capacity after a bunch of charge/discharges.

It's a compromise in the short term maybe, but long term it's so much nicer.

>battery in the macbook pro won't be 100% capacity after a bunch of charge/discharges

You're supposed to replace the macbook by then.

That's the entire point of framework. Why should I have to replace my macbook when most of it runs perfect except for one part?

But you don't have to replace the MacBook, you can just replace the battery.

On newer Macbooks the battery is literally glued in. An Apple authorized repair center is going to charge you $200+ for a replacement.

Wow, didn't know this!

My initial cynical point still stands. The thing is a status symbol, a display of wealth for lower to mid class, just buy a new one.

It's not just a status symbol, it's also a fantastic laptop. I honestly don't find it reasonable to recommend normal people anything other than an M1 Mac at this point.

I've replaced a glued in MacBook Pro battery. It isn't a big deal and very similar to the Framework, except the Framework has mechanical connections (screws and tabs). The battery replacement kit came with everything needed. It didn't come with newly additional capacity because the underlying changes in battery chemistry aren't there. The improvements in battery life mostly come from CPUs with lower TDP.

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85...

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Disp...

As far as I can tell, this laptop has a 55 Wh battery. A macbook pro of the same size (13in) has a 58 Wh battery and the dell XPS 13 has a 52 Wh battery. What am I missing?

Capacity isn’t the only metric for batteries. The faster you draw down the more power converts to heat. Different battery chemistry changes that a bit, but also aggressive power management to flatten (and lower) the curve matters a great deal.

Apple nailed that during the same generation they introduced the unreplaceable battery. Better density, less packaging, and improved power management virtually doubled the run time on that laptop versus the previous. That was a huge deal at the time.

Has everyone else caught up?

55 Wh is a pretty good size for the form factor. looks like it's suffering from a comparison against competitors with lower resolution screens.

From comparative tests or from vendor specs? (Genuine question, I do not know which you are referring to)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-light...

Scroll down to the battery section

For anyone who tl;dr:

> Only 61 percent the battery life of a similarly configured XPS 13

> We suspect the Framework's high-brightness, high-resolution display is the culprit for its relatively poor battery life—the XPS 13 at the top of the chart is a 1080p non-touch model, as is the Acer Swift below it.

And the XPS has an i7-1065G7 [1] vs the Framework with an i7-1185G7 [2]. So the Framework has a better screen and a better CPU. I'm not sure I agree with running that benchmark without other data alongside it like a score or the average clock rate.

For example, I put a 2nd battery in a ThinkPad once and it had the effect of locking the CPU clock to <1GHz. The battery was predicted to last much longer than normal, but it was useless as a computer.

1. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/196597/...

2. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/208664/...

Can I get a citation for that?

The only laptop for which that seems to be true is the MacBook, but no x86 laptop will come close to that. From what I've seen the Framework has a mostly uninteresting battery life, outperforming some likely competitors (like Dell's XPS 13 and MS's Surface Laptop) and outperformed by others (like HP's ProBook x360 and ASUS's Zenbook 13).

Here it states that it has a worse performing battery than the XPS: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-light...

Under the final section:

>>The ugly

    Only 61 percent the battery life of a similarly configured XPS 13

Interesting. Tom's Guide says pretty much the exact opposite, with the XPS coming in at roughly 78% the battery life of the Framework.

> In our battery test, which sets the laptop’s screen brightness to 150 nits and tasks it with endlessly browsing the web via Wi-Fi, the Framework lasted 10 hours and 17 minutes. That’s better than the Dell XPS 13 (7:59)

https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/framework-laptop-review-th...

Maybe the XPS 13 configuration was different? Or maybe the tests were different in nature? Ars used PCMark 10, which is a standard benchmark that Dell could have specifically optimized for.

The Ars review does have this to say later on:

> The Framework also manages surprisingly high battery life under Ubuntu—in our semi-scientific video playback test, Framework runs neck and neck with the outstanding Acer Swift 3 at just over five hours, with everything else (including the XPS 13, which in this case is hampered by a 4k touchscreen display) trailing well behind.

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