Framework Laptop (2022) review: the repairability dream
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- Ran Linux without much tinkering or major compromises
- small (14")
- affordable (around $1300 for my config)
- lightweight and thin
- powerful (I had a Core i5)
- upgrade-able (I had 48gb of RAM)
They started going downhill after that, primarily in that I could no longer find a Thinkpad model that was at the intersection of upgrade-able and Linux compatibility.
Around 2021 I started looking for an alternative. Looked at made-for-Linux laptops like System76 and the various Linux-certified Dells. Couldn't find anything that checked all my boxes and the Dells were particularly crippled: 8GB of soldered on RAM? Only certified to work if you use their custom hacked Ubuntu image? No thanks.
The Framework (gen11, DIY edition) was exactly what I was looking for. My configuration at the time was $1032 and I've been running Manjaro Linux on it continuously for the past year on it with zero problems. It's just good solid generic hardware at a fair price. It's cheap enough that I don't worry about it getting lost or stolen. It's repairable so I don't worry about something physically breaking.
I have since bought another one for an employee and over the next few years I plan on deploying them to my whole team.
Basically I should be a testimonial on their website.
I had a T42 in 2008 and read Thinkpads already went downhill back then.
I have a P15s for work and my initial model would hard freeze when putting pressure in certain spots. I used an external keyboard/mouse mostly, but it'd still happen occasionally. Eventually got a tech sent out and he swapped the motherboard. I think it's fixed, but I still touch it as little as possible and use external peripherals.
Some people defend modern ThinkPads saying they still beat the competition. I'd like to think the bar is higher than that considering some of what's out there.
My take on all this is that x86 is on its way out anyway, so I'm trying to make my T440p last and will try to go with ARM or RISC-V for my next machine. Likely just an M2 Max MacBook Pro when available. Hopefully Asahi support is pretty good by then.
The Framework is sort of cool, but it's just another modern Intel machine at the same time. Guts aside, they're doing a good job, but the guts are pretty important, and in this case, boring. The MNT Reform is a lot more interesting, although I don't know if any particularly performant SoMs are available for it yet. I'd like something with better performance than my Pinebook Pro if possible. The RK3399 is not quite Main Machine material.
I tried ordering one of their laptops back around 2015 on their website. The cart just straight up broke during checkout. Tried contacting support - no response.
2 weeks later they emailed me asking how my purchasing experience was (hilarious that they couldn't tell the purchase actually didn't go through, because the card wasn't charged)
Was literally throwing money at them trying to buy their product, but I guess they didn't want it. So I'm never giving them a cent of it again.
(I have had multiple over the years and have had zero issues)
The other models I can't say much about. But the yogas are not Linux compatible
They do not provide any post-warranty support (even paid) and do not sell spare parts.
Now I'm back to a desktop PC that I built myself and can repair or upgrade however I want.
> It's cheap enough that I don't worry about it getting lost or stolen.
Not sure if this is impressive or reckless, but either way it doesn’t apply to most people.
seen under a different lens: you think that an effort a person does over 3.65 days to afford a computer is expensive, while many people would have to accumulate the effort of 73 days to afford it.
I think of a laptop in the same way as a chef's knife: it needs to be an extension of your being when you are in the zone, and good tools do that. Ive had near-religious experiences woodworking with good tools and other craft types tell me they have too.
for such a tool, 1% is nothing.
Can you tell I’m a tiny bit bitter, as an Australian? :)
It reminds me of my family from the UK when they used to travel to the US decades ago. They'd go home with half a dozen pairs of jeans each, and nearly pay for their tickets.
Shipping it to the US and then back might involve not only stupid expensive shipping, but also having to figure out paperwork for both Australian and US Customs, unless you want to potentially pay double import-duties on each side.
I did it with Lenovo laptops years ago, because buying from the US and with shipping it still worked out to be around 1/3 the price of buying it from the AU Lenovo store, and Lenovo had a Global warranty program on their Thinkpad line. Smaller OEMs without that, I wouldn't risk it.
I'll be going for a ThinkPad Gen 2 instead.
Practically being a life-long Linux user, I've never owned a Macbook so not sure if things are better on that side.
EDIT: Man, reviews for that and the Gen 3 just really aren't great in terms of Linux support.
I have said this before but Framework are leaving the opportunity to create a Thinkpad-killer series on the table that would be perfect to target all the folks unhappy with the decline of the Thinkpad. Heck, these people would probably pay more than they did for Thinkpads just to get those features back and make up for years of pent-up disappointments. Such a device has a good chance to become the "de-facto" developer's choice for Linux folks.
In Germany the base model starts at 1599 €, which is around $1630.
Might look even worse for other countries.
Germany (VAT rate 19%): https://www.apple.com/de/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro
1.599,00 €
Einschließlich MwSt. und ges. Gebühren i. H. v. ca. 266,00 €.*
Ireland (VAT rate 23%): https://www.apple.com/ie/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro
€1,629.00
Total Payments for your device include VAT of approx. €305.00.*
From the US store you need to go to the checkout page before you see the tax payable, so assuming San Francisco (sales tax rate 8.625%):
Subtotal $1,299.00
Estimated tax $112.04
CA recycling fee $4.00
Total $1,415.04
Sales tax is lower in the US than VAT is in the EU. Taxes are the price you pay for living in more a civilized society.
* The MBA comes with 256GB which is not enough storage, especially since when you run out of space you have to buy a whole new laptop to get more. That's compounded by the high prices that Apple charges for storage upgrades. The cost of upgrading to a 2TB SSD and 16GB of RAM (just the upgrade, NOT including the base price of the laptop) is more than an entire Framework laptop with a 2TB SSD and 16GB of RAM
* IIRC the MBA only supports 1 external monitor. The Framework supports 4 external monitor at 4k144hz (I'd only ever need 2, but it's nice to have extra headroom).
* Ideological reasons I won't belabor
Also I have had to use a Mac more recently for work, and I miss my XPS running well with Docker, and I find it hilarious that with MacBooks you need the new M processor models to be able to run Docker workloads without the fans blasting!
I’d love to try a Framework too though.
I had an XPS for 1.5 years, with terrible chassis issues that got worse and worse until typing would cause it to freeze.
I use a Framework for my daily driver and I couldn't be happier! I do have the occasional issue with a WD-SN850 that causes freezing, but that isn't due to Framework specifically.
Maybe it's just specific models with the hardware limitations?
Support for suspend in linux is definitely shaky, but a (eventually fixable) firmware issue. On the other hand, I am concerned with the company's commitment to upgradability. Since they announced the 2nd generation motherboard some months back, the only way to get one has been with a brand new laptop around it.
I guess there’s some reason it’ll never actually work a linux laptop.
Except it clearly can; every thinkpad I've owned handled S3 flawlessly in Linux, and Chromebooks manage fine.
I do not want to discuss that, I just want to show the value of anecdotal evidence postings: zero.
I’ve had thinkpads that don’t work either. The issue is suspend still doesn’t work reliably going on twenty years - even in the case where the laptop is explicitly a Linux laptop made for this purpose.
It means my default assumption has to remain that it probably won’t work (or at least I shouldn't expect that it will). I’m tempted by the framework because I like what they’re trying to do, but if suspend is still an issue it’s imo not worth it (even ignoring the bad battery tradeoff). That’s even ignoring the continued distance apple keeps putting between themselves and everyone else with their custom hardware.
Also the modular ports are essentially built in usb-c dongles. It’s not obvious to me why this is better than just having adapters. It takes up internal space and may be partly why the battery life is bad. Instead of adapters you have modules - is this a win?
On Windows sleep is a shitshow. It sometimes wakes up if I leave it alone during the night, it sometimes doesn't sleep at all (the screen stays on), it sometimes completely breaks (fans go full tilt, screen backlight comes on, but that's it) and I need to do a full reboot to make it work.
On Linux: press sleep, and it sleeps. Press power, it wakes up. If it sleeps, it stays asleep. When it turns on, the computer is actually usable, no forced reboot required.
This despite the fact that "HP recommends Windows 11", and the support page has no idea Linux even exists.
Still better than having to use Windows or OSX.
This is most likely wake timers. Some program or windows itself is waking your machine to do updates. Disabling wake timers will prevent anything from waking the machine while sleeping.
And this also happens during the day, say if I put it to sleep while going for a walk. It sometimes wakes up a few moments later, sometimes it'll sleep all the way.
My schedule is fairly regular, too, so unless the timers have large jitter, I'd expect them to trigger roughly at the same time (either after X time, or at Y hour).
This used to happen on Linux initially, too, and there were no timers there. I could stop it by disabling EC wake up. I've never found anything similar on Windows, so I just turn it off. At least it boots quickly...
powercfg /waketimers
powercfg /lastwakeThe Framework has a proper cross-brace on the hinge, the hinge mounting points are metal, and I can inexpensively replace the case or hinge if either breaks after the warranty expires.
Obviously I'm being a bit greedy here, but much of Framework's value proposition is built around upgradability. Servicing the crowd that actually buys into that proposition first seems like it would be more valuable from a customer loyalty standpoint, even relative to new customer acquisition. These are repeat customers clearly committed to your company's product.
And I'm rocking a Dell XPS 9570 for personal use, still on arch, no real issue there neither. Well except the Nvidia gpu using prime that needed a truckload of work to get to work, but that's not Dell's fault.
So yeah, in my experience, a quick google search for systemic problems (bios related) of the laptop, its wifi chip support, etc, is enough to tell whether a laptop is fit for linux.
Stinks that such little (yet significant) things kept me from the framework!
Can't consider anything else because I'm addicted to the TrackPoint.
They're repairable in that HP has repair manuals on their public site, complete with disassembly instructions and part numbers. Never had to replace anything, so I don't know how easy it would be to actually source the parts.
Most importantly, they are also one of the few to have AMD models without any soldered RAM, and they don't insist on HP branded RAM either.
Linux works great on these. The worst I had was an older ProBook whose fingerprint sensor was unsupported. On my current one, it works 100% under Linux, while on Windows I can't get the webcam to work.
I'll probably get rid of it in favor of a framework once they sort out their battery troubles either by getting ryzens or intel stepping up their efficiency game though.
Thin is a _problem_! Thin means:
1. The design of everything needs to be warped to fit in - less opportunities for modularization and more contortion needed for disassembly.
2. Bad keyboard with almost no key travel
> They started going downhill after that
I would say the X220 era is where things started going downhill. Although some might argue that it was even earlier.
The battery life, as other have mentioned, is poor.
The Linux support is "OK", and improved greatly when I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu and what I assume is a host of updated proprietary drivers.
But the system also got regularly stuck in a mode where it wouldn't wake up from sleep, for weeks, until one day it simply couldn't be woken up, even after having no power. Tech support was competent, but slow, with replies every next business day.
Resetting the sleep situation also required taking the unit apart, which seems silly.
And one of the dongles that it comes with, the USB-A one, totally flaked out on me.
And at the end of the day, while repairability is lovely, so is a tech support line you can call and talk to a human being, so is a depot you can send the laptop to, and so is being able to pay for a repair person to come and fix my work machine.
These are premium asks, the repair person in particular, and I know that big companies like Dell and Lenovo can only offer them based on bulk sales, but I'd be willing to pay for this, but it's not offered.
Right now, the laptop is good, but I wouldn't buy one. They say their next model will have better Linux support, and be better in other ways. I'd wait for that and hope that Framework also works out a better tech support system.
Interested, got a reference?
I'd love to love these guys, but it's not yet baked enough for me.
This is a guess based on a couple years in a repair shop, I could be completely wrong.
In the context of the Framework, I think it seems to be the intention of the designers that you buy replacement parts and replace them yourself.
It cost more than a macbook ARM, and you get less perf, worse battery, worse cooling, and less support, yes you get to repair it yourself and more easily, but i never had to repair my macbooks (other than changing the battery, and that was easy to do myself, and looks like it is still easy on the ARM ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l_Dw_5_JJk)
In any case, these machines are not even remotely as close as people paint them to be. That Macbook Air won't have a 32-gig (or 64 gig) option for memory, much less a fully replaceable and upgradable mainboard with swappable NVMe drives. Plus, it's only got a paltry 2 ports of IO, one of which will be occupied by the charger (the other presumably plugged into the SINGLE DISPLAY that the Air supports).
They're different devices for different people. I think the Framework is surprisingly cheap for what it offers, and I'll happily pick one up when the Alder Lake models get stocked.
I think it's great that we're able to fix our own machines, and I think it's wonderful to teach people to fix their own machines, but it's ablist to assume everyone has the ability to do so. I don't.
Moreover, there are lots of people who support Right to Repair but don't want to have to repair their own equipment. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to take your computer down to a repair shop or have someone come over and fix it?
You are right my reply was framed in ableist language. I apologize for that -- I appreciate your feedback and will try to do better going forward.
How come a machine like this doesn't have flawless Linux support? Such a lost opportunity...
My experience is that it takes about two years to get 90% or better hardware support on a new one.
It is time to choose, brothers and sister - do you want to be the problem or do you want to be the solution?
Installed 64GB of RAM and a high-performance 2TB NVMe for less than half of a comparable Macbook Pro. Plus, I get to run Linux! It worked right out of the box with almost zero configuration.
To be completely fair, the battery that it comes with is a bit on the small side, so that's the main criticism I have (battery life).
All told, I can't see myself ever going back to using an Apple laptop (voluntarily). I do get jealous of the M1/M2 processor specifically at times, but MacOS is a dumpster fire and I refuse to use it. Plus, having used a proper tiling window manager on a laptop now (i3), I can't imagine going back.
Maybe I should just learn to be more flexible!
Re window management specifically: your "it's not the same" comment are my exact sentiments!
Even if you can hack together some other MacOS-specific window management solution, what I'm finding game-changing is my laptop and my desktop behaving in the exact same way (same OS, same dotfiles, same programs/bins/utils).
Not only "behaving" in the same way, but also configured in the same way (meaning I don't have to maintain two separate configurations for two entirely different managers).
I don't know, I realize my perspective isn't shared by everyone (and even the HN audience specifically), but I'll probably never go back to using a laptop without Linux on it. For a long time, I avoided going down that path because I knew how big of a PITA getting laptop device/drivers to work was (whereas it's generally far simpler on desktop), but that's become less and less the case over the years, to the point that I spend less time configuring Linux than I do overriding all of MacOS's default settings/configuration.
Every Apple product I've owned has failed in some spectacular way, and Apple's response is typically something along the lines of "You're SoL dude, you can either recycle it and buy a new product, or you can pay us something close to the value of the device to repair it" (because they solder everything unnecessarily).
Framework finally came along and showed that you can have a sleek, elegant (and modular!) design without soldering everything together in the name of reducing weight by 0.01kg or whatever (or making it a hair-width thinner).
Most recently, I had a 2019 Macbook Pro ($3K) that would frequently give me a "red screen of death" under load and crap out completely.
Before that, a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro I bought (for nearly $3K mind you) became unusable within an hour after taking it out of the box because of the faulty keyboard (several keys either didn't register key presses, or they would turn one key press into multiple occurrences of the same letter).
Before that, I had a Thunderbolt Display ($1K) that would fail intermittently, and it took 5 trips to the Apple store before they finally gave me a new one.
Before that, I had a 2014 Macbook Pro for which the screen started peeling off -- I had to buy a matte screen protector to even be able to see the screen.
I have several more examples as I go back in time further, but you get the gist! In all cases, they're widely known problems that Apple refuses to acknowledge, and assuming they're even willing to do anything about it, they want you to hand over your laptop to them for ~2 weeks in the meantime.
---
Original response:
I'll eventually get around to writing a blog post about this (tm) and HN isn't really the place to fully brain dump, but off of the top of my head, here's a few examples:
- My ".osx" dotfiles (then, now ".macos") would break with every OS upgrade. As an example, I preferred to set a very fast key repeat with a very short delay, and I remember one version of OSX/MacOS that just decided to start ignoring that completely (or resetting it every restart or something, I forget).
- As a TL;DR point that summarizes many frustrations, I'd end up changing almost all of the default settings, to the point that I realized that I wasn't their target customer. For instance, I'd promptly disable all of their elaborate transitions and animations (which effectively added a latency to interacting with the system), hide the dock in perpetuity, etc etc... I haven't used MacOS in a few years, so I'm unable to refresh myself on what else I would change.
- Their window management is SO stupid (IMHO), especially once you start incorporating monitors.
- At least historically (unsure now), there was no way to differentiate the scroll behavior with the trackpad vs an external mouse. I did like the "natural" scrolling or whatever, as it felt very intuitive having used smartphones for many years. However, any time I connected a wireless mouse (primarily for gaming), it'd behave the same way (completely unintuitive), and there was no way to change it to be different. So I'd then have to either design for the least common denominator ("scrollwheel behavior"), or change that setting every single time I used an external mouse and remember to revert it when I'm done. A small nit, but one of tens of examples of annoyances.
I could go on, but like I mentioned, this isn't really the place! Just a few examples as a taste :)
I'm never touching one of their products if I don't have to again.. years later they had some class-action settlement where we could have I guess got money back but seriously screw that company where it matters they hang you out to dry
I'm in the market now for a replacement for my old 15" thinkpad that I've been using but just haven't really found anything. I seem to be in some weird middle ground that nobody caters too because everything is either 13" or 16".
There's a vocal minority of people (I count myself in) that really, really like trackpoints and would love to have a Framework laptop with this kind of pointing device. I think it would be more productive (or perhaps its wishful thinking on my part) for you people to say something like "we need to shave x mm from the Thinkpad one to match or requirement" or "we need x dollar to hire someone / to let our product engineer spend y amount of time on this project.
(and I'm of course ignoring the dozen or so patents that probably prevent you to implement this... but I really really like trackpoints)
Among the few laptops that still include a trackpoint at all, I'm seeing more and more omit the third button, rendering the nub a vestigial ornament, requiring a fallback, as you've said, to the touchpad. I'm very disappointed; should I ever need to buy a new laptop, I expect to find myself up the proverbial creek.
With that being said, I think Apple finally nailed the trackpad. It's far better than those original trackpads that came on ThinkPads that was so comically small you couldn't really use it on top of absolutely horrendous drivers. I think for the most part trackpads on Windows laptops are pretty competent as well, at least on the higher end models. Windows precision drivers went a long way to matching the experience of using a trackpad on the Mac. On Linux the basics are mostly fine though it's still kind of a mixed bag.
I thought I preferred trackpoint; turns out I don't.
- not yet .. but this is ~ Open Design .. so I hope some 3rd party company will create.
Currently I'm using the Tex shinobi keyboard, and before that I used the IBM USB keyboard with the X220 layout.
When navigating with the mouse on the web, I currently have my thumb for the mouse buttons, my index finger on the trackpoint, and middle, ring, and index for movement on the HJKL keys. Nothing beats that for speed and hand movement a mouse is a little more accurate, but I'm willing to trade that for not moving my hand all the time. (I also just realized I switch hands a lot for moving the mouse - not something you can do with a mouse.)
non-ironically, this is the last thing that is giving me doubts between going for the frame.work for my next laptop or sticking to old-trustworthy thinkpads.
But today trackpads are really good, especially the ones that ship on MacBooks. I can't imagine going back to the trackpoint any more than I can imagine going back to the trackpads of the '00s. Good multitouch gestures in particular make a trackpad way more versatile and improve my productivity a lot.
Since you can buy seperate keyboard parts... and if you don't mind a bit of drilling / replacing some keys with custom keys / manual fixing of damaged traces on the pcbs...
Just drill a hole in the keyboard, file it off, and buy a trackpoint module from ebay, It'd probably work well enough!
- - -
that aside, making an expansion card which has a trackpoint on it, or notching it into just above the keyboard area, would probably be the most doable options, without needing the company to catch up
Whether the market justifies the investment is not a question I can answer, but the Framework looks pretty decent otherwise and if it had a pointing stick keyboard I would buy one and give it a go.
I think I paid about £300 for my TeX Shinobi, so I guess I'd be prepared to pay a similar premium on a laptop.
i'll also add that IBM/Lenovo's trackpoint is much better than alternatives, I've found. they are to trackpoints what apple is to trackpads.
The biggest problem is that it drains 1-2% per hour in deep sleep on Linux. That means if you leave it asleep in your bag after work it will be between 15-30% lower when you go to use it the next morning. People on the forums[0] are even seeing up to a 4% per hour drain. I don't know what is common with other laptops but I can't say I've ever had to think about sleep drain before.
I've just ordered the 12th gen board upgrade with fingers crossed it helps but really consider going back to a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.
0: https://community.frame.work/t/linux-battery-life-tuning/666...
On 11th Gen and 12th Gen, one of the other major drivers of s0ix drain we have seen is SSDs with firmware issues that keep them in higher power states in suspend. Updating SSD firmware is challenging on Linux, so if you are unable to do that, there is also a workaround to change a kernel parameter which we have seen result in <1%/hour drain on 11th Gen: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Ubuntu+22.04+LTS+Installatio...
I've turned just about every knob and kernel parameter I can, only use the USB C expansion cards, kernel is 5.18.12, and my Samsung 980 Pro is on the latest firmware (5B2QGXA7) so I look forward to what the 12th Gen board can do.
I run the latest kernel (5.16.16 currently) on Arch.
That should let you close your laptop and open it in a few days without any big issue, even if S0ix continues to suck.
- Installing the WiFi card was crazy difficult. The antenna connectors are tiny, fragile, and require significant pressure to snap on. I had to use a pair of pliers to get it on and I was very concerned about breaking or bending something
- The screen hinge is weak and not adjustable. It'll stay in position when it's on a table, but picking the laptop up and walking anywhere with it inevitably ends up with the screen open to 180 degrees.
- The space bar is inconsistent. Especially with my right hand. I've had to develop a typing habit where I type spaces with my left hand or hard with my right hand to get it to register. Otherwisemywritingendsuplookinglikethis.
- The touchpad isn't great. My work machines have been MacBooks, so maybe I'm spoiled. But I disable touch to click. And clicking to click is also inconsistent. I ended up having to click extra hard.
These are annoyances really, and I don't use it often enough for these to matter. But if it was my daily driver I'd have done something about it by now.
On the hinges, could you reach out to our support team? We had a set of out of spec hinges come from our supplier, and it is possible that is what you are seeing. The team can also help you out on any issues you're seeing on your keyboard or trackpad.
> we switched to pre-installing the card with antennas attached
That's really good to hear. I assumed I had to do it because I got the DIY edition and that I essentially got what I asked for.
pressing on a touch pad has always annoyed me. on my laptops i always remap capslock -> (ctrl|cmd), and (ctrl|cmd) -> mouse click.
I don't have a Framework, but that's how installing mobile WiFi cards has always felt to me. IME those connectors are sturdier than you'd think, but I never use tweezers or apply pressure on the wire other than at the joint, from directly above, with a finger.
I've never worked with a mobile wifi adapter that wasn't miserable to try to put connect the antenna to.
I also had a few of the Linux issues that others have mentioned, but upgrading to the newest Ubuntu solved them.
Overall a fantastic machine, and probably my favorite laptop I've ever owned.
I've also had some issues with the CPU temperature consistently pushing into the 90s when running big multicore workloads. Not sure why. Rather than look into applying new thermal paste or whatever, I just turned off Intel turbo boost, this is of course a performance hit but it keeps the whole thing very cool and improves battery life.
On an open UEFI solution, that is on our long term roadmap, and we're currently hiring for firmware positions to speed up kicking off this work. Edit: Also, our Embedded Controller firmware is open, though that is somewhat orthogonal to UEFI: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController
Best laptop support experience ever. Best laptop ever. Verge, "Generic looking" as a con? AYFKM?
Loving everything else about the laptop and I use it as my daily driver.
1. There is a funnel in hardware (or really any product) development, where we research and investigate a pretty broad range of new features, modules, and even products, of which only a few make it out the other end as a mass produced item. Even relatively late in the development process, compliance, reliability, functionality, supplier, and cost issues can mean scope or schedule changes to something or even shutting it down entirely. Because of that, we don't announce hardware until we have 100% confidence both that we can ship it and 95% confidence in the price and launch date for it.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect - We don't deliberately hold announcements for this reason, but it compounds with reason #1. We don't want to have someone wait for something that may or may not ever appear. Because our products are upgradeable, we want people to evaluate them based on what currently exists, but still be able to benefit from improvements we make in the future.
When do you plan on making the 12th gen intel main boards + top cover available for purchase?
Will the main board upgrade bring the 11th gen machine to the same exact spec? Or does the new 12th gen have other improvements?
Is the difference similar on the framework laptop, and if so, is this a driver problem for the i5 / better under Linux and expected to improve as big.little utilization gets more robust or just a case where race-to-idle really hits? Would love to hear professional input on this since you've probably worked pretty closely with these cpus in the last few months!
No need for screw-drivers for the basic of replaceable components, ports, etc. It is a genius swappable plug and play modules system and is as simple as plugging in a USB.
I'm looking forward to the next iteration of the Framework Laptop.
The 12th gen Intel chips are a huge improvement over previous generations, but my understanding is that AMD chips are of similar performance with better power usage and thermals.
Edit: This may not be true anymore, anyone is free to correct me on this.
I seem to be in the minority of people who think 16" is too big and 13" is too small.
I mean, I could buy the new motherboard and the case of the old one at the same time, it would make sense.
We've also seen some great community developed cases. We can't share any plans around commercial cases of our own, but we'd love to see third party ones come around.
When can I get this from a framework laptop?
If you look at the 16" MBP, there's a bunch of empty space, but it still has the tiny arrows. I'm pretty disappointed in how most of the manufacturers followed Apple on this one.
I also am not a huge fan how Verge (and a few other reviewers) complained by saying "well, what if they are gone next year?". Then you'd have a laptop similar to all the other laptops you can't buy parts for, except that you can still pick up ram/storage (which you can't for a lot of the other laptops out there.)
Great on Framework for delivering, great to see the upgraded specs and I am still planning on picking up a mainboard for a personal NAS build I've been thinking about for sure!
There used to be (maybe still are) laptops aimed at business travelers with an option for swappable batteries or larger batteries that stuck out that back. It seems like a thicker case that would fit a larger battery would be an easy way to address a prominent weakness.
I don't understand why the physical appearance of personal electronics is so important. You don't look at the back of the laptop, most people cover theirs in stickers.
I adore the idea of the Framework, but for me to buy one it has to options I actually want to use. There's no point in a modular laptop if a conventional one has the functionality of all the module options at the same time.
This is just not true. The vast majority of Lenovo Thinkpads come with a built in RJ45 ethernet port.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14s-G2-Intel-...
It's strange to explain, but yeah, the aluminum frame is too soft and bends easily, causing this issue.
I switched away from a macbook after the 3rd time my OS decided to "relocate" all my desktop files without asking me, and after all the fans would turn on after a reboot for 5 minutes.
There's a joke about the "year of the Linux desktop", but honestly I don't know what everyone's waiting for. Unless you're using software that doesn't run on Linux (which is getting more and more rare every year), it's ready! And I've run gnome-shell, i3, sway, and pantheon on a Framework laptop without issue. Well, the battery life doesn't compare to a new Macbook. I'm still working on that.
I have run successfully arch, and now fedora 36 for most of my work and the machine is just great. Hell I am typing this post on it.
I find the ability to swap cards and for the ports is quite handy, I regularly carry hdmi, displayport, extra usb a and c, sd card and I just purchased and am awaiting the arrival of a 1 TB extension, primarily to hold all the many vms I use on a regular basis.
Might be a bit much but I bought a d-brand skin for it too, I didn't want the wrist rests to get all scuffed like on most of my other laptops so that should help.
Really looking forward to having this thing for many years. Fingers crossed for that AMD upgrade. And the ethernet card/dongle soon.
* Convertible mode. Tent and tablet modes, I do use to watch things or read longer articles in portrait mode and scroll with my thumb, from the side.
* Touchscreen, I use this quite a bit actually, if I see a button I can just press it vs, move my hand to the TouchStick and move the mouse to it. I also use the touchscreen for bulk operations where there is none. Sometimes, repetitive tasks like maybe adding a new list item or editing things or copy pasting multiple data entries can be done, sometimes in combination w/keyboard, very fast with this feature. It is not something I want to regress on now that I have moved into flowing with it really nicely.
* TouchStick - I don't use the trackpad, I disable it and solely use the TouchStick. It is faster when I need to use a mouse input. I guess I lose out on some gestures, but the TouchStick has been my flow for over 10 years, I'm used to it, I'm efficient with it. I hope to see a keyboard mod in the marketplace with a touchstick. There are a couple threads in the forums with a large amount of activity from others looking for the same.
My biggest complaint at this point is that the battery connector is not designed to be disconnected on a regular basis[1]. I personally would prefer to remove the battery much more frequently, because I'm only occasionally disconnected from the grid and keeping the battery unused would be better for its lifetime.
I know that the UEFI has a cool option to disconnect the battery. But this option only stays until the next reboot. I guess that this option is also the reason why the battery connector is so fragile.
[1] https://community.frame.work/t/redesign-battery-connector/10...
- written on my framework
There are also some other interesting laptops, like the Slimbook Executive (amazing screen), Starlabs Starbook, the System 76 lineup, and probably more I'm missing.
I could also wait a (long?) while and Asahi Linux might reach a point where I would actually consider buying a M1/M2 macbook.
...not sure what I'm buying next, but I do know that this is a really good time to be in the market for a Linux laptop :D
For me it's an easy choice, as the Dev One is "Available for purchase in the U.S. only." [1]
The HP Dev One also has a webcam that is 720p (whereas the one in the Framework is 1080p), and doesn't seem to have a fingerprint reader.
Hate the glossy screen though. There should be a matte option on a laptop this customisable.
Presumably, some people are upgrading. So it would be a good time to pick up an old board and an empty chassis. Apart from e-bay (no obvious hits) I can't think how to connect with any sellers.
Or any EU country for that matter.
Unless you're doing gaming, graphics, or ML, I can't think of a need for any dedicated GPU - let alone a 3060 or 3070.
- Laptop use is shrinking, or has shrunk, as people diversify to smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, etc.
- Of the remaining laptop users, some percent only wants Apple
- Of the remaining non-Apple laptop users, some (most?) will just buy something cheap from Walmart/Costco/BestBuy
- Some of the remaining few are looking for gaming laptops specifically
- The rest will consider a Framework laptop, among others, and this is likely to be the most picky group
Will they really be able to find enough market to succeed, in any capacity?
2. The Framework Laptop is our first product, but not our last one. We see the same problems across consumer electronics, and we're excited about our product roadmap to address them!
[0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/pc-sales-hit-350-million-u...
Not 2021 - will be interesting to see 2022!
I bought a gen1 laptop as an early adopter in part because I wanted to "vote with my dollars" and support their mission. A lot of people I know did the same.
As someone who has used Apple products in various capacities since like 2007 (MacBooks, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, etc...), I'm just so completely done giving that company any of my hard-earned dollars.
Setting aside the M1/M2 processor specifically, they haven't put out a good laptop in the better part of a decade.
I realized a long time ago that I'm not Apple's target audience! They're more fashion/status these days than they are a technology company.
If we could buy enough of them I'd advocate for moving my entire team over to Frameworks. That's not tenable for a few reasons right now, but I can see the day where bulk ordering them and support is better than what you get from Dell, HP, and Lenovo right now.
If you had to buy new machines for new hires in 2020-2021 then you know the pain of finding good and reasonably priced machines. It was a nightmare, and the options are frankly not that great for developers. Especially if you have an aversion to Lenovo products, because they seemed to be the only company with stock available to ship last year.
Apple captured a large share of the hardware market both for developers who wanted to develop for iOS, but also developers who wanted quality hardware that ran a Unix variant that worked out of the box. After shipping quality hardware for years, they made a sequence of missteps that they are still recovering from:
* Faulty keyboards that failed relatively quickly - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/technology/apple-macbook-...
* Thermal issues that killed performance - I use 2019 Core i7 and M1 MBPs daily, and still find the thermal performance differences amazing a year after I bought the M1
* Designs that aren't upgradeable/repairable - I upgraded the RAM and drive on my 2008 MBP, and replaced the battery.
I've been reading The Setup blog for a few years now. I noticed a clear trend where developers moved to the MBP for developing on a reliable Unix platform, and a clear trend more recently (pre-M1) where developers moved away from the MBP because of the above issues.
I chose the Dell XPS Developer Edition years ago at a startup where we were developing on Linux because I wanted to develop and test on the same OS we were using for our product. Coming from a MBP, it was a let down, in both the hardware quality (trackpad, coil whine), and OS compatibility (not great power management out of the box, etc.). Maybe it's better these days, I haven't used recent versions of the laptop.
I think there's a market for Framework to succeed and take marketshare from Apple for devs who are looking to work on Unix using an upgradeable/repairable laptop of high quality.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...
- Those who will only buy laptops with TrackPoints
... But maybe that falls into your last group.