I am considering a purchase as a student although it is really expensive.
What are your major criticisms of the framework laptop?
E.g.
- I have heard that it discharges battery even while powered off (a very serious issue IMO).
Also, I will be using win10/11 and fedora most likely. So any Linux-related issues (e.g. hardware support) I would really like to know.
Thanks for any ideas.
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a little bit too expensive
I dont own one but the reason I decided against one is that a max spec one is expensive (16in). GPU is not really all that hotswappable either (about 5 -10 min work). And the worst offender imo is: I cant see a reason why I would need an upgradeable device. Sure I can upgrade singular components and reduce cost but how often is that going to happen? More likely i have to do it in batches which hinders the money saving aspect significantly. On top of that im not super convinced about the build quality (speakers for example are really important to me as well as battery life) and it just wasnt worth it to me. Love the repairability aspect but it would very much be an ethics based purchase than one because I am convinced by the product. Instead went with an M3 pro macbook and as far as battery, screen and general build quality go I am super happy with it. Very antithetical to framework though :(
Love my framework laptop. I would have liked coreboot as a firmware (get the chromebook edition if its a must) or wait for ever and someone will port it (there where some folks trying)
When swapping internal nvme, the bios loses custom bootnetries for those stored on the nvme. Unless the default boot efi filename and location. Guess grub or windows bootlaoder by defualt works fine. My custom arch install is a pro move, so yeah. The bios itself is fine enough. Incan recover from this.
More bios updates? DONT browse the forums. Tons of negative ppl that complain useless statements. We may get a nice update on 12th gen (the one i have), amd and newer and first FW did get uodates or still getting many. Mine, someway have 1 beta and i wish they had time (the third party and FW, to test and distribute the newer bios) as if my laptop would die, NOT. Its still a safe laptop anyway
I sat on it, its bended now a bit. Guess what, she still works nice and a replacement part is CHEAP compared to some highend other brands. Im just a cheapskate ans waiting till im convinced i need it and the network adapter (a aliexpress dongle 2.5g dongle seems fine now too)
get your nvme and ram elsewhere. I got a nice deal.locally and dont buy windows, just get your university license somehow or activate using hardware based activation (naughty) i ofcourse uninstall windoes when im finished with uni.
Id like no shipping costs. Its sad at ghe moment, or shipping from europe.
R7 on win 11. I upgraded from 12th i5.
I upgraded screen, battery, speakers.
My primary concern was the speakers, abysmal. The 80db are very loud, I wasn’t expecting how loud they are. Maxed out they sound terrible, but they cover a way more reasonable volume range than before. Even if they have overall slightly less sound quality, I’m not listening to music on it, I’ll use headphones for that. But YouTube videos or the odd game, 80db highly recommended.
Next concern was the heat. The i5 did not do well for me. R7 is substantially better. For performance, let alone heat and noise. And even now, after another users report, I may repaste.
Sort of wish there was a higher refresh screen but that’s not picky, 60 is good enough and the brightness is great with the matte.
I personally dislike the front left and right sides in the wing shape. I much prefer the MacBook style body shape. But that’s personal.
the fan is noisy AF with the highly pitched noise while the speakers are anemic. 10% battery drain over night when not connected to a power cable and in suspend mode under Ubuntu 22.04, which works really well otherwise.
The suspend battery drain is likely due to using modern standby, the framework supports S3 sleep which I’ve found is not that bad with battery life
FW 12 DIY edition (so Intel), running Ubuntu 20.04.
Battery life is a bit underwhelming, and so are the hinges.
One thing that is annoying is that the trackpad sometimes fails to work, when opening the laptop, but it also seems to relate to having high load and poor wifi connectivity (?)
See lots of complaints about speakers, personally speaking from my experience with my Framework 13 Ryzen 7 this just doesn’t seem to make sense.
I have a few other premium laptops for my various businesses, some costing more and with B&O speakers. None are great. I have used Macbooks too (in the past just want to add), and equally they were poor too, just with a very high price tag and shocking customer service.
I’m keen to see what laptops people think have good speakers. I have never come across any that are exceptionally better than these? If there are any, post below, I could use a device for my kids that has good sound.
Are any of the screens touch screens? Cuz if not, that will b my complaint
I’ve never understood the appeal of the touchscreen on a laptop. I had various Surface Pro’s over the years and a few HP laptops with touchscreen. I think I used it like a handful of times.
Just don’t see the point IMO. I’d be keen to hear what people actually use the touchscreen for when we all have phones, why do we want a PC/tablet too?
I use the touch screen on my laptop allll the time. Some apps work better with touch screen. Also when sharing photos in the laptop it’s so much better when the person next to u doesn’t have to awkwardly touch the mousepad to use it and they can just flick the screen directly. You’re probably right that i wouldn’t use it on my home PC but sitting in the bed with a laptop in the dark and flicking through Netflix with your fingers is so much easier
thanks, interested to see what others use them for and how much, I think netflix was the only thing I really used it for too. I do think its a good idea, I just dont see the use case, but thats just me :)
I guess it should be an option though if there are some folks out there who use it. Can’t see it being a big deal to have a touchscreen as an option.
My issue is a nonstandard size of screen
Somehow now freight forwarding is allowed but stupidly region locked in EU.
Aka, I can’t get more parts now that I moved to Japan.
it runs very loud, the speakers are crap, and the webcam has never worked on mine
Have you checked you didnt damage or crush any cables when putting it together?
yes I triple checked
Battery life. ~4-5 hours, and that’s with lots of tweaks.
That’s it.
If you are operating in a developed environment with plugs everywhere, like a college, then this isn’t a major issue IMHO.
The screen housing seems a bit flimsy, if that makes sense. I grab a top corner to close the laptop and there is way more flex than I’m comfortable with. Instead, I have gotten in the habit of using the top center to close the laptop.
Fw13 could use a design brushup in the coming year or two(don’t get me wrong was good at launch) and fw16 needs a better gpu
No high refresh rate screen option.
Intel based battery life is underwhelming
I would like to see a MagSafe like dedicated charging port not thing up the I/O
The fan curve is beyond obnoxious I would just prefer throttling then the machine sounding like a 20 year old think-pad with half a cat stuck in it.
It’s pretty heavy for a 13 inch laptop.
Top panel feels kinda of flimsy.
I get really weird keyboard lockout issues to where I have to pull the expansion ports out to fix it.
Doesn’t support windows hello.
A magsafe is withing reach if you are willing to DIY. There are suitable ones on ali and with a small 3d-printed collar it even looks sturdy.
For anything else I think apple still has the patent for that for a few years so it will be a while until we see that feature generally in laptops.