Framework 12th gen laptop review | Hacker News Reader

Framework 12th gen laptop review

anarc.at

192 pointspabs3161 comments

> consider buying 4 USB-C expansion cards, or at least a mix of 4 USB-A or USB-C cards, as they use less power than other cards and you do want to fill those expansion slots otherwise they snag around and feel insecure

> in particular, beware that the HDMI, DisplayPort and particularly the SSD and MicroSD cards take a significant amount power, even when sleeping, up to 2-6W for the latter two

> you have to do some serious tuning to get proper (10h+ idle, 10 days suspend) power savings

Why is the Framework so much worse at these than e.g. the LG gram series? HDMI, 2x USB-C/TB4, 2x USB-A, micro-SD out of the box, no serious tuning required...

> 296.63mm X 228.98mm X 15.85mm, 1.3Kg

> Battery: 55Wh

Why does such a relatively big and heavy laptop have such a comparatively small battery?

Because, as I kinda expected when this first was launched, The replaceable modules come at a cost of not just internal size but also structure. You can't just cut out the corners but actually need to re-enforce everywhere you cut out. Then, where they put the card slots normally contains speakers in this category, so they needed to move those down to the battery area. Finally, every internal component needed to be packaged for repair. (Also, I'm not sure about the choice to go dual 2280s on a 13 inch)

https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2021/07/framework_5...

Note how remarkably large the speakers are, how much structure is around the battery, and how much the logic board is pushed down. We all hate the reduction in reparability in modern macbooks but look at the outcome: https://images.macrumors.com/article-new/2021/10/macbook-pro...

This is a 14 inch Macbook Pro. It fills every last inch with equipment that, each on their own, are best in class. The battery is 30% bigger. The Speakers are louder and have more bass, the system is designed to handle far more wattage from the SOC.

The Framework laptop is a great first attempt, but I'm not really convinced they are quite there yet. They really need to drop the Macbook Air design and go for boxy here to maximise volume. It absolutely needs a dedicated GPU option.

Having a laptop a lightly technically minded person can repair easily makes little sense if it isn't targeted at their niche. Generally you start deep in the niche and move mass-market as you expand.

> Having a laptop a lightly technically minded person can repair easily makes little sense if it isn't targeted at their niche.

I disagree. There's value in a laptop that can be easily repaired/upgraded for non tech people. And I mean that. People that will only use their laptops for zoom, lightweight internet browsing and stuff like that.

Because, they will fucking break something and better to have it easily repaired than having to go a specialized center.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about people that can afford new iphone every year but people that can afford a mid-budget Android phone every two-four years.

> Generally you start deep in the niche and move mass-market as you expand.

Isn't that how you piss away your niche market?

I totally get the upgrade angle for non-technical people...but you need to convince them that they want it...and that it is worth Framework's frankly large premium.

Then you get to the fact that this machine is incredibly poorly sold if that is your market. The pre-configured options are almost insane. $1050 for a machine with 8GB ram..or $400 more to get 16GB because they paired it with CPU and Storage upgrades? Of course you can go DIY but keep in mind this is for lightly-technical users. Then a user needs to pick their port loadout.

It is overload and a lot of money for anyone who isn't technical...but if you ARE technical...this thing is basically a bad ultrabook in use. You can get a like-spec (1240p, 8gb, 256) Asus Zenbook 14 OLED...for $500 dollars less!

That's my gripe. I love the repair angle. The expansion cards are downright silly for most users. The money is basically nuts for prebuilt. And, ultimately they made a non-touch Surface Book 3..rather than a Macbook Pro.

> Isn't that how you piss away your niche market?

Well yeah. It's also how you continue to exist outside a niche. Some companies manage to do both. I would argue that the current top-end Macbook Pro is a downright niche product compared to the rest of their lineup. See also: The Mazda Miata. Niche, well loved, technical, co-existing.

> It is overload and a lot of money for anyone who isn't technical...but if you ARE technical...this thing is basically a bad ultrabook in use. You can get a like-spec (1240p, 8gb, 256) Asus Zenbook 14 OLED...for $500 dollars less!

And 8gb is all you will ever have on the Asus, since it's soldered to the board.

So the comparison between the two is completely dishonest because the Framework is an upgradable computer that can be used for decades, and the Asus is a toy which will be rusting in some 3rd world landfill in two years.

The 8GB is fair...but the Framework being upgradable for decades is...uh...pretty absurd. You don't even know if the company will exist next week. The only actually standardized upgradable part is the Storage and Memory. The Zenbook also has upgradable storage. The CPU is soldered to the proprietary board with their own battery design and own display. The battery is roughly as upgradable as on the framework if not less convenient.

Personally, the idea is all pretty oversold. If the motherboard was standardized and had a swappable CPU..maybe..but this is just a laptop with marketing. The Dell XPS 15 has the exact same upgrade path as the Framework..but also a 15 inch display and dedicated graphics. Any number of MSI laptops support upgrading ram. The idea is nobel...but not novel.

Ultimately, RAM capacity is what makes old computers usable for light use, or junk.

There are still people using the thinkpad x61 (2007) today. It came with 512MB-2GB ram, but you can put up to 8GB in it. 8GB and a SSD is enough to comfortably run the latest Linux and Chrome and is pretty decent on such a little computer.

If it had a soldered 1GB it would be junk.

8GB soldered ram will make your Asus junk in 2039 (2023 + 16 years), but 64GB in the Framework has a much better chance of being usable.

Laptop manufacturers (and clueless crony reviewers) say that the ram is soldered to make the laptop smaller, but units like the Framework clearly show this is bullshit. They're just doing it to stop you from extending the life is old hardware.

I agree with this. My personal laptop is a 2010 MacBook Pro, which is way past its expiration date, but was kept usable because I maxed the RAM (8GB) and installed a hybrid SSD. I was/am annoyed that Apple laptops no longer have user-serviceable parts, but I'm coming to terms with investing up front for that same longevity.

> Laptop manufacturers (and clueless crony reviewers) say that the ram is soldered to make the laptop smaller, but units like the Framework clearly show this is bullshit. They're just doing it to stop you from extending the life is old hardware.

Totally! Also for on die/soldering being allegedly the only way around hardware issues "requiring" the RAM to be physically as close to the CPU as possible, Dell CAMM standard shows that there are other way!

> The only actually standardized upgradable part is the Storage and Memory. The Zenbook also has upgradable storage. The CPU is soldered to the proprietary board with their own battery design and own display. The battery is roughly as upgradable as

FWIW these are the things that I need to upgrade the most frequently with computers I've owned in the past. My desktop has gone through 5 storage drives (500GB spinning disk, 2TB spinning disk, small crappy 2.5 inch SSD, bigger slightly faster 2.5 inch SSD, and finally an M.2 drive) and 3 RAM iterations (2 sticks DDR3, 4 sticks DD3, 2 sticks DDR5). I only recently got to the point where I needed to upgrade the CPU for the first time.

ddr5 in ddr3 slots?

> There's value in a laptop that can be easily repaired/upgraded for non tech people

How does the price of a Framework today plus upgrade modules in three years compare to a cheap laptop now and a new cheap laptop in three years? Obviously the former is better for the environment, but if you don't break even on your investment in a Framework laptop by the first upgrade then it's going to be a very, very hard sell for most consumers.

> We all hate the reduction in reparability in modern macbooks but look at the outcome

There are two diffetent problems with repairability - one is making it easy for a dilebtante to replace parts.

The other, is making parts and schematics avaliable so that a specialist can repair it. You don't actually have to change the design. This is what Luis Rossman is talking about

> Dedicated GPU

Yeah I only buy laptops with GPUs. Honestly laptops outside power user/gaming niche rarely need things replaced

> There are two different problems with repairability - one is making it easy for a dilebtante to replace parts. I would probably argue that this is framework's primary angle on it, which is why the cost in internal volume is so high.

> Then, where they put the card slots normally contains speakers in this category, so they needed to move those down to the battery area.

Does Framework even need embedded speakers? Why not just rely on external wired or Bluetooth speakers, or headphones, instead, and use the space for a larger battery.

Do you think there's a happy middle ground to be found then between the extensibility of the expansion cards and internal space for stuff like speakers and battery then.

I think I'd be very happy with 2 expansion card slots and 3 hardwired USB C ports that can be upgraded with mainboard revisions to support newer USB standards.

I kind of wish they had version without the modular ports. It's a neat gimmick, but I really don't need it for anything. I just need the same 4 connectors: Usb-C for charging/docking, some USB-A ports, ethernet and a 3.5mm jack. I don't see those needs really changing. Faster USB speeds I can take or leave, but that would be limited by the underlying Thunderbolt at some point anyway.

I guess it improves repairability and all. But eh, I never had a laptop where those parts failed before any other parts. So if I can just pay someone to help me solder on a new port the once pr decade one might fail, I'm ok with that. Or maybe they could make it easily replaceable without the modularity, that'd be great.

Yeah this is a good insight. It's likely this lines up with what most customers of laptops would think if they learned about the framework laptop for the first time.

When I first heard about the port changing feature I thought it was cool and useful. But i am now starting to wonder how often it would be used even by myself if I had one.

I imagine the point isn't for you to keep on switching the ports out every day.

Rather, it's so everyone can get the ports they want with minimal overhead for Framework the company (fewer SKUs, less spare inventory, etc.).

It's like LEGO: You can put together exactly what you want using exactly the bricks you want, and you aren't expected to take it all apart and build something new the next day just because you could either.

My wife and I each got an 11th Gen Framework in late 2021, and I think it's mostly this - e.g. my wife wanted an HDMI port and I didn't - but I've also found reason to switch ports around a few times. It's certainly not everyday, but I've had a few different workspace arrangements where sometimes it was better to have my charging port on one side or the other; not strictly necessary, but nicer for cable management. Next month I might borrow my wife's HDMI port when I need to give a few presentations.

I occasioanlly set my Framework down in a place where it's more convenient to have power and/or HDMI on the other side and it's simple to rearrange the modules.

I think one model with the bog standard stuff and one with the modules is a good compromise, or will be when they're more established and can afford the overhead you correctly point out. Right now they're very much a startup, and so I agree with you that it makes sense for them as a company right now.

>bog standard stuff

That's the question, though: What is "bog standard"?

Apple will tell you bog standard is two USB-C ports.

A tech enthusiast will tell you bog standard is at least 10 mixed USB-A and -C ports, at least three DisplayPorts, at least one ethernet jack, and a headphone jack.

Jane Average over there will tell you bog standard is a power button.

A DIYer will tell you bog standard is GPIO and serial.

USB-IF will tell you bog standard is USB4.11 For Workgroups Revision 5 Type D 50gbps 2x4.

Pretty sure Jane Average would also include a charging port ;)

Joking aside, to my mind bog standard is by definition not given by Apple, enthusiasts, hardware hackers, USB-IF, or someone who never needs a port ever. My mom is very tech illiterate and even she uses a cheap wireless mouse, and other USB stuff.

It's obviously something Framework would have to research and think about. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say there is some definition of bog standard that should be able to serve 80% of customers. Where the 20% is made up of various niches that are happy to pay a premium for the modularity because they really need it.

At this point, for better or worse, and I know some may not like it... would be almost all USB-C. With thunderbolt, power delivery and video adapter options over the port, there's really not much reason to go otherwise, noting that some ports are not the same.

One option might be to have a backplate adapter similar to ATX motherboards, where that just slots into the case itself attached to the motherboard... so Gen 3 could have 3x usb-c, 1 usb-a and a 4-pole headphone jack... Then all usb-c + headphone a generation after... but the horizontal spacing pre-defined like ATX backplane.

The problem with forcing everything over USB-C is that you end up overloading hubs. I have four laptops in front of me, and I've got a setup in front of me that just about works tolerably, but:

1. None of the machines I have to switch between have remotely enough sockets for the USB devices I actually need to use. Mouse, keyboard, headset, external webcam, yubikey are all USB-A. For the machines I've got that are USB-C only I need at least two hubs daisy-chained if I want to have the first in the chain be something I can put in my bag.

2. If I try to power some of them through the hub, they complain that they can't get enough power.

3. If I plug those same ones into the power directly, I don't have enough ports to also have a USB-C monitor connection, forcing that over onto HDMI.

4. Only one of the machines I use has an HDMI socket, but the hub I tend to use has one so that's usually fine.

5. It's not fine on my XPS13, which for some reason can't power both its own screen and the external screen when plugged into the hub, and it goes into a flickery loop as it tries, fails, and resets. So that's either lid-closed-only, or is the only device connected over USB-C as a direct connection, which means an extra plug to plug in for only that laptop, and I end up fiddling with the screen controls every time I switch to it.

This is supposed to be a unified ecosystem but it just falls apart in practice, and my desk has never had more wiring all over it. I get that I'm an outlier here: two work laptops, two personal laptops, and regularly needing to use any of them, but there's nothing I'm trying to do that's outside what USB-C claims to be within its sphere of capability. Maybe the problem is the hub I've got but if that's the case I can't see how you're supposed to make better purchases. The ecosystem just seems to be broken.

Sounds like you would be better served with a Thunderbolt dock.

Well, the Framework doesn't give you most of those options. You get 4 total of any of the following: USB-A, USB-C, DisplayPort, HDMI, MicroSD, Ethernet. (In practice a USB-C is mandatory for charging.) Plus built-in headphone. If you want any more than that, or anything different, you're gonna need a USB dongle like any other laptop.

There was one laptop made by ASUS. It had SO much connectivity in a 12" case no one attempted ever since. And it would be the best if not for poor battery life. But the battery was swappable. The model is U6Sg. If I could buy anything like that today (with good battery life and AMD processor), I'd be happy.

It’s also standardized, so you don’t have to only pick ports that Framework decides are valid. You can also add 3rd party ports of your own choosing.

Bricklink list 76527 unique Lego parts, including Duplo. So much for the "fewer SKUs". There's also 15155 mini figures.

I agree with your point, but generally when people say "like LEGO" they mean "modular". Not that you can build literally any shape the way you can with actual LEGO.

Compare 76527 unique Lego parts to number of elements in the power set of those 76527 Lego parts — imagine if each combination also had its own skew. That’s the sort of comparison being made — providing simple components and letting the user combine them as they see fit means managing fewer SKUs than otherwise. This logic does not change with respect to the number of simple components — if Framework wanted to provide module for 76527 distinct peripherals, that’s 1 SKU for the laptop plus 76527 SKUs for the modules… which is a lot less than selling 2^76527 distinct laptops for every set of peripherals (leaving aside size constraints, and the fact that many people actually want more than one of the same peripheral).

Additionally, fewer is fewer, regardless of scale. 999,999 of something is fewer than 1,000,000 of something.

So yes, the "Lego approach" would mean fewer SKUs.

This is pretty much my angle.

My 14inch macbook pro has a power jack(magsafe), three Thunderbolt ports, an SD card slot, HDMI, and a really low-noise, high-power fantastic 3.5mm. About the only thing I really would ever want is ethernet but even then I probably would rather dock the machine over TB anywhere I would use that. It is just is so much better than plugging in 4 cables.

(Side note: It's kinda surprising that mankind has not invented a smaller RJ45)

There's loads of laptops with RJ45 jacks that fold up to take up less space when not being used. There were also PCMCIA ethernet cards where the jack pops out and you insert the cable downwards. I don't think Apple cares enough about ethernet on laptops anymore to bother. Personally I find the choice of SD card slot puzzling. USB A or ethernet would have been far more useful IMO. I have exactly one device with full fat SD and it's a 10 year old Wii U.

Regular SD cards are still common in professional cameras, and I heard a lot of loud griping from photographers when the built-in card reader was removed.

This is a confusing part for me since professional photographers are one of the demographics that Apple tries to target. Seems like they would have never gotten rid of it. Granted, I could also say that it may be ridiculous for cameras to still need SD cards in them. But it is easier for 1 smaller set of devices (Macbooks) to support the other (cameras) than all of the others to support the smaller subset of devices.

> Seems like they would have never gotten rid of it.

Like HDMI, or USB-A, or MagSafe.

The 2016 macbooks were...something.

FWIIW though...Modern Mirrorless cameras tend to have high-performance USB-C. Some also have internal storage. But the value of swapping media in a camera is critical for organization however. Many Cameras also have dual SD slots for mirroring.

No kidding. Especially mag safe. I do have an M1, but it runs Asahi as my daily driver now. And bought it with that intention, was just waiting for when I deemed it good enough to daily drive. Not an apple fan boy, but getting rid of Mag safe was incredibly dumb. If anything, every one should tried doing mag safe. I have a 2012 MBP way back and that was the feature I loved the most.

Personally, I was happy to see them ditch a proprietary charging method for something that is an industry standard.

Usually I would agree except in this case. I am fine with bucking industry standard if it is an actual reasonable improvement. Thunderbolt on iPhone doesn't seem reasonable because the biggest improvement is speed and I don't really hear many people moving many gigabytes of data off their phone via cable. Mag safe though, to me at least, is a reasonable improvement. I'd had a few laptops, or seen a few laptops, with either USB-C charging or the older (man weird to say that), barrel style where after a couple years you can feel the play of the plug in the port and the port becomes damaged and the laptop just doesn't charge anymore, maybe it can be fixed with a careful hand and trying to resolder it?

The hard thing about Type-C is that it, until late 2021, only supported 100w charging..which is woefully lacking. That's actually part of the reason Apple bought Magsafe back, it allowed them to stay within USB spec while pushing more than 100w to the M1 Max. Plus it meant that they could make an out-of-spec charging adapter that only enabled the out-of-spec mode when used with a specific cable while fully supporting all forms of type-c charging. Where we landed really is best of all worlds.

>There's loads of laptops with RJ45 jacks that fold up to take up less space when not being used.

I've had one, thing was pretty flimsy and required finagling to use. Meh.

> Personally I find the choice of SD card slot puzzling

Something like 90% of the photography market uses a Mac.

I heard probably more hoopla about that SD card slot than anything else when it was announced.

I have a framework laptop, and one of the deciding reasons I bought one was due to the modular ports. I'll admit that 99% of the time, I leave a USB-A and USB-C ports in on each side, but the ability to move the ports to whichever side of the laptop I need, as well as having the ability to swap in ports that I only seldomly use is great. Another understated benefit is being able to use any expansion cards they add in the future. They didn't have ethernet ports at launch, but now I'm able to get one if I so need.

> never had a laptop where those parts failed before any other parts

HDMI port is first thing to die on last two laptops. Thanks to thunderbolt, I didn't have to junk the more recent laptop, but I do need a dongle for HDMI which is mildly infuriating.

Yeah, HDMI is a notoriously failure prone connector I've found. I avoid it if I can, though I don't have any use for it on my laptop. My Thinkpad has one, could be dead I suppose since I never use it :P

When you look at the options, they would have been better off just adding all those ports. 2x USB-A, 2x USB-C, SD, HDMI, and maybe ethernet. Sure, you can do more in theory with the modular approach, but aside from USB-C, those are all decade-old ports, so there just isn't much need for arbitrary expansion.

> Why is the Framework so much worse at these than e.g. the LG gram series? HDMI, 2x USB-C/TB4, 2x USB-A, micro-SD out of the box, no serious tuning required...

I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone at Framework is hacking on Linux and upstreaming drivers that implement efficient power management correctly. I also don't think they're hacking on custom firmware for components, either.

Looks like System76, for example, puts a lot of work in to get white label Clevo laptops working pretty well with Linux. Framework is likely working with whatever the kernel already supports, and often times it's hard to implement good power management for components because the documentation isn't available, so you're lucky if someone spent time trying to reverse engineer anything at all.

Also conjecture: I don't think Framework is designing low-level hardware, either, and the boards they design/buy aren't optimized for power saving versus actually shipping a product.

I'd assume that LG has more resources dedicated to power efficiency when it comes to time, money and manpower, and they have kernel hackers on their payroll, as they roll and deploy their own Linux-based OS.

It could also just be chance, where the LG gram just happens to be built with well supported components.

Framework is in fact are working on the firmware to improve battery life, primarily with the Intel TB4 (Burnside Bridge) retimers. Here's the work to reduce power consumption w/ the DP expansion card: https://community.frame.work/t/beta-displayport-expansion-ca...

And here they talk about what they learned working on the Chromebook version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927094 that they've been working on in the latest (beta currently) BIOS updates: https://community.frame.work/t/12th-gen-intel-core-bios-3-06...

For anyone interested, you can take a look at their community forums - they're doing as much Linux support as anyone else out there I think: https://community.frame.work/

The LG gram has a few things going for it:

* Soldered LPDDR memory is lower power than SODIMMs

* Not having the extra retimer, not needing it to be active unless the TB4 port is used

* A lower res display (1920x1200)

* A 72Wh battery, which is 30% bigger than the 55Wh in the Framework

That being said, LG (and other ODM/OEMs) have been making laptops for almost 20 years, and Framework is on year two on basically their first design, so it's probably to be expected that they have some stuff to learn/improve.

The trade off with system76 laptops, though, is that you’re stuck with underwhelming Clevo design decisions like 16:9 screens.

I know system76 has had their own laptop designs in the works for a while now, I wonder how that’s going… being tethered to Clevo is kneecapping them in a few ways IMO.

The gram doesn't have an option to come with Linux installed (at least mine didn't). If they were doing custom Linux work, I would have to imagine that they'd offer Linux as an OS too.

In any case, I'm incredibly pleased with mine, the battery life really is fantastic and knowing it can be this good is probably the only reason a framework wouldn't be my next laptop.

I suspect the grams are just very close to Intel's reference platforms which is probably why they work so well.

I don't actually know, but the FW "abuses" splitted thunderbolt connections to get to those features, which I must imagine needs beefier controllers and is more energy intense, than solving e.g. microSD in a more direct/integrated way, without thunderbolt in the middle.

microSD cards are often just using USB that's routed on the PCB.

I'm frankly surprised that audio doesn't do this, even for more desktop. I'd much rather if desktop case mfg's put a $10 usb dac on the front of the case to a USB 2 header on the motherboard. Would definitely sound better.

The connectors for the expansion cards are all USB-C too, so if it's beneficial to have connection further in instead of right at the edge, you could go without an expansion card for a slot at all.

> take a significant amount power, even when *sleeping*, up to 2-6W for the latter two

What… how, why? I think it’s unacceptable for a laptop in sleep mode to be draining energy at that rate. Must be a bug, I refuse to believe they tested this and though it’s ok?

> Why does such a relatively big and heavy laptop have such a comparatively small battery?

I hope they provide a beefier battery.

I have a 12th Gen.

It's the best laptop I've owned.

(I've had a Samsung ATIV book 9, and before that a high-end Sony Vaio, both 13 inch).

One thing I must mention in particular : the keyboard is die for.

I had no idea a laptop keyboard could be like this.

I used my Samsung keyboard for many years, perfectly happily - but now I can't use it. It is now so unbelievably flat and lifeless. I am now forever spoiled for lesser keyboards.

I worked on power management, not much work was needed, and I get 11 hours battery life on a 90% charge.

(Basically, use powertop to figure out what processes were using a lot of power (turned out to be Tor and WINE), and then also realise anything plugged into the USB ports took a lot of power, and finally that the powertop power optimization needed to be re-run after a reboot. That got me down to under four watts, but it means no mouse - mouse adds about three watts, which is too much.)

I'm very happy also that reduced battery charge levels (I keep mine at 50% these days, now the power cuts are a thing of the past) are available in the BIOS, and also full battery disconnect (I'd like it even more if I could change battery charge level in software - but the key issue is the functionality is present).

I love the exchangable ports - currently I have 2 USB-C and 2 USB-A, which will in time change to 4 USB-C. I also have an ethernet port, should I need it, and HDMI.

The screen resolution is not 4K, which I had on my Samsung, and thought before I bought it could be a problem, but it simply isn't.

I also love the community. That it's a niche laptop with a highly computer literate community makes it really pleasant.

FYI, I'm running XFCE on Debian.

I have one as well, running Ubuntu. ~~Very~~ happy with it. (edit: maybe not "very happy" but "happy")

I agree the keyboard is excellent. But the trackpad is crappy -- the one blight on this otherwise good laptop, IMO.

Actually, the second issue I have with is the power drain when in sleep mode. Apparently this is fixed on Windows but not Linux. You experience that as well?

There are two solutions to the sleep problem right now:

1. Change from s2idle to deep. The tradeoff is slower wakeup times but less power drain when sleeping.

2. Sleep then hibernate. After a certain amount of time (maybe 2hrs), the system will go into hibernation from s2idle. This is nice because there's almost no power drain when the system goes into hibernation, but you can have quick wakeup times when the system is still in s2idle. The tradeoff being, it can be a bit of work to implement and you can't have secure boot/kernel lockdown.

[Fedora35 hibernation](https://gist.github.com/eloylp/b0d64d3c947dbfb23d13864e0c051...)

[Fedora 36+: Hibernation with enabled secure boot and full disk encryption (fde) decrypting over tpm2](https://community.frame.work/t/guide-fedora-36-hibernation-w...)

Trackpad crappy in what way?

It seems utterly normal to me?

Yes, the power drain is sleep mode is abnormal - I've read that the USB ports are to blame, and it will be fixed in upcoming firmware.

> Trackpad crappy in what way?

I like it less than my Macbook, but more than my Thinkpad. Find it just a bit too sensitive, so I'm always accidentally dragging things when scrolling.

1. The force needed to "click" varies depending on where you put your fingers. Clicks near the top of the track pad take more oomph

2. AFAICT you can't change the scroll speed on Fedora (not sure if that's Framework's fault but still super annoying)

Gliding is okay, but clicking is not responsive enough, and click-drag is hard to execute (particularly compared to the Macbook).

Ah, I understand.

Yes, I can see all of that.

I don't have trouble with it, but I do know what you mean when you say it :-)

How is the fan noise in your device. Mine is just way too loud. Running Ubuntu 22.04 and the 12th gen Intel 1280p.

Yeah actually in the last few days I’ve been using it more and the fan is pretty loud — don’t know why it’s coming on even when the CPU is not under heavy load

Yeah, for me even when the CPUs are at 10-20%, the fans seem to be at full speed.

> mouse adds about three watts, which is too much.

Have you tried a different mouse?

No. It's also three watts for a USB stick - I think it's not the device.

What's wifi like?

Seems fine. I don't know what the theoretical max is from the router (it's not my router), or the wifi in the laptop, but I've seen 1mb/sec coming down, so it seems to be doing everything it should be doing.

works well for me

I'm super excited about Framework as a company. They're doing all the right things imo. Their next product announcement is in ~10 days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccpsyRipHlk

> Cons the 11th gen is out of stock

I really wanted to like Framework laptops. I travel a lot and break laptops frequently. I really liked IBM Thinkpads, was all-in on Dell onsite warranty when it actually worked...

But I just got the cheapest MSI Modern. It has ok hardware, 64GB RAM, two SSDs, bunch of ports... Repairability is nice if you actually can get support and spare parts next day. Without that its just a marketing BS.

Today laptops are just disposable consumer goods. "Repairability" is a freedom to swap SSD from laptop #12 to laptop #13. Now all I need is a screwdriver and credit card to buy next laptop.

> Today laptops are just disposable consumer goods. "Repairability" is a freedom to swap SSD from laptop #12 to laptop #13. Now all I need is a screwdriver and credit card to buy next laptop.

Not really, if you're using Bitlocker chances are high that it's tied to the TPM keyset and depending on what's broken it is difficult to recover them.

BitLocker has a recovery mode, either through your Microsoft account or through a 48 digit key that unlocks the disk on any hardware. If you have a dual-boot you will run into this from time to time, its not a big issue.

This is a big reason to prefer password based drive encryption, or at least something that doesn't tie the key to your hardware.

Sadly, impossible to do on modern Apple machines (where the T2 co-processor handles all the crypto), and difficult to do with Windows as Bitlocker uses a TPM module by default [1] if it's available and modern enough. You'd need to manually mess around to disable TPM usage.

(Side note, does anyone know if there is a workaround to allow multiple passwords for Bitlocker?)

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/informati...

I think you can do PIN + password by fiddling around with the group policy settings iirc (similar trick for PIN + TPM maybe you can find results for that first and then build on it)

To me the bigger takeaway is that if it’s important enough to encrypt, it’s important enough to keep backed up regularly. Even with password-based encryption, if your drive/laptop is stolen you’re no better off than you would’ve been with key-based encryption (potentially worse, as password-based may be more practical to bruteforce).

On the other hand if the data is backed up properly, at worst you’ve lost between an hour and a day of work regardless of if the laptop gets lost, is stolen, bricks itself, or is subject to a highly localized short-lived black hole. You restore and go on with life.

I run Linux. I have microsd card with bootable Linux kernel and encryption keys. Laptop has fake bootable livecd and luks partition.

MSI Mosern are really good bang for the buck. I did some research about some budget laptops for a friend under 500$ and MSI won, not only by the specs but also from an extensibility standpoint (non-soldered RAM slots).

What's happened to the Dell onsite warranty? I last had a next-day on-site part replacement 2 years ago and it all went as smoothly as usual.. (UK)

I just bought a new laptop, almost went Framework. It came down to size and screen quality for me, given my use case. The one-size-fits-all 13,5 is a little small for my taste, and now that they're available I couldn't justify NOT going with a non-OLED screen. I want modularity, good repairs, the option of a FR-CAD keyboard and I'm okay with paying more, but I'm not willing to sacrifice those other aspects. I hope they catch up in time for my next laptop in >6 years.

Wow, I wonder why they went with a 13.5" screen size over 14.5" or 15".

It appears LCD procurement is one of hardest task in making any consumer devices. Anything else can be bought or outsourced with an email and a payment, but LCD seem to need a connection.

Popularity... 13.x" is the most sold. Using an M1 air for my personal laptop, and my work laptop always runs docked at home (thunderbolt). Larger laptop sizes just don't sell as many, though the Framework niche (currently) might be skewed a bit from the general population.

Though, would have liked a 3:2 aspect ratio that a handful of laptops have moved to.

Common average. Because some people (like me) prefer 11-12". That size fits every paper bag!

Which one did you end up going with? I’m in the market for a new laptop and as much as I love MacBooks I want to be able to boot into Linux

Not the top-poster, but I'm also looking for basically the best OLED laptop for Linux, and I think I'm going to get the ASUS Zenbook 14X (UX3404).

Indeed it was a 14X! I bought the M5402 last night which I believe is a little beefier. It's on sale right now in Canada for CAD$999:

>https://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-VivoBook-OLED-Laptop-14-5/dp/B09Y...

Looks nice, and the AMD CPU is preferable. I'm going with the Zenbook over this solely because it has 32GB of RAM.

I really like the idea of mine but the terrible battery life in both Windows and Linux make it basically an unusable portable machine.

I’ve just ordered a MacBook Pro 14” (even though it was horrendously expensive) and I hope I can eBay the Framework.

As much as I hate macs or any other Apple products, I admit that the MBP 14 or any mac with the Apple Silicon is simply irreplaceable.

I searched to the end of the earth for a comparable Linux or Windows laptop with no vain. If it's Windows (+WSL), then I have to deal with Windows as a platform that I find awful. Adding to that, the poorer battery life and screen, keyboard, touchpad and speaker quality compared to Macbooks. Coming to Linux, brands like Framework haven't seemed like they've fully gotten over the reliability issues as of yet, and the battery life is a huge problem.

I took the eventual jump into an M1 Pro MBP 14", and I like every bit of time I spend with it. It's a stellar all-in-one device. The OSX platform is clean, versatile and removes a lot of headaches and manual overhead I would have to deal with if using a Linux desktop from time to time. And the battery? Lasts the entire day.

I'm a Windows admin by day - I tried to daily drive Linux for a while on my main home PC but had issues and ended up just going back to Windows 10 which I've never had any issues with.

I (as of the past year) now own an iPhone and AirPods and have been quite impressed with the experience so I'm going in hoping I'll enjoy using macOS - having seen it from my perspective at work (managed without MDM/ABM, hopeless issues) it's been a pretty bad experience but for home use that shouldn't be an issue at all.

Trust me, Windows 10 with WSL is just great in a lot of ways - I just found myself really shooing away Windows as an OS platform, but I also saw that it came a really long way compared to 10 years ago.

I would say the hardware on Mac is what takes it the extra mile for now, if Windows laptops end up catching up, it will be an interesting fight to watch.

I plan to get a VM up (or RDP) since I'll need lots of Windows only utilities and I usually just SSH into a Linux server if I need that toolset.

I see Windows get a lot of flak all over the internet and while I agree that the Home version is an ad-riddled mess I've never had it reboot automatically on me, delete my files or install apps without my permission on Pro/Ent. I know that macOS has it's annoyances and quirks but I'm willing to power through those if it means a better device as a whole.

Oh great, I still have my Win 10 Pro License I bought years ago, but never really used it much. Is there any other difference from the Home version that makes it more developer-friendly?

BTW, for the UX gaps that I saw in OS X vs Linux/Windows, I was fortunate enough to have found some apps that will help there, and I've been quite happy with the quality they offered as well (albeit being paid software)

It seems Microsoft locked a lot of the stuff I use down on Home, a lot of registry keys that you can tweak don't work and MMC is useless. You also can't remote desktop into it.

This script [0] is part of our deployment process at work and I run it on my home machines as well, the Pro version has helpful ads for Office instead of TikTok etc, this removes them all and sets some sane defaults.

I've noticed the paid apps thing about Apple - even on a jailbroken iPhone the tweaks cost 99p here and there as opposed to rooting an Android phone where all the modules you'd use are FOSS.

[0] - https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-1...

> This blog post has been maturing for months now. It started in September 2023 and I declared it completed in March 2023

Now thats dedication - a review from the future!

> a review from the future!

Hope the reviewer also got the sports almanac.

I did, and Marty, you will be my slave now.

The review makes a lot of hay over needing DP and HDMI cards for a multimonitor setup, but even on Linux the USB-C expansion card supports DisplayPort altmode, MST hubs, and power delivery passthrough on all four ports. Each port has its own Thunderbolt 3 and PD controller. (The DP expansion card is just an altmode pin converter, and the HDMI card is an HDMI-to-DP converter, which is probably why it constantly consumes power.)

You might need a dock if the other three ports aren't enough, but you can connect power and two external monitors on one port.

The QR code bit interested me, but the issue he describes has been fixed, you can test it by scanning the QR code on this image:

https://yeokhengmeng.com/2021/09/review-usage-and-repair-of-...

The encoded information goes to a URL shorterner https://fr.mw/[removed_extra_characters] that redirects to a human-readable URL (e.g. guides.frame.work/Guide/Framework+Laptop+DIY+Edition+Quick+Start+Guide/57 ). fr.mw seems to be owned by Framework so the chance of them independently disappearing should be low. And making it a redirect means if they ever do a restructuring of their website, they can just update where the redirect target of the fr.mw link.

The line in the review about not bothering to tell them about the QR code issue because they interpreted "filing a support ticket" as corporate codespeak for "throwing the feedback away" is sad, because Framework's tech support is about as thorough and good at following up as I can remember, going back to at least IBM-era ThinkPad days.

As soon as Framework offers a 3.5K+ touchscreen and DDR5 RAM, I'm in. Without those I'll probably go with another Dell XPS 13 for my next machine.

I recently bought a top of the line Framework, 1280p i7 processor and 64GB RAM, 2TB Samsung 850x SSD.

But these laptop fans are so loud. Even for non intensive tasks like navigating code in an otherwise idle IntelliJ. Or just watching a YouTube video. CPU for all the 20 cores will hover at 20% but the fans will spin really hard.

This when compared to my earlier HP Elitebook 850 G7 - which is basically silent for all these tasks.

Performance improvements are there but not sure if I can continue to tolerate the fan noise. My build times for my projects are around 3mins vs 3:30 mins. Seriously considering if I should return it. But I also want to like it.

> in a bizarre twist, they somehow sent me the URL with the plus (+) signs escaped, like this:

> https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Framework+Laptop+DIY+Edition...

> ... which Firefox immediately transforms in:

> https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Framework/+Laptop/+DIY/+Edit...

> I'm puzzled as to why they would send the URL that way, the proper URL is of course:

> https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Framework+Laptop+DIY+Edition...

In a bizzarre twist the blog software unescaped the first URL (I checked the page source) and turned it into the last one, which I confirmed to work

:-)

yeah the irony... i have just fixed this, i think.

i have also just scanned the URLs underneath the left-wise expansion slot and it's still a 404 on my phone.

30k words but not one picture of the laptop smh.

A picture is only worth a 1k words. I ask for 30 pictures to make up for it!

I bought a framework just over a year ago. Honestly I wish I just bought an M1 macbook - it's only a few hundred more and it's a superior laptop all around (I have one for work). Yea I can't put Linux on the M1 but honestly OSX is close enough. The battery life in particular is so good - the fact that I can close the laptop for a few weeks and then open it and it starts up just feels amazing

Is the suspend and power managment problem a OS independent HW flaw or is there still something to fix in Linux?

It's hard to know for sure without being involved in the development of both sides (the line between new features being unimplemented & hw/firmware being buggy is often blurry), but here is some context: * Linux 5.x does not support most 12th gen power-management/igpu, >6.1 does * According to a few (unconfirmed) sources, there were workarounds required that first came from clean-linux >6.x (intel's linux fork).

So most likely it's a mix of new hw breaking existing functionality, and new features not being implemented yet at release

Some of the power management issues have been fixed semirecently with a firmware update for the thunderbolt controller IIRC

this is the biggest problem I have with Framework. I would not have bought a 12Gen for Linux had I realized it was an issue.

Great laptop in general but the glossy screen drives me crazy every day. Instead of focusing on work I'm checking my hair and teeth. :-/

Also the near-necessity of 1.5x scaling is problematic is some situations. In short, the screen is the Achilles heel of this machine.

Regarding the Shipping Trivia section, the "How Overnight Shipping Works" video by Wendover Productions is a good resource to learn more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qfeoqErtY

I'm moderately irked that after almost a year I still can't use the brightness keys on my laptop (there's technically a workaround that allows them to work, but you have to turn off some of the laptop's other features)

I use them, think this is what did it:

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash module_blacklist=hid_sensor_hub"

I seem to have enough sensor values, never noticed that others were missing.

I think that disables the light sensor unfortunately. I can understand why that's a good tradeoff in many cases but I'd prefer not to.

I definitely like to like Framework, but more for experimentation and fun - something I can have that is OK not to be reliable. I might, in-fact, get one just for keepsake but in all honesty, who is the target audience for Framework?

When I was looking for a new laptop in 2021, the price and availability of Framework was very good compared to other laptops with similar specifications at the higher end, like 32 GB of memory. The ability to repair and upgrade was icing-on-the-cake for me; not worth paying a big premium, but I didn't feel like I was paying a premium at all for it.

Then my wife was frustrated when her three-year old laptop started having battery problems, and our attempt to replace the battery failed. The ability to repair became appealing to her, because buying a whole new laptop seemed so wasteful and inconvenient.

I know we're a sample size of two, but we haven't had any issues with reliability (setting the aside the time when I beta-tested a new BIOS version, but that was my choice and I knew it was a beta-test).

With that said, I do think that Framework should just double-down on serving the niche tinkerer and Linux crowd, because normal consumers have no interest in choosing and swapping out components for themselves, nor understanding what BIOS version they have and how to update or rollback.

FWIW on the reliability front, I’ve used mine as my daily driver for over a year now and haven’t had a single issue.

I've been using a Framework as a daily driver on Fedora for over a year. I've had one (pretty minor) issue with the device over that time. The lid spring was slightly lose, and it would slowly close over time when holding it on my lap. They were quick to send a replacement, that was easy to install and totally resolved the problem.

After I had to replace all the plastics and keyboard and battery of my laptop, and each time it was a time consuming let's hope I won't break something moment, I decided my next laptop would either super-repairable or super solid. (ie. no brittle plastics)

M1 being too expensive + Asahi Linux not being ready, I went for the Framework. Even though the M1 seems like a wonder machine, I would have had to choose the cheapest options with no possible upgrade ever and be satisfied with it. I'd rather spend my money on a company that shares my concerns. Fuck luxury.

So I guess I am the audience ? I paid more than what I was willing to spend for it.

And works just great. The screen size is a bit small for my taste but hey it's also more portable now.

I can't speak for Framework but if I had to guess: everybody who needs a laptop is the target audience. With Windows and ChromeOS being first-class options, the only unserved class would be macOS users.

It's not just a laptop for tinkering, it's a laptop that can easily be repaired/upgraded. Even non-technical users benefit from this should something break, or after a few years when the processor is a little slow and they can upgrade it without throwing out a perfectly functioning laptop. It also helps reduce e-waste by not requiring discarding perfectly fine components, which is better for everyone on the planet. If you're somebody who discards laptops like kleenexes and wouldn't even bother taking it in to a repair shop if it breaks, you could still donate it and give someone else an easy shot at a repair.

As far as reliability, I've been using one for daily driving for a year and a half and have had no reliability issues whatsoever (besides a webcam that broke, but that's because it fell 6 feet onto concrete, but that's hardly the latpop's fault). On the contrary, I was able to buy just the little webcam module and fairly easily replace it, so now my webcam works again!

I can't think of any demographic (that needs a full laptop) for which I wouldn't recommend a framework.

Linux is still not first-class option.

I'm typing this to you on a daily use machine that's running pop!_os, has a CalDigit hub connected, and is driving two 30 inch displays. My only issues are what I do to myself with my Linux setup.

>who is the target audience for Framework?

Linus Sebastian and Louis Rossman.

I wish there was something comparable to Apple when it comes to performance and battery life.

Are there any corporations working on something that could compete with M1/M2 in laptop space?

It's not just the hardware—it's the software. Apple gives more shits about power efficiency (and general respectfulness toward system resources & maintaining responsiveness) in software than anyone else building major consumer software platforms/ecosystems/operating-systems does. Apple Silicon is indeed near-magical, but iOS and macOS/OSX devices have been beating the competition on UI responsiveness and battery life often while having smaller batteries for years and years, including in the Intel Mac days. I became a convert in part because I was issued an Intel Macbook for work around 2011 and it was the first time I'd ever felt like I didn't need to carry my power brick everywhere.

I maintain that most manufacturers just don't give a shit about quality - probably because they compete on price, not user experience. I can't think of any manufacturer that seems to actually care about issues that people who use Apple devices would consider glaring and unacceptable.

It's why I consider Apple to have no direct competitors, which is a situation that I do not like (as an Apple user!)

Nobody else seems to be seriously targeting the exact market segment they do, so if that's the segment you'd like to be in, your choices are Apple, and... that's the entire list. The others are so far off that Apple has a worrisomely-large "mistake line of credit", if you will, against which they may draw (and sometimes do) before reaching the point where switching would be an improvement, rather than just trading one set of problems for an even larger set of problems. Plus, downward price pressure isn't what it might be if they had closer competitors. All of which isn't great.

IIRC a lot of the issues with competitors and battery life are an issue for Windows, and not their hardware. As long as Windows remains a hunk of junk they can't get close to Mac battery life levels without you having to cart around a much heavier battery.

ThinkPad X13s (Snapdragon ARM) either meets or even beats Apple Silicon Macbook battery life. We need to note that it's the CPU making all the difference here. The intel Macbooks always had mediocre battery life.

> are an issue for Windows

Nope.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Windows-Linux-Power-Dell-XPS

That kernel compile time is pretty respectable. On the top-of-the-line Intel desktop CPU the allmodconfig build takes 11 minutes, twice as fast but drawing 5x the power.

My review that I keep updating: https://bower.sh/framework-vs-mbp

I would love a 15" framework with the power issues resolved that I can use an egpu with. It would be a great replacement to hauling an SFF pc around.

whoever designed the SD card module should be embarassed by that sleep power usage, it's totally possible to drop into microamps during idle periods

Those idle energy usage stats look pretty damned good. If the numbers are correct, they're beating Apple Silicon.

But only after spending how long tuning things. This is what keeps me on macOS. I’m not a 19yo with time to compile kernels and tweak my XFree86 config anymore. Maybe when I retire in 20 years…

It looks like a lot of the "tuning" was specific to Debian. I did not have any of the issues with things like the touchpad, scaling, etc. with Ubuntu or Pop_OS. And most of the power related tweaks are the same tweaks most people running linux have to do anyway for laptops because the Distro's almost never come configured with the libraries required and setup.

Ditto with Fedora. The 6.y kernel line fixes a lot of problems that aren't Framework-specific but generally Intel and Alder Lake issues. (A lot of those problems, configs, and tuning, even on Debian, aren't relevant on the 11th-gen Framework.)

I should mention that I like what Framework is doing and have been tempted to buy one. Don’t mean to take anything away from them. It’s just not for me right now.

It's author's choice to run Debian on a laptop that provides first-party OS.

It'd be like blaming Apple for Asahi Linux issues, but with even less of a substance (at least Debian doesn't have to reverse engineer Pop! OS improvements).

Buy a machine with first class Linux support the same way you'd buy a machine with first class macOS support if you want to use macOS but don't want the hackintosh experience.

System76, for example, ships laptops with custom power management daemons that tune things for you automatically, and provide you with power saving/performance profile buttons in the system tray if you want control.

GNOME ships with a similar power management daemon that handles things automatically, as well.

I'm also in the "I don't want to tweak my computer" camp, and in my experience, modern Linux is much more sane and stable than it was in the XFree86 days.

>Buy a machine with first class Linux support the same way you'd buy a machine with first class macOS support

Genuine question: Does such a machine exist that isn't a heavy lump of plastic with a very stupidly positioned fan intake under the laptop right where your knee would be?

Dell and Lenovo apparently ship laptops without bottom air intake.

Idle power consumption is good, but sadly as soon as you get into near-idle/light usage (eg, listening to Spotify in the background, or even running a bash script echoing to your terminal, the power jumps a lot (I place the blame mainly on Intel 12th Gen). In my experience, despite also having extremely long idle battery life, for regular web browsing, watching YouTube, light typing tasks, my 12th-gen Framework tends to get about 5h of battery life (I tested a number of scenarios including seeing how little load was required to reduce battery life here for those that are interested: https://github.com/lhl/linuxlaptops/wiki/2022-Framework-Lapt...)

On Notebookcheck's standardized WiFi v1.3 test, the Framework gets 447 minutes while an 8C MBA M2 gets 910 minutes (just over double).

On my most recent trip, I ended up throwing the towel and getting an MBA M2 since my Framework's battery life really wasn't cutting it and for my use cases, MBA gets over double the runtime, making it a lot more suitable for all-day travel days/transcontinental flights, media offloads, etc.

Sad to live in a world where laptops don't use 18650 batteries. :(

Meanwhile, they cannot be purchased in Spain :(

I also was sad to see this. I'm guessing it has to do with the legal requirements for warranty length...? Last I heard, Spain was one of few countries requiring three years (I think EU requires two). I could be wrong though, as StarLabs offers to send me a StarFighter with only a one-year warranty.

> On the downside, there's a bit of proprietary firmware required (WiFi, Bluetooth, some graphics) and the Framework ships with a proprietary BIOS, with currently no Coreboot support. Expect to need the latest kernel, firmware, and hacking around a bunch of things to get resolution and keybindings working right.

> Like others, I have first found significant power management issues, but many issues can actually be solved with some configuration. Some of the expansion ports (HDMI, DP, MicroSD, and SSD) use power when idle, so don't expect week-long suspend, or "full day" battery while those are plugged in.

Meanwhile, the M2 Macbook Air is $1200 and does run all day (literally 100% more battery than this thing). It's screamingly fast, has a better display, better keyboard, WAY better GPU, insanely better speakers, better proprietary boot firmware, is smaller and lighter, and runs Linux well now thanks to the heroic efforts of amazing hackers.

Yes, you must put $3 pigtails on all your USB-A connectors in your home and office (but the upgrade means you can never plug them in backward ever again).

Unless you're into masochism or work at Intel, why would anyone buy this machine?

I mean, you’re asking why anyone would buy a pickup truck when a sports car is so much faster and holds the same number of people. I’ve got both, they’re different devices.

To answer more directly, though - the Framework is both a hobby and a market signal for me. I wanted a repairable laptop with an OS I can control and I don’t particularly care about the rough edges that come with that. Call it masochism, but that’s pretty much what any hobby looks like in the modern age of plenty.

These are both sports cars; they are both sub-15", sub-4K 8-ish core all flash notebooks ("ultrabooks", in the parlance). They run the exact same OS. It's the exact same product category.

One is slow, chonky, and inefficient, however, for basically the same price.

They sell a v6 automatic transmission ICE Mustang, too.

>Unless you're into masochism or work at Intel, why would anyone buy this machine?

People dont want/cant run macOS?

Under discussion in this thread is machines to run Linux. Apple computers are not in any way locked to macOS.

"I have to run x64 Windows for work" might actually be a valid reason to buy one of these, come to think of it.

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