Review: Framework's Laptop 16 is unique, laudable and flawed | Hacker News Reader

Review: Framework's Laptop 16 is unique, laudable and flawed

arstechnica.com

108 pointsPaulHoule91 comments

The biggest flaw, but it's not their fault, is that there's a inexistent second hand market for Framework parts yet.

Sure, the concept is nice to only upgrade certain parts like the motherboard, but who will buy your older motherboard? How many Framework users are out there right now, and also looking for an old 11-th Gen motherboard? Sure, you can turn it into a large ugly expensive NUC with an extra case, but I don't need another NUC and NUC type computers can be had for dirt cheap right now on Amazon.

Meanwhile, if you want to upgrade your non-Framework laptop, you can just flip it on the used market much easier than just looking for buyers of stand alone framework parts as there's an order of magnitude lot more people out there who want to buy an entire used notebook instead of just parts.

If Framework were already to magically have the market share of Apple, Dell, Lenovo, then the second hand market for their parts would be an amazing selling point, but currently they have the have this chicken and egg problem where you're buying into an expensive ecosystem that's still incredibly niche and lacking a user base.

How can they overcome this? I dunno, but I hope they do.

I'm also a bit doubtful about the utility of replacing the motherboard. When I buy a laptop, I'm aiming to get 5-10 years out of it, and the laptops case will at that point be pretty worn so that I'd want to replace it.

They'll sell you a new case too. Once you've swapped out all the parts you'll have a real nice upgrade.

I have the 13 and it's almost perfect so take this in good humour.

I'm hoping that my next laptop will be a Framework 16, and I expect/hope for it to be a Ship of Theseus.

In the past when I've replaced laptops, it was usually because I wanted to update just one or two components. Retiring the entire laptop always felt so wasteful.

So the piecemeal upgrade process to which Framework aspires would be perfect for me.

(Also, being able to cheaply experiment with and replace component choices, e.g. keyboards, is a big selling point for me. My last laptop probably would have been from System76, but I really didn't like their choice of keycaps.)

>Retiring the entire laptop always felt so wasteful.

It's only wasteful if you throw it in the trash. If you sell it on the used market, someone else gets to use it for longer, and so on.

It must really vary by person or environment; the only reason I'm not still daily driving my x200 ThinkPad from 2008 is that it's just too slow.

Part of what’s driven the secondary market for Mainboards to date has been their use as single board computers with either the Cooler Master Case or in DIY projects like cyberdecks and gaming handhelds. That is, the existence of those projects doesn’t only help Framework Laptop owners who may want to reuse their old Mainboard, but also creates demand in the market for people who don’t want their old Mainboard to sell it to people who do.

>Part of what’s driven the secondary market for Mainboards to date has been their use as single board computers with either the Cooler Master Case or in DIY projects like cyberdecks and gaming handhelds.

But how many customers/people actually do that? Is it a sizeable market to generate demand for these parts, or is it just a few tinkerers to post their DIY projects on reddit?

Because price and commodity wise, turning a Framework motherboard into a cyberdeck, becomes a more ugly, impractical and more expensive version of the Steamdeck. Who would do that other than only a handful of enthusiasts/tinkerers?

I actually was looking for a used framework motherboard because it seems like a fun project to use it as a mini server that could eventually become a laptop, but I couldn't find anybody selling them. I know they have a "marketplace" on their website, but that just looks like framework selling their own old/refurbished stock.

It doesn't seem like there's actually a second hand market for these parts. Either people love them so much they don't want to resell them, or there just aren't that many people buying them in the first place?

EDIT: ...OR I'm just looking in the wrong places!

>I actually was looking for a used framework motherboard because it seems like a fun project to use it as a mini server that could eventually become a laptop

Sure, but the amount of people who want to do this is in the single digits as there's way better and cheaper alternative for such tinkering projects.

Not exactly a sales and market share driving force.

Where we’ve seen a lot of usage of Framework Laptop Mainboards is in projects that need stronger performance than an RPi but either a thinner form factor than something like a NUC or the ability to be battery powered. That leads to projects like this: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/rasti-computer-is-a-...

A resale market is on our roadmap, but in the meantime we’ve seen the secondary market popping up on our community forum, a subreddit, and our Discord. We definitely agree that it’s beneficial to have an dedicated marketplace for this though, especially as the number of Framework Laptops and upgraded Mainboards continues to increase pretty substantially each year.

Maybe ask Swappa to open a section on their site? I think it's one of the best marketplace platforms these days.

Personally, I don't think I'd trust an "official" second hand market. My go to's are usually eBay, Craigslist, and FB marketplace. If framework parts are only being traded on Discord servers and subreddits, it makes me think there just isn't that big of a market for those parts for whatever reason.

I don't expect Thinkpad levels of availability, but I've only ever seen one listing for a Framework mainboard on eBay in all the times I've looked. But tbf, the internet is very strange nowadays, and maybe Discord is the new eBay?

To be clear, I'm not trying to imply nobody is buying frameworks, just that nobody is reselling them. I upgraded my laptop not too long ago, but I already decided my next one will be a framework. So keep up the good work!

Are we talking about non-Apple laptops? Because the used market for those is abysmal. My 5 year old Asus is worth about the cost of shipping and a new battery.

It depends on the laptop. My 10 years old HP ZBook 15 is still about 400 Euro on Ebay [1] My laptop has 32 GB and a 2 TB SSD, so it should be a little more than the most expensive one. The cheapest one with no missing parts is 240 Euro, maybe too much to buy as a backup to cannibalize if something big fails. The very cheapest ones are from the USA but I would probably have to go pick them at customs somewhere unless eBay deals with that. No thanks.

[1] https://www.ebay.it/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=hp+zbook+15+i7...

Huh, my 4 year old Lenovo Legion gaming laptop is currently selling for $500-700 on eBay (based on "Sold" items, not list price). I paid $1030 for it.

It's small, but I wouldn't call it inexistent.

Ebay shows lots of parts available right now, e.g. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=framework+lap...

And, if you switch to sold items, you can see that people are indeed buying used motherboards, speakers, keyboards, etc: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=framework+lap...

>It's small, but I wouldn't call it inexistent.

It's inexistent if you check ebay in the EU and probably other markets that are not the US.

If I were in the US I'd consider the Framework, but as it stands, the used parts market and service center network in the EU is sooo much larger for the likes of Lenovo, HP and Dell that makes Framework a tough sell, especially that the former brands have models with much lower price points at similar specs, and since the EU has a lower purchasing power than the US, I doubt they'll explode in popularity here very soon.

Don't be hasty, I mean, if they dont even ship properly to entire europe, how can people have parts to sell?

I think there are two issues with your analysis.

First, the problem you describe is an expected one to have for a relatively new brand. And for a new, novel way of making old laptop components useful. While you may be right it's a problem to solve, I don't think it's existential.

Which leads me to my second point. I think framework laptops are fairly high quality, regardless of whether I find myself upgrading the motherboard alone. I like the screen form factor, the easily replaceable battery, and the modular ports.

And like others have said, the resale value of PC laptops is low. I have a stack of them at home because I never expect to get more than shipping for them, since technology moves so quickly in laptop space.

I'm considering a Framework 16 as replacement for my laptop. Hopefully I can wait and see what happens to it and what they'll build next. I will definitely buy the no number pad version and I'd buy a touchpad with buttons if there was one available, from Framework or from a third party. There aren't any, only a few threads on their forum like this one [1]

[1] https://community.frame.work/t/the-clickpad-and-the-sliding-...

Even if you couldn't resell used parts, I would hope buying a new motherboard would be cheaper than buying a whole new laptop less the amount you'd get for an old used one.

i don't think the idea is that you can sell your old motherboard and get a new one; the idea is to make it as easy as possible to buy a new motherboard and only have to discard the old one, rather than having to buy a whole new laptop.

Nice.

Now this is out could we get a TrackPoint keyboard please? https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-keyboard-mod-super-e... is getting there I am sure with a little support it would happen finally.

I'm curious if there's (still?) a patent on TrackPoint-like devices.

(This is a tangent question. IIUC from that community thread, people are considering adaptive real ThinkPad keyboards to work in a Framework.)

According to Wikipedia:

IBM introduced it commercially in 1992 on its laptops under the name "TrackPoint", and patented it in 1997 (but the patent expired in 2017)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

Wikipedia is wrong as always, it patented an improved version in 1997. I will try to edit but I am not holding my breath.

The original patents on track point ran out years ago. Even dell has a (not great) version in some of their laptops.

There could very well be some new patents on Lenovo’s recent stuff for whatever reason, but there’s nothing stopping anybody from copying what IBM put out.

Dell and HP and Toshiba all had pointing sticks on their professional laptops even before the patents ran out. They were utter shit of course because it was negative inertia which made the TrackPoint usable and that was patented and by the time it expired everyone was high on trackpads which are , once again, obviously utter shit because they can not be as efficient as a TrackPoint which is where your fingers are compared to a trackpad where you need to move your hand to.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5570111A/en expired 2014 (this is what makes the TrackPoint more than just a pointing stick)

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6115030A/en expired 2017

We've been watching this thread closely (and providing cscott with additional documentation as he finds missing info).

I heard that the keyboard for the 16 will run QMK firmware but I don't see anything mentioned. To me, the killer feature of this machine is the QMK keyboard. Being able to remap keys on the firmware level allows you to sidestep all the shitty ergonomic choices that software vendors have made. Keyboard shortcuts are typically three buttons and you usually need to twist your wrist to hit 2 of them. Really hope framework succeeds.

It does indeed. Here is our QMK fork: https://github.com/frameworkComputer/qmk_firmware

I love the idea of the Framework Laptop 16 and an upgradeable GPU. My wife has a Framework 13 DIY edition and loves it.

My problem with the Laptop 16 is the price; it is ~$2,100. At least as a gaming laptop, you can get an equivalent GPU in more traditional gaming laptop for less money (compare the Acer PH315-55-79KT w/ an RTX 3070 @~$1,800: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-3070-Laptop...).

I'm not sure it makes sense to pay $300 more to be able to upgrade the GPU... In theory, maybe? If in three years, if you can get a 100% better GPU for the laptop for just $400 that would be a coup, but I don't know if that is what is going to happen.

My experience with jumping between laptop manufacturers has one constant thread: the ports always break. For that alone I think the "repairability premium" is worth paying (in fact I had a pre-order for an AMD Framework 13 before the 16 was announced), and to also have options for the keyboard and, at some point, GPU is just a bonus.

first generation tax

Just the fact that I can swap any part of this laptop, in cause they get old or worn out, is worth a premium price.

If it's worth _this_ much of a premium price, I'm not so sure though.. It's quite rough - compared to Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8, it's 850$ extra, with lesser (GPU) performance.

But you can only swap them out from one vendor (for now?). This just seems like a support contract with extra steps. It's also unclear how much cheaper this ends up being in the long run vs just buying a new laptop, AFAIK framework hasn't done a typical "refresh cycle" yet.

Even with a support contracts, I'm not aware of any vendor that lets you upgrade the GPU for you.

From what I understand Framework is hoping to basically open source the hardware schematics eventually for the ports and such

FWIW, the RAM and storage is completely standard and replaceable. Something that most laptops don't offer anymore unfortunately (plenty of decent ones still do though).

It should be noted that there are other laptops where you can swap out most parts, e.g. the EliteBook is actually surprisingly good at this.

I have a Framework and have probably procured 10-15 total for my company & a few clients. It's great that you can swap out any part of the laptop. That said, I broke my input cover [0] and tried to order a new one, but the listed part 404'ed. When I reached out to support they said there were none in stock and they didn't know when they'd be back in stock. So my Framework anecdote was that I found myself worse off than if I had a non-modular computer. When I checked 1.5 months later, the part was in stock.

[0] https://frame.work/products/input-cover-kit

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll follow up with our team on this, since that is certainly not the intended or desired experience.

Thank you I'm happy to forward my correspondence to you

Is there a way to get notified when a part is back in stock?

A normal out of stock listing on the FW marketplace will include a form to take an email address and notify customers when parts come in to stock. They don't usually 404 like OP described

> When I checked 1.5 months later, the part was in stock.

So, are you good now? Or was the part in stock too late for you and moved on to another laptop?

Yes I'm set now, at the time though it seemed like it might not come back in stock

My interest in Framework is the DIY repairability. Not interested in modular upgrades but hot swappable ports on the side and should something need replacing, can be done in a relatively shorter and more predictable timespan than with ThinkPads and EliteBooks these days. Have had terrible experience with those in the last few years.

My main problems compared to old school enterprise modular Lenovo (IBM) and HP laptops:

- The only module option is a graphic card. There is no option for extra battery, extra CD-ROM, no module with 4x NVME SSD... I could put three batteries into my old lenovo

- it is build like a cheap plastic toy. It would not survive fall from table etc...

- No hot swap, you have to shutdown the system, fiddle with screws for 20 minutes and reboot. My regular laptop with removable lid has similar level of modularity.

We’ve demoed a dual NVMe module already and have open sourced the design for third parties and the community to create their own modules. We’ve seen an Oculink module and an FPGA module in development (and this is before the first laptop shipped).

The system is made of thixomolded magnesium and CNC aluminum and is tested to the same drop survival standards as most other high end 15-16” notebooks.

The Verge timed their Graphics Module swap and did it in <3 minutes.

> tested to the same drop survival standards as most other high end 15-16” notebooks.

My impression from my (very breef) test is that replaceable display frame is compromising display integrity. I also do not like how motherboard is accessed from top lid, rather then bottom lid. In many laptops (Sky Lake Dell XPS 13) keyboard is screwed together with motherboard, and is protecting motherboard a bit. Removable bottom lid provides crash zone, and bends independently from motherboard, on Framework it sends every stress directly into motherboard.

Form factor of an "ultrabook" has been around for more than decade (Mac, XPS 13, Zenbooks..). People know tradeoffs and what to expect.

This is a new form factor. If its rudged, perhaps provide some videos with crash tests.

You have one and tested it? How did you accomplish that? Can you tell me about your test? How did you determine it's the replaceable lid is compromising integrity?

No, I spend like 20 minutes on friends unit, deciding wherever to buy it as well. Now I am telling company founder my impressions.

I did not determined anything with bottom lid. Perhaps they can answer motherboard is free floated, or crash zone is from sides, since it is in center.

No CD-ROM? Whatever shall we do.

Lmao that's what I was thinking when I saw that

There is potential for a extra battery module. It doesn't exist yet, but the connector supports power going from the expansion bay to the laptop[0], so someone could build a battery module or potentially even a hot-swappable adapter to use a removable battery made for a more common laptop.

[0] See pins 41-51,63-64 on https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionBay/tree/main/...

I really want Framework to succeed. I think right now their laptops are ugly, but they’re acceptable and very thoughtfully designed!

I’m only sad I don’t have a need for a Windows or Linux laptop right now, otherwise I’d put my money where my mouth is immediately.

I have a Framework 13 Chromebook. I find its aesthetic similar to macbooks.

Would love to purchase a Framework, but 16 is way too large and 13 is way too small. A 14 or even 15 would be greatly appreciated. I love my 14" G14.

The 13” is 3:2. Anecdotally, I feel like I have more screen real estate than my older 16:9 14”.

How is the 3:2 13" with vertical splits? This is my typical layout.

I cancelled my Framework 16 order when I saw quite how big it was was even without the GPU. Would love to support Framework but like your parent comment I think something in the 14" to compact 15" range is my sweet spot.

+1 for 14"

This seems to be a good size factor to have a proper ergonomic split keyboard with a staggered layout. Has any mod like this appeared?

It looks like someone is working on it: https://community.frame.work/t/diy-staggered-columnar-laptop...

Edit: that's actually for the FW 13, but folks are also talking about it for the FW 16: https://community.frame.work/t/split-keyboard/29777

I really love the idea and I hope they succeed in the long run. Having an easily replaceable battery is just about enough for me to want to buy one over any other laptop. It’s always the thing that degrades the fastest for me, even with premium laptops (looking at you, Surface Book 3). I want a laptop that lasts. In the age of everything being glued together, a laptop that can be end-user repaired is refreshing.

I'm in the queue for a Framework 16, but I still haven't totally decided. I'm typing this on my Framework 13, which I proudly received in the very first batch of Framework 13s to go out for sale.

I have had a combination of good and bad experiences that make me hesitant. A couple months after getting my 13 it suddenly stopped booting. I emailed the company and everyone I talked to also had their name printed on the mainboard. Ultimately the CEO (nrp) instructed me to ship it back and they sent me out a new one. I thought it was a great experience.

Fast forward a couple years and the thing won't turn on unless it's plugged in. Once it's plugged in, it boots up and has a full battery. Very confusing. Turns out it's the BIOS clock battery that's going dead, and the thing is wired in such a way that it can't boot without the clock battery, but the clock battery can only draw power from the wall, not from main battery. And if both go dead, I believe you need to take the laptop apart, physically pull the clock battery out, re-insert it, and put it back together. This means if you are the type of person that leaves you laptop in your backpack (like I am), it can become effectively useless unless you also carry the screwdriver with you.

The customer service here is not so great. Their options are: send them your order date and number and they'll send you a new $5 battery (hurrah - honestly it's easier to just order one from Walmart or Amazon than dig up my order number), or you can ask them to send you a new kit that you can solder onto your mainboard that will allow the clock battery to draw power. They claim it's a bit of a tough soldering job, and while I can solder the odd thing, I didn't want to wreck it attempting to fix their engineering flaw. Supposedly the issue is fixed for boards after the 1st gen.

I think this is quite poor customer service for a design flaw. The correct answer is to let me ship my mainboard back and have them fix it. It's a bit sad to see them get this so wrong. And this gets on to why I'm nervous about the Framework 16. It's another "1st gen" product, with only a 1 year limited warranty. That does not inspire confidence in any way. If the product was inexpensive, that'd be one thing, but it's not. I also buy audio products from a small company that designs and builds equipment in the US, and they offer a 5 year warranty, as well as out of warranty repairs for a reasonable price. To me, that's become the standard for bespoke engineering at a premium price.

I understand Framework can't warranty some parts past the manufacturer's spec easily (though they could certainly figure out how to do it), but the least they could do is cover things like obvious design flaws that they are responsible for.

I love the mission, the product is generally great (great may even be an understatement - for a team this small to do as well as they have is incredible), and the people all seem nice and have their hearts in the right place, but $2200 is too much to spend on a 1st gen laptop with a 1 year warranty.

This mirrors my experience with Framework tbh. I love the hardware but they've let us down at pretty much every stage when it came to customer service.

First laptop clearly had no QC and instead of offering to swap it, the expectation was we would do some pretty tricky repairs to a brand new laptop. We sent that one back but the return just sat there for weeks without being processed before a post on the forums got it moving.

The other laptop refused to boot after eighteen months (still under the two year EU warranty) but involved about twenty back and forward emails to support - half of which ignored diagnoses we had already done and provided the results for.

I love the hardware but I just don't think I can recommend people buy one at the moment, which is a real shame.

An AMD GPU on a Laptop that will primarily be used to run Linux? Gonna be a hard pass.

I have been using a T495 since spring 2020 and only after upgrading to Fedora 39 in December have I been able to run it without having to reboot at least once a day due to the amdgpu driver hanging up.

What's the underlying card?

I've had excellent experience with amdgpu and the vega integrated graphics.

There's a second driver amdgpu pro that might be worth a look though I've never used it.

The CPU is a Ryzen 3700U so the accompanying GPU is RX Vega 10 as far as I can tell.

FWIW, most of the issues happened with an alt mode display and/or USB-C dock plugged in. Very few issues when undocked, but as it is a work machine, it's not going to be used by itself too much. In any case, I've lost more productivity than the price difference to the equivalent Intel model laptop would have been.

I have a Framework 13 with AMD running Linux, with absolutely no issues at all. I reboot it once a week after installing updates.

That’s not an issue we’ve seen with either the AMD-powered Framework Laptop 13 or 16. A large chunk of our user base are Linux users.

Unsure if your thoughts come from recent experience, legacy experience, or a need to run CUDA-accelerated workloads, but if you're citing the old wisdom that AMD GPUs on Linux are a pain to deal with, I'm happy to tell you that your knowledge is a bit out of date. AMD's OSS drivers (with closed source firmware blobs, yes) are mainlined in pretty much every modern distro's package manager, and work surprisingly well. Mind you, I tend to not run Linux on laptops, so if there's some nuance you're aware of wrt sleep or something that I'm not, please feel free to share.

I will say "Here There Be Dragons" wrt CUDA/OpenCL workloads however. You have to switch from Mesa to the AMD closed source drivers, and I did have some wonky issues, with, for example using things like Davinci Resolve with those drivers.

Is it still the case that Wayland is better supported with AMD GPUs than with nVidia?

IIRC, the last time I tried using Wayland, my nVidia GPU was the barrier.

Not sure about that exact chip, but my experience with AMD GPUs has been fantastic on Linux.

FWIW, the proprietary nvidia linux drivers for the 2070 in my desktop PC are absolute trash. Last year they failed so bad that I couldn't even get it to boot and ended up just reinstalling ubuntu to fix the problem.

On the other hand, my AMD Framework 13 hasn't had any issues with the iGPU with Linux. (It bluescreened and rebooted twice in two months with Windows, and I suspect both of those were graphics-related, but no issues in the month or so I've had ubuntu on it.)

I'm typing this on a T495s, but running NetBSD. Thanks for the data point on the working amdgpu driver, I'm just using a dumb framebuffer driver right now.

Recently, I got a P14s with the AMD Ryzen PRO 7840U. Its CPU and GPU are a different architecture than the Ryzen PRO 3700U in the my old T495.

The P14s seems very fast and stable with Fedora 39. I tested OpenCL as well as Steam games and general desktop usage with Firefox.

But to be honest, I didn't have as much trouble as you describe with my T495 either. I ran it exclusively with Fedora since right before the pandemic. My main problem was that I could not use OpenCL at all. But for desktop usage and even Steam games, it worked well enough.

I'll admit I rarely use suspend/resume, so if your problems were related to that, it might explain my different experience. I've noticed the T495 is very slow to resume compared to most other machines I've used including the P14s and lots of Intel-based Thinkpads.

Man what? I always use AMD with zero issues (arch). AMD is known as the best graphics card for linux. Your experience does not match up with what is typical.

I was finally ready to be a full time Linux Laptop user and then Apple came out with the M series chips and I can’t commit. It would feel like such a downgrade. Asahi Linux looks cool but if I’m buying a Mac I might as well use Mac OS.

Anyone else feel this way or is it just me? Once I got the power and battery life from my M series chip I can’t give it up.

In terms of performance the 7840u in the framework 13 uses less power (under load) and has better multi-core performance than an M1 Pro (10 core) with comparable single-core performance.

I don't have the 16, I have the 13, but I've been impressed. [The slots would be cooler if they were hot swappable, but it's generally not been an issue.] - Holy shit I can hot swap. Ignore this. Other points stand ;)

Build quality has been good, it survives being chucked in and out of my backpack and it's survived a drop off a bar stool to hard tile.

I really hope they keep iterating and improving, there's certainly things that could be better, but they're on to something in my opinion.

I hot swap the ports on my 13 all the time - what are you talking about?

> I don't have the 16, I have the 13, but I've been impressed. They slots would be cooler if they were hot swappable, but it's generally not been an issue.

I thought all the slots were wired into the XCHI/Thunderbolt hub system, so they should be hot swappable, no? Or maybe my understanding of the system is incorrect.

The Expansion Cards are indeed hot swappable!

Hot damn they are.

I thought they were just big usbc dongles that slot into the device? Surprised that's not hot swappable.

They are hot swappable. I'm just a fool. Laptop just got cooler ;)

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