I _really_ hope they launch an AMD version (perhaps with an iGPU) soon after that. That and preferably with Libreboot support. This would make it the ideal portable laptop for me and thus I'd be able to (finally!) replace my X220T.
It feels odd having a load of closed source EFI stuff and then putting linux on top of it. Sure linux injects a bunch of firmware into hardware later in the boot, but it's still progress
I've been burned by a small SBC that had poor support, but on laptops/desktops never felt limited.
But people always sound so excited to libreboot their personal computer... Am I missing out or is it just nerd cred?
Still would like an end to end open source UEFI bootchain, most groups end when they hit the 60% of stuff they need for their limited use cases : - |
The other things is bug-fixing. The way it currently works is that bugs often only get fixed for one version and other issues like that.
Getting this stuff open and having upstream heavy fixing of bugs will imporve the ecosystem.
The other things is performance. Faster boot times are quite nice.
The other things is being able to better play with more advanced boot security concepts, booting with Bluetooth/NFC verification and so on.
And once its open, and you can more easily work with it, and its more available, hopefully more people do more interesting work with it.
That said, its not an absolute priority for me, but its just a better long term solution. So companies that push it are a big plus.
The 13th-gen Intels had miserable battery life and heat issues under load. If you could manage that, all four USB-C ports were full Thunderbolt ports equally capable of driving displays, PD, and USB 4 throughput.
The AMD line had considerably better performance-per-watt but rougher firmware support (and early on, really broken Linux kernel support that required Fedora or other rolling kernel release distros). It also couldn't deliver the same "every port does everything" promise that the Intel boards did, with some ports not supporting displays or USB 4, which significantly reduced the value of the expansion-card model to kind of a novelty.
On the 12, if it's likely also going to have a smaller batter than the 13, going only with 13th-gen Intels means it likely will be either a further step back in battery life vs. the 13 or throttled to extend the battery.
Both chips were Q1 '23, so the timing's not a great excuse. They were in HP's 2023 EliteBook G10 840 (1334U) and 845 (Ryzen 5 PRO 7540) laptops, and the 845 was better on both single- and especially multi-thread Cinebench R23, _much_ better in GPU loads and gaming, _and also_ lasted longer on battery.
I think Framework mostly just wants to target an education market with a mainboard experience that's lower maintenance than AMD has been for them. Fewer USB-C restrictions, less firmware drama.
Still hard to get excited about it being the _only_ available option, though.
Combined with properly prepared HW taking less power in modern standby than in S3, but it requires hardware/firmware/driver/userland confluence to work well