[HN Gopher] Framework Laptop 16 Review
___________________________________________________________________
Framework Laptop 16 Review
Author : mikece
Score : 299 points
Date : 2024-01-23 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| nrp wrote:
| I'm happy to answer any questions folks have on this product.
| KingJulian wrote:
| Hello Nirav,
|
| When can we expect Framework to start accepting orders from
| India?
| subtra3t wrote:
| I'm wondering the same thing. I don't imagine India to be a
| very big market though.
| ConceitedCode wrote:
| Is an intel version of the 16 in the pipeline?
| seusscat wrote:
| No questions. But I just want to say congrats on getting
| another SKU out. I'm a very happy customer of an AMD FW13. The
| product has been pretty excellent and I absolutely love owning
| a notebook that I feel like I really "own".
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| Are you planning to add blank keycaps or colemak/dvorak
| keycaps?
| nrp wrote:
| We currently have a blank keyboard module available in both
| ANSI and ISO! For other keyboard layouts like Dvorak, it is
| technically possible, but we don't have a timeline for it.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you really want colemak or dvorak
| keycaps? As a colemak user myself I found it useful to keep
| the qwerty keycaps in case I am dropped into an environment
| when the keyboard layout isn't behaving properly, since I no
| longer remember them perfectly. In all likelihood when using
| colemak/dvorak normally you aren't looking at the keycaps
| anyways.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| I have a framework 13" and I replaced the keyboard with a
| black blanked keyboard. It was really easy to install, it
| took me ~15 minutes. I really like the look of it, and when I
| use it in public people think I'm a wizard.
| okasaki wrote:
| Any plans for a keyboard with a trackpoint-like device?
|
| Is it possible to remove the trackpad?
| ctsdownloads wrote:
| In terms of can you remove the input kit (touchpad) itself,
| similar to what we see with the Framework Laptop 13, yes, it
| is removable. As is the keyboard.
| GenerWork wrote:
| Is there any chance that the upgraded screen in this will be
| made available for the 13" laptop?
| mortallywounded wrote:
| Why do they continue to put a Windows icon on the super key?
| That alone would prevent me from buying it ;p
| nrp wrote:
| We actually do have an "English International - Linux"
| keyboard option that has a Super key instead.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| Is that option available for the 13? I've been looking and
| having trouble finding it.
| nrp wrote:
| Not currently, but we are looking at the attach rate on
| Framework Laptop 16 to inform future Framework Laptop 13
| keyboards.
| ctsdownloads wrote:
| We do offer a proper Linux keyboard available in the
| marketplace.
|
| Image: https://static.frame.work/6jh6n0jcad25finrrmx9kmv48eex
|
| This keyboard config uses the super key.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Are there plans for USB4/thunderbolt on amd ryzen laptops?
| nrp wrote:
| USB4 support is present on the rear left and right Expansion
| Card slots on our Ryzen-powered Framework Laptop 13 and
| Framework Laptop 16.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Ah perfect, the descriptipn of the usb-c expansion module
| confused me a little bit.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Reviews seem to suggest that AMD has proper eGPU support
| too on those ports, fwiw
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Can you convert an existing Framework laptop into a Framework
| 16 in an economical way? Based on the marketplace, it looks
| like it would be at least $750 for just the mainboard.
| nrp wrote:
| The Expansion Cards are cross-compatible (as are memory [if
| you have DDR5] and storage), but the other modules are unique
| to Framework Laptop 13 vs Framework Laptop 16. We did that to
| be able to fully optimize for each form factor.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| How many form factors are you planning on having?
| nrp wrote:
| We can't share anything about future product plans, but
| in general, as few as possible. We want to avoid
| splitting out into too many different ecosystems of
| parts, and instead maximize the size of the install base
| within a cross-compatible ecosystem.
| mft_ wrote:
| It's notable that a lot of 'smaller' laptops are coming
| along with ~14" now, rather than the 13" standard. I
| appreciate that the FW13 is really FW13.5, but if the
| next work you focus on (having launched the 16) is a FW14
| or FW14.5, that would be lovely - especially if you took
| the opportunity to shave a few hundred grams off it as
| well!
| Steltek wrote:
| I'm very against this trend. It's a bit like how compact
| cars have been slowly ruined by getting bigger and
| bigger.
|
| 13" is a great size for a truly portable use case.
| spuz wrote:
| What are your thoughts on the large amount of keyboard flex in
| the 16" model as reported by LTT and specifically do you have
| any official recommendations for fixing it maybe something a
| little more robust than sticking a few thermal pads under the
| deck?
| nrp wrote:
| We saw the feedback and our mechanical team is digging into
| it.
| rglullis wrote:
| No questions. Just want to say that I am happy owner of a FW 13
| and that my current tech-related dream now is to see the
| announcement of the framework smartphone. I bought the
| Fairphone 3 hoping they would keep an easy-to-upgrade form
| factor, but they completely failed on that front. I think you
| guys have what it takes to deliver.
| esskay wrote:
| Are there any plans to offer larger batteries and/or improve
| battery efficiency? From what I've read battery life is still
| an issue many seem to be having.
|
| With the greatest respect it's 2024, a laptop should be capable
| of 8 hours at the very minimum for a mid range model but I'm
| seeing a lot of people getting sub 2 hours.
|
| The 16 ticks all the boxes for me but I've held off for now as
| having the possibility of worse battery life than my old 2015
| mac isn't as you can imagine making for a compelling upgrade.
| nrp wrote:
| For reference, here is Notebookcheck's review stating 9 hours
| of real world battery life in web browsing (though on
| Windows): https://www.notebookcheck.net/Radeon-
| RX-7700S-performance-de...
|
| For Linux, when following our installation guides for power
| optimization, power consumption with integrated graphics
| should be similar.
|
| Edit: Tom's Hardware similarly reports 9 hours on Windows
| (with Graphics Module installed):
| https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/framework-
| laptop-16-rev....
| hecanjog wrote:
| I'm surprised to be reading that, honestly. I have a first
| batch framework 13 without any upgrades and I spent the
| summer working with it outside. Nothing super crazy, 4-6 hour
| stretches in the park, but I never remember cutting it close
| with the battery. As long as we're sharing anecdotes, I'm
| happy with the battery life FWIW...
|
| Edit: I'm running linux. I don't recall doing any battery
| optimization but maybe I installed or configured something a
| few years ago? I don't change things often.
|
| Another edit: I just checked and I do have TLP installed!
| jwells89 wrote:
| I think the expectation for battery life for most these
| days is closer to what can be found on e.g. M-series
| MacBooks or in the x86 world, HP Dragonfly and some ASUS
| Zenbooks, which range between 14 and 22 hours.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Battery life is inherently a trade off against
| performance and weight.
|
| It's also a trade off against competence, because you can
| kill the battery right quick if drivers don't idle things
| properly, but even after you address that you still have
| the other thing.
|
| Which makes 16+ hour battery life an odd choice for most
| people. Who uses their laptop for 16 contiguous hours
| with no opportunity to charge? It could have been lighter
| or faster.
|
| Naturally Framework has the potential to make it
| flexible: Have a dual-use bay where one of the options is
| a second battery, and then if you want it you take the
| weight/battery life trade off in favor of battery life,
| and if not the machine can be lighter.
| Maskawanian wrote:
| I love framework's mission. I would not change the past on
| buying a framework. To provide a counter example, quite
| often I open my bag to find that my Framework 13 has cooked
| itself in the bag. The battery life, and the bad intel
| sleep management have been a thorn in my side since I got
| it. But the power management does leave much to be desired.
|
| Given LTT's review of the laptop, it may be best to wait
| for the 2nd revision of this which hopefully will deal with
| the deck flex and screen consistency issues.
| leeman2016 wrote:
| You're not alone with the cooking laptop in a bag running
| Linux issue. I had those in the past with Dell/Toshiba
| laptops in the past.
| buildbot wrote:
| Dell Windows laptops will also cook themselves. (For
| example: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/
| xps/dell-957...)
|
| Macbooks are the only device I would trust to not light a
| bag on fire...
| bombcar wrote:
| Anecdata but I've had a MacBook do the cooking once, but
| it thermal throttled itself so it just got warm, not
| super hot.
| kennydude wrote:
| Yeah I once had my old Macbook Air get insanely hot to
| the point it felt dangerous. I left it in the sink (dry
| and in case it blew up it would be somewhere non-
| flammable) to calm down and it was fine a few hours
| later.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I have an 11th gen and have terrible battery life. Always
| have. I would not describe the Linux support from Framework
| as sterling but bad battery life remains the same between
| my Linux and Windows sides if a little better on Windows.
| pella wrote:
| > Are there any plans to offer larger batteries and/or
| improve battery efficiency?
|
| discussion: https://community.frame.work/t/simple-extra-
| battery-for-the-...
| cassepipe wrote:
| Very likely. They already announced recently a better battery
| for the 13 models so I don't see why they wouldn't if they
| have the opportunity
| TkTech wrote:
| Battery is what prevents me from taking my 13 framework with
| me when traveling. I spend most of my time in pycharm,
| rebuild docker containers constantly, and have celery +
| postgres + redis running full tilt. The fan is running
| constantly, it's always burning hot, and the battery lasts
| under 2 hours (if I'm really lucky).
|
| Previous generation Macbook running the same workload last
| for 6+ hours.
|
| That said, for someone who isn't going to be running every
| core at 100% all the time, I'd still recommend it.
|
| Edit: Oh, and under arch with the latest kernel, I find many
| monitors that cannot display video output over usb-c, like
| the Dell U4919DW.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Mildly curious what kind of task requires that usage
| profile on a laptop (in general but especially while
| traveling?)
| olddustytrail wrote:
| At the end of the day, all the work a CPU does turns into
| heat. If you want less heat you need the CPU to do fewer
| calculations.
|
| If you have processes pegging CPUs at 100% and you don't
| want them to, then use a cgroup to limit their CPU time.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I don't know about my 100-0 battery time. What I know is that
| suspend on Fedora/Framework is *not* valid for overnight or
| longer sessions. My battery will drain 50% in two days on
| suspend, vs weeks for a MacBook.
|
| I now make sure to save my work and shut the laptop off
| completely at the end of a session.
| natrys wrote:
| Any chance we can get Japanese keyboard? You asked for feedback
| on it a while ago:
|
| https://community.frame.work/t/request-review-of-korean-belg...
|
| (am not even Japanese, just have bad habit of using thumb
| clusters a lot, and this is the only layout with small space
| bar)
| nrp wrote:
| The keyboards we requested artwork feedback on are all ones
| that we're working with our keyboard supplier on, but we
| don't have specific availability timelines that we can share.
| We certainly make sure to have the main keyboards for a
| country available before we launch there, but we've also in
| many instances launched a keyboard language far ahead of
| time.
| agrama wrote:
| Any plans to offer a touch screen?
| jckahn wrote:
| Hello! I'm in FW16 batch 4 and excited to support your product
| and company. Thanks for driving innovation in this space!
|
| I'm holding out for an NVIDIA GPU, or at least some hardware to
| accelerate running local AI models. Do you have any expansion
| bay plans for that?
| kinow wrote:
| Yeah, me too, waiting for an NVIDIA GPU for Blender (AMD and
| Intel GPUs perform really badly with Blender)
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Hi - Linux still has spotty fractional scaling support. It
| would be nice to have a display option that is either usable
| without fractional scaling (1920x1200) or one that works with
| 2x scaling (3840x2400).
| tristan957 wrote:
| Linux support will definitely get better within the next
| year, but yeah this is my biggest pain point. Electron and
| other XWayland apps look terrible. Is there some environment
| variable that I can set to launch Electron apps with the
| correct command line arguments for Wayland?
|
| Edit: Looks like I found what I am looking for:
| https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/api/environment-
| varia....
|
| Electron apps are still blurry though. Hmm... Also, seems
| like I need to expose something to Electron apps that are
| packaged in Flatpak. Needs more research.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Use a better DE. KDE allows not scaling xwayland apps, and
| Hyprland does too. Just set Xft.dpi to let it scale the old
| fashioned way. Electron can be started with wayland but
| it's often buggy.
| tristan957 wrote:
| GNOME meets all my needs except this one, so I think I
| will stay here. Definitely looking for a less drastic
| solution.
| vetinari wrote:
| Many electron apps either ignore the ozone flags, or
| straight up ship with ancient electron, that doesn't
| support ozone/wayland at all.
|
| The only way forward is bug the maintainers of the apps to
| do the right thing and support wayland properly. Electron
| itself does.
| ctsdownloads wrote:
| It's on the road to improve, as GNOME continues work here.
| KDE users have reported a cleaner look overall for
| applications that are not displaying in a way folks would
| like to see. Fedora Workstation for example, keeps folks to a
| 100 or 200% scale due to this, but it can be enabled easily
| enough if on e prefers.
|
| This is an area of active development that will continue to
| see improvement.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Note GTK3/4 doesn't have true fractional scaling. What it
| does is scaling up to 2x and downsample to the required
| resolution. This is not that visible but it does produce
| some blur, along with the performance overhead. Qt5 doesn't
| support it either, though Qt6 does. Of course we'll see
| improvement, but I doubt it would get to the same level as
| Windows in the next 5 years or so, which is a long time.
| vetinari wrote:
| > This is not that visible but it does produce some blur
|
| At these pixel sizes (except 125%), it is irrelevant.
| MacOS and iPhone do exactly the same for years, and
| nobody was ever bothered.
|
| > along with the performance overhead.
|
| By the increased resolution of the framebuffer; the
| scaling itself is done by hardware (and here I do not
| mean GPU; I mean output encoder).
| sourcegrift wrote:
| Are you collaborating with others or assisting others in
| similar projects in other fields? I've been thinking how
| rapidly india is industrializing and the middle class is
| getting rich and considering the difference in my electricity
| bills in winters and summers ($7, 55 kwh vs $80, 640kwh ), I
| was hoping there were air conditioners which were more open and
| user accessible. The goal here might not be preventing wastage
| of ACs but of having only one AC that could power multiple
| rooms non concurrently thus minimizing energy waste.
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| Hi there,
|
| Do you think that you will move from batches to continuous
| production the next few years (I understand this is difficult
| logistics)? If Frameworks were available with 3 day shipping,
| then I would be able to recommend them to people more
| successfully.
|
| Also out of interest, do you mind sharing your stance (and
| estimates for current and future demand) for touchscreens?
| Presumably you're estimating low demand for this at moment
| since it's not a priority. Would be great to see stats on this
| (since at the moment it's mostly just informal discussion /
| passing comments in the community/forums)
|
| Thanks in advance. Appreciate everything you've all done.
| nrp wrote:
| We're in stock on both Intel and AMD Framework Laptop 13
| configurations, and they ship from inventory within a week.
| We start out each new product under a pre-order system, but
| then move into normal production and ordering once we fulfill
| all pre-orders.
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| OK great, thanks
|
| And appreciate that any expectations for <1week delivery
| would ignore your JIT/ondemand style assembly
| biehl wrote:
| Are you considering some quiet NUC-type machines? I have a very
| nice Starlabs Byte v1, but even more competition for the Mac
| Mini would be great.
| nrp wrote:
| We can't share anything about future product plans, but you
| can re-purpose a Framework Laptop 13 Mainboard to be a small
| form factor computer:
| https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/mainboard-
| case/fr...
| biehl wrote:
| Yes. That mainboard repurpose is awesome! A dedicated mini
| can probably have better/quieter cooling. Fingers crossed.
| teslabox wrote:
| This case is available from Framework directly for $39:
| https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case-
| and...
|
| Q: the pictures of this case on the CoolerMaster site
| _looks_ like there 's a USB-C trigger to a Coaxial power
| connector, then another connector to the mainboard itself.
| Would this case work with a 20v coaxial power supply?
|
| Q: What voltage/wattage does the Framework SFF computer
| need to power up?
|
| A lot of the USB-PD power supplies only give watts, not the
| voltage provided. Your 60w power supply is probably either
| 12v/5A or 20v/3A, but the page itself doesn't say:
| https://frame.work/products/power-adapter
|
| I have some 15w USB-C 5v/3A power supplies (that won't
| charge my Sony camera), a USB-PD battery that supposedly
| puts out 12v on the one USB-C port, and an Apple 30w USB-C
| ac adapter. My 2016 macbook charges on 5v, which is
| convenient. Framework forum posts indicate the laptops will
| charge on 5v 12v and 20v, but there was a problem with 15v.
| atribecalledqst wrote:
| I have a Framework 16 pre-ordered for batch 11 -- is there a
| rough estimate of when it might ship? Promising I won't send
| you a nastygram either if that estimate doesn't hold :)
|
| I didn't keep track of Framework 13s at all so I'm not sure
| what their shipping cadence was for pre-orders (just for
| comparison's sake)
| nrp wrote:
| For Batch 11 (and all of the later current batches), we
| expect to fulfill them before the end of Q2.
| depressedpanda wrote:
| When will it be available in Sweden?
|
| I followed the prompt on the website and signed up for the
| newsletter, but I got so much marketing spam that was totally
| irrelevant to my one and only question that I had to
| unsubscribe.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Same question but for Finland.
|
| I've got the money here, had it for at least two years. I
| just don't have a way to give it to Framework
| lousken wrote:
| rest of the EU is supported via reshipping
| https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/eu-unsupported-
| SJByUb...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| "Supported" is a stretch.
|
| > All warranty service will require a shipping address
| within one of the EU countries we ship to.
|
| So if I need to warranty something, I need to figure out
| how to have a shipping address in, say, Germany? Easy!
|
| Oh and if the 2.5kEUR laptop gets damaged by a 3rd party
| shipping company, I'm on the hook for it.
|
| Yea, I'll wait. I can't figure out why it's so hard to ship
| stuff within the EU. The whole purpose of the European
| Union is to make moving products easy inside its borders.
| KomoD wrote:
| > I can't figure out why it's so hard to ship stuff
| within the EU
|
| it's not, at least not in my experience.
| folmar wrote:
| Shipping is quite easy, especially for small and
| expensive things like laptops, where adding cost of
| DHL/DPD shipping is not a major deal.
|
| Tangentially, as they are doing it already, selling _to
| consumers_ is quite hard. Each country has different
| regulation placing a lot of obligations on the seller.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| What's the best reshipping service for the rest of the EU?
| KomoD wrote:
| Curious as well
|
| > but I got so much marketing spam that was totally
| irrelevant to my one and only question that I had to
| unsubscribe
|
| Make sure you don't tick the "Stay up to date with Framework
| newsletters" checkbox, I didn't and haven't received any
| marketing
| snvzz wrote:
| Shipping to Japan anytime soon?
| nekoeth0 wrote:
| Any plans of doing OLED displays? It's the only reason why I
| got my XPS13; but if given the choice, I'd have jumped
| immediately to the F13 OLED.
| lawn wrote:
| Been patiently waiting here in Sweden to be able to order one.
|
| You got an AMD option now, this is the last hurdle.
|
| (An ergonomic and programmable keyboard ia a dream. Maybe I
| could mod it myself.)
| pkphilip wrote:
| Any plans to ship to India?
| sillystuff wrote:
| Do the AMD based Framework laptops support proper suspend to
| ram?
| progval wrote:
| Officially, the 13" AMD does: https://old.reddit.com/r/framew
| ork/comments/19bf3ki/linux_su...
| rathboma wrote:
| No. It supports s0 sleep, not s3. It's my biggest problem
| with mine. I lose about 1% per hour.
| sciclaw wrote:
| Will there be a way to sell old parts back to Framework as we
| start upgrading computers?
| belthesar wrote:
| I'm not a part of Framework, but I imagine they're less
| interested in becoming their own secondary market.
| nrp wrote:
| We don't plan to have a take-back program, but we have
| shared in the past that we plan to launch a consumer to
| consumer resale path in our Marketplace.
| lousken wrote:
| any plans for upgrades not just for the webcam and mic but also
| the speakers (though side instead of down maybe problematic)?
| since they did not get much praise from LTT
| metalforever wrote:
| You really need to deal with the coreboot / firmware issue.
| user_7832 wrote:
| You had made a statement of not having the 8000 series AMD
| chips as it's not really a new "version", however for Intel is
| there any comment for Meteor Lake or is that a "we can't
| discuss future plans"? ;)
|
| (I'm curious to know but I think I'll be getting the AMD 13
| anyway, upgrading from a dualcore skylake laptop should still
| be nice :)
| itronitron wrote:
| Any plans by you, or others, to make an extra rugged case (and
| hinge) for the laptop?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Can you send someone to my house to hit my current laptop with
| a baseball bat so I can justify an upgrade?
| tdrz wrote:
| What are the noise levels vs load?
| 6figurelenins wrote:
| The fan at full load (i5-1240P) is noticeable, but not
| obtrusive or unpleasant. My noise floor is a Be Quiet!
| desktop case.
|
| In a normal workday, I don't hear it.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Does hibernation work on Linux?
| caskstrength wrote:
| Any plans for UHD display and a good keyboard?
| smcleod wrote:
| When is a 4k version available?
| schmorptron wrote:
| Gonna be interesting to see if the community effort to get an
| oculink port goes anywhere, would make using it with an eGPU much
| more viable.
|
| Regardless, it sounds pretty great from this review and the
| upgradable backslot is a massive achievement.
| nrp wrote:
| We certainly hope so! We handed some early adapter boards to
| the community members who were working on it, so we hope that
| they'll be able to show some initial prototypes quickly.
| navaati wrote:
| What's the advantage of Oculink over regular Thunderbolt/USB4
| for eGPU ?
| nrp wrote:
| Reduced protocol overhead allowing for greater throughput. It
| is native PCIe.
| p_l wrote:
| Essentially instead of running a not so trivial stack on both
| ends to handle USB4/TB4 virtual channel system over which you
| then tunnel PCIE L2 packets, it's straightforward,
| unmodified, PCIE connection with at most retimers/signal
| conditioners on both ends.
|
| OTOH, it's _only_ PCIE signal.
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| I wish they deliver good keyboard as well, like Thinkpads X201 or
| similar have. I am happy owner of modded X201 with updated
| screen, motherboard, and so on. It's not on a cheap side, but I'm
| happy to pay that price _only_ for the keyboard option. It's so
| cool. Folks back then knew what was important.
| pachico wrote:
| I personally never experienced a keyboard as comfortable as my
| fw13. I am coming from XPS ones and never tried ThinkPads,
| thought.
| Hamuko wrote:
| The LTT video says that the 16-inch Framework has a much
| worse keyboard than the 13-inch one.
| nrp wrote:
| The physical key mechanism is the same as on the Framework
| Laptop 13 (the same tooling too). The LTT video noted that
| they found flex in the mid plate that the keyboard rests
| on, which we are investigating.
| happymellon wrote:
| Do you know what is the travel on the 13 and 16 Framework
| keyboards?
| nrp wrote:
| 1.5mm key travel.
| juujian wrote:
| I hope with the new modular keyboard tray we will get some
| decent option. I would only buy it if there was one with a
| track point tbh, third party or otherwise.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I've been hopeful for more keyboard options on Frameworks
| too. Ideally I'd like HHKB layout with trackpoint and
| accompanying trackpad module with three buttons at the top,
| but would be happy with only HHKB layout or only trackpoint.
| genman wrote:
| Certainly the colorful led backlight must have been the
| highest priority.
| gary_0 wrote:
| I dream of having a laptop with a standard tenkeyless layout.
| If I end up buying a Framework at some point I might build my
| own TKL keyboard, or pay handsomely to have one custom-built,
| such is my burning desire to keep my existing muscle-memory.
| paulmd wrote:
| Yeah I'm not a fan of the numpad on laptops. If im doing
| serious data entry I'll get out a numpad (Keychron C1) or a
| full keyboard. And it actively reduces the space for the
| rest of the KB layout, speakers, etc.
|
| But as you say, the cool part about framework is that
| everyone can customize it to their own tastes.
| whalesalad wrote:
| How long does your battery last?
| leetharris wrote:
| I have not used a Windows laptop outside of Razer and maybe
| Surface in many years.
|
| How do those Thinkpad keyboards compare to new Macbook Pro
| keyboards?
|
| I've always found the Macbook Pro keyboards to be "fine," but
| I'm curious if I am actually missing out on a better
| experience.
| rollcat wrote:
| > I've always found the Macbook Pro keyboards to be "fine,"
| [...]
|
| Have you tried the previous, "butterfly" generation? It
| should've been criminal to ship that.
| patrec wrote:
| Personally, I think the butterfly keyboard is great.
| Assuming, of course, that you got one that does not suffer
| mechanical reliability issues. This opinion is hardly
| universal but seems to be shared by quite a few good
| typists. I'm typing this on a fancy mechanical keyboard,
| because I care quite a bit about keyboard quality (and
| consequently hate most laptop keyboards). So it's not that
| I just don't know better.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| I have and I think it's fine. The newer ones are better,
| but I never understood the enormous dislike for it. IMO the
| pre-butterfly keyboard is still better than even the
| current iteration.
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| > Macbook Pro keyboards to be "fine," but I'm curious if I am
| actually missing out on a better experience
|
| Yes, you are missing a better experience. You might try out
| Bluetooth X201-like keyboards built by enthusiasts from
| China, if you can buy them. I tried to contact with no luck
| though.
|
| But it can be a good DYI project, if you have one for sale,
| let me know.
|
| Here is the link
| https://www.taobao.com/list/item/615448425938.htm
|
| They 3D-print the body, and use keyboards from Thinkpad
| laptops.
| voytec wrote:
| > I've always found the Macbook Pro keyboards to be "fine,"
|
| I haven't bought a (non-phone) computer made by Apple since,
| and due to, the MBP 2017 keyboard fiasco. It was the single
| most shitty and unusable keyboard I have had a displeasure
| working on, and I've owned some super cheap entry laptops in
| the past.
|
| To say that it was crap, trash, garbage, joke, spit in
| consumer's face feels like a laughably low effort on
| expressing how useless it was. I bought this laptop as a pre-
| order before general availability and reported issues to
| Apple before all the media shitstorm began. Support reps have
| expressed their concerns and assured me over the phone that
| it has to be an isolated problem with an individual unit.
| I've sent the laptop for servicing within a 2 weeks since
| purchase. They replaced the keyboard and, for some reason,
| also the mainboard and screen and sent it back. Exact same
| issues but before I got the mostly-replaced device, issues
| with the butterfly keyboard already caught media attention
| and it was a hot topic.
|
| I was traveling with a laptop and a mechanical Keychron
| keyboard, ffs. I used external keyboard during flights, at
| Starbucks and in other public places. Any attempt to use
| built-in butterfly joke of a keyboard was so frustrating that
| carrying an external keyboard was a reasonable trade-off.
|
| Apple later parted ways with $50 million to settle the class-
| action. US-based buyers got up to $395 (I got nothing in EU)
| but still ended up with non-resellable devices. Jony Ive
| probably got a great bonus for this stunt.
|
| I'm happy for you that you have experienced only "fine"
| keyboards on MBPs. Would I have enemies, I wouldn't wish the
| misfortune of having to use MBP 2017 on any of them.
| binkHN wrote:
| > ...modded X201 with updated ... motherboard...
|
| How far are you getting with these updates? I agree the
| keyboards of old are legendary, but at some point your
| productivity is negatively affected by legacy CPUs and related.
| tempest_ wrote:
| It really depends on how you develop.
|
| For some people laptops never have enough power and are
| essentially a thin client to something else.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The X201 mods are pretty comprehensive, the 51NB team and
| others like XY Tech have commissioned entire replacement
| motherboards that carry i7-8550u or i7-10710u processors. See
| [1].
|
| And the old 35W processors in some of these laptops will
| still deliver solid performance. The new ones will turbo
| higher, but throttle quicker. You get higher default clock
| speed and better thermals with the older processors. Of
| course memory bandwidth and peripheral connectivity are
| better with newer processors, but they're perfectly usable.
| If what you want to do to be productive is _edit text_ and
| maybe _render HTML_ and _browse files_ , and your
| OS/IDE/browser does not place unnecessary demands on your
| computer, then an X201, especially modded, cannot be the
| blame for your lack of productivity.
|
| https://www.xyte.ch/
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| > How far are you getting with these updates?
|
| I can run Slack native app and the fan doesn't kick in!
|
| Kidding, but I have Slack running, and containers, and IDEs.
| Everything. My CPU is pretty decent, 64GB RAM, 2 SSDs, 1TB
| each. This is modded X201 from enthusiasts from China. These
| laptops are somewhat niche, but you can buy them.
|
| You will run all the software you need, and even more. The
| only downside is battery life, I hope we'll have new types of
| batteries some time soon, so it won't bother me too much.
| dartharva wrote:
| Does a current-gen laptop featuring an X201-like keyboard
| exist? Has such a thing even existed in the last five years?
| binkHN wrote:
| Lenovo continues to reduce key travel in favor of the more
| popular thin and light crowd.
| wazoox wrote:
| case in point : my 2020 Lenovo Ideapad keyboard looks like
| this:
|
| https://demo.intellique.org/nextcloud/index.php/s/6jJ3r4brr
| j...
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| Yes, through enthusiasts from China. They make their own
| motherboards and install modern components. There is no
| warranty though, and you need to wire them funds, there is
| also no returns. It worked for me though. I have 64GB ram, 2
| SSDs 1TB each. It's mostly silent after I configured things
| in BIOS. The battery life still sucks.
| silon42 wrote:
| Yeah... I'd want a full height mechanical keyboard myself.
|
| The current offering is missing International English ISO -
| Linux variant for me.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| It is unlikely, but I really hope they get an ortholinear
| keyboard option at some point. There is this thread[1] which
| has gotten my hopes up.
|
| [1] https://community.frame.work/t/ortholinear-keyboard-
| option/3...
| rollcat wrote:
| Hopefully not just a simple square grid, but something
| designed for ergonomics. You don't need to invent a new
| layout, there's plenty of pretty good designs you can copy,
| like Corne or Atreus. But at this point I'd take anything -
| even a narrower space bar (so that you can use your thumbs
| for modifiers without contorting them) would be a huge
| improvement.
|
| Even just looking at staggered keyboards hurts my hands.
| tiltowait wrote:
| There's a surprisingly large cohort that believes a matrix
| layout _is_ ergonomic--as in, "I have an ergonomic
| keyboard". From my personal use, it's a wash at best--some
| keys are easier to reach, and others are harder. The worst
| part is the layout promotes ulnar deviation even more than
| does a standard keyboard, and ulnar deviation is a major
| contributor to RSI. (A split matrix-style keyboard would
| negate the ulnar deviation concerns.)
|
| The Atreus layout, while not a personal favorite (way too
| much chording, which I found unpleasant and uncomfortable),
| would seem to be pretty ideal on a laptop, though it does
| take up a good chunk of space.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > From my personal use, it's a wash at best--some keys
| are easier to reach, and others are harder
|
| I agree.
|
| > the layout promotes ulnar deviation even more than does
| a standard keyboard
|
| Hard disagree. You may _choose_ to hold your wrists in
| such a manner that this is true, but that 's on you.
|
| I'm a touch typist, and I switched to ortho partly
| because it makes a lot more sense for touch typing. Touch
| typing is taught in columns, and when those columns are
| slanted like this \ there really is no justification. So
| ortho lets me scratch that itch to fix the keyboard.
| BadHumans wrote:
| There will probably never make one. I'd be surprised if even
| % of laptop users even know what an ortholinear layout is.
| You have a better chance of an aftermarket one.
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| I never used a laptop keyboard that I liked (I currently have a
| thinkpad)... probably because I'm used to these old style IBM
| keyboards with numeric keypad
|
| https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71UJ8OXnZjL._AC_SL1500_....
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| to me, it would make a lot more sense to replace the lines of
| numbers on top of the keyboard with the numeric keypad
| (instead of getting rid of it)... it is so much easier to
| type numbers with it....
| christkv wrote:
| Looks like the keyboard was decent once you put some thermal
| pads under the keyboard to stiffen it up lol. I like the fact
| that you can easily mod things yourself though.
| vehemenz wrote:
| It would never happen, but I'd like to have a no-keyboard
| option. I never use my laptop keyboard because I have an HHKB,
| rendering it unnecessary. Instead of a keyboard, I'd like a
| flat surface where I can rest my HHKB and maybe an L-shaped
| connector to plug in the USB-C.
| tadbit wrote:
| Sounds like you want Framework to release a mini pc
| pachico wrote:
| I am really happy with my fw13. I love everything of it.
|
| I even made the simulation of upgrading to 64gb of ram just after
| I bought it to prove myself that it was the right choice.
|
| I cannot think of going back to buying something I know I'll most
| likely have to replace entirely after some time because it cannot
| be upgraded.
| gregwtmtno wrote:
| Just wanted to chime in that I love my Framework 13 as well.
| It's been running great on Ubuntu for well over a year now--no
| complaints.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Really happy too after running Fedora for about a year now on
| the 12th gen.
|
| I had doubts about the 3:2 screen ratio but although it was
| unfamiliar at first I quickly realized that the extra vertical
| space for a 13' computer !
| davewood wrote:
| how long will it run on battery? my FW13 12th gen (debian) lasts
| maybe 2 hours and even in suspend mode it drains way to fast
| (/sys/power/mem_sleep = deep)
| motiejus wrote:
| You are not alone with both issues. Framework12, i5, NixOS. My
| milleage is 2.5~3h, but usage is light (vim mainly, often not
| even a browser).
|
| I spent quite some time trying different things to optimize it,
| but never got more than realistic 3 hours.
|
| Happy with other aspects though.
| whalesalad wrote:
| My M2 air will outlast the workday. Obscene battery life. I
| can't imagine using a Linux notebook after this level of
| performance.
| smoldesu wrote:
| As long as you don't use Docker. My last job gave me an M1
| Air for container debugging and devops, and it was a
| comically bad fit for the task. I ended up going back to my
| cheap x86 Linux host for most of the dirty work, just
| because it ran cooler.
|
| Now, if someone could find me a native Docker host that
| lasts all day... then we're in business.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I run all the heavy stuff on a remote dev node. My laptop
| is just vscode+ssh, tmux in iTerm, a browser, Spotify and
| slack.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The wave of the future! Half the people in my team did
| that, I didn't feel right about the EC2 costs. To each
| their own, I guess.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I mainly dev on my home machine, a 13900k linux desktop.
| When not at home I utilize tailscale to get remote
| access. Was just in Vegas for a week and it worked great.
| I plugged my laptop in once to charge.
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Or just get the Framework Chromebook and get the best of
| both worlds.
| soulnothing wrote:
| From an 11th gen I get about 6 to 7 with light usage, two to
| three with any development. It's largely a thin client at
| this point. Battery health is at 92%.
|
| I tried upgrading to the ryzen and when it was good it was
| really good. I was able to keep a user mode libvirt vm
| running for dev work and mid brightness under 5W power draw.
| That used slirp networking, adding a bridge or default nat
| nic takes up about 2w to 3w of it's own power.
|
| But like most windows laptops the suspend mucked things up.
| Not even power draw while asleep, but when awaking from sleep
| the power minimum was 10w with it more often at 20w with
| similar usage. I tried several wifi cards, nvme drives, port
| configurations etc. Also tried Fedora, Ubuntu and Nixos.
|
| On Linux this carries over to the discussion of tlp vs power
| profile daemon, and soon tund. I saw much better performance
| and regularity with tlp, but that seems like it's not the
| path forward.
|
| The steam deck shows that suspend can be fixed and done well
| with decent battery life under linux.
| steinuil wrote:
| I have a Framework 13 12th gen i5 as well, running NixOS, but
| I definitely get a lot more than 3 hours! I'm usually running
| some terminals and Firefox.
|
| I definitely had to play with powertop a bit and remove some
| programs that consumed a lot of battery (for example, the
| blueman tray applet had to go). I'd recommend setting
| powerManagement.enable = true and
| powerManagement.powertop.enable = true, and letting powertop
| run in the background while on battery for a few hours to
| identify the worst offenders.
|
| This is my configuration: https://kirarin.hootr.club/git/stei
| nuil/flakes/src/branch/ma...
| seabrookmx wrote:
| I get 3-3.5 under Fedora and the 'Power Saver' gnome power
| profile, but yeah it's not great.
| ctsdownloads wrote:
| Make sure you are on the latest PPD - this matters and
| provides a noticeable improvement. https://copr.fedorainfracl
| oud.org/coprs/mariolimonciello/pow... and you are on at least
| kernel 6.6.12.
| jcastro wrote:
| I'm running with this setup and getting at least 5h, I
| haven't measured it recently but it's definitely makes a
| difference!
| Filligree wrote:
| The defaults should work. What's the point in buying a
| Linux-branded laptop if they can't get the basics right?
| seabrookmx wrote:
| It's not Linux-branded to be fair (they label it as a
| "DIY" device that ships with no OS), but yeah.. I'm not
| really one to deviate too far from the defaults on a
| device I use for work.
| ctsdownloads wrote:
| This AMD config uses s2idle and the battery life very much
| depends on the usage itself. Ideally, running UMA is going to
| yield a longer life than say, running from dGPU. For gaming, we
| have folks using dGPU only as needed. Provides choice.
| nrp wrote:
| Phoronix has some power consumption information in their
| review: https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-laptop-16/8
|
| For Framework Laptop 13 12th Gen, we have an article on
| optimizing power consumption (this one is written for Ubuntu,
| but should largely apply to Debian):
| https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/optimizing-ubuntu-bat...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Haha and they say Linux is hard to use! What could be
| simpler?
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Or just get the Framework Chromebook which works great out
| of the box.
| xtracto wrote:
| You are not kidding haha, I saw the article and immediately
| thought the same. I use a Dell Latitude as my work computer
| and run it with Linux (Mint). It is a constant struggle
| between battery life, sleep states (lack of), camera not
| working, bluetooth not working and whatnot. I still prefer
| working on Linux than suffering the UX trash that is
| Windows, but god if there was some paid Linux version that
| prevented all the necessary tinkering :(
| esskay wrote:
| OOf thats a tough sell, two hours is pretty pathetic. I can't
| imagine how any laptop maker can be selling a laptop in 2024
| with anything shorter than 8 hours and keep a straight face.
|
| This surely has to be a software issue, I can't imagine they'd
| have been silly enough to fit such a tiny battery!
| askonomm wrote:
| Yup, comparing to a similarly priced MacBook that goes for
| ~20 hours it's ridiculously bad.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I would really like to switch from my M1 MacBook to a Framework
| Laptop, but the battery life difference being almost an order
| of magnitude makes it a complete non-starter. I like Framework,
| but this needs to be at the absolute top of their priority list
| to the exclusion of almost everything else.
| binkHN wrote:
| Framework's hands are tied; the battery life with Apple's
| CPUs simply can't be touched by the biggest players like
| Intel and AMD.
| askonomm wrote:
| Touched maybe not, but it's almost 20 hours worse. Surely
| it doesn't have to be THAT bad?
| p_l wrote:
| It's also a Linux issue that was ignored for years by
| users and done developers who instead pushed where
| possible reenabling clunkier older operating modes.
|
| My understanding is that one of the reasons Linux on
| M-series macs doesn't have the problem is that Asahi team
| doesn't take similarly crappy attitude.
|
| Also, the issue appears to show up on other 7040 Ryzen
| laptops, so I hope this finally gets us proper "modern
| sleep" support instead of instructions to disable it in
| firmware setup.
| binkHN wrote:
| > the issue appears to show up on other 7040 Ryzen
| laptops, so I hope this finally gets us proper "modern
| sleep" support instead of instructions to disable it in
| firmware setup.
|
| My ThinkPad has modern sleep support for the 7840U; sleep
| and wake are nearly instant with very little battery use
| while sleeping.
| prewett wrote:
| Apple's 22 hr rating for the 16" MBP is a maximum for a
| niche task, it's only (up to) 15 hrs of "wireless web",
| which is a more typical usage and would only be about 12
| hrs worse.
|
| All that configurability of the Framework takes up space,
| so its battery is 15% less (85 W/h compare to 100 W/h for
| the MBP).
|
| The MBP has a CPU and instruction set that was optimized
| for low power from the beginning, compared to x86 which
| has 40 years of ad-hoc cruft and assumed wall power in
| the beginning, so it may not even be possible to
| implement the whole instruction set in low-power. (Intel
| tried, and did not succeed. Could be BigCO
| ineffeciencies, but could also be that it just isn't
| realistic.) But Intel/AMD can't switch architectures like
| Apple can, because they don't control the software.
| There's no guarantee that the buyer of a hypothetical
| improved instruction set Intel CPU has access to a
| Rosetta program (even if Intel had the imagination to do
| that). On top of that, Apple has been optimizing that CPU
| for 15 years, and is has access to the leading node.
|
| Additionally, (presumably because of the lack of legacy
| cruft) Apple has space on their die for huge caches and
| the GPU. On-die GPU eliminates power consumption due to
| an additional discrete component. Large caches also help
| things go faster, which means the CPU can drop down to
| low-power mode quicker.
|
| Since Apple owns the CPU, it can customize the CPU for
| its needs, and it has relentless optimized for low power
| consumption, even to the extent of putting in a few new
| instructions for the OS.
|
| Apple owns the OS, so it can have all kinds of power-
| saving features that a mass-market OS like Windows cannot
| feasibly implement. It is not in Microsoft's interest to
| take advantage of every little power savings a
| motherboard manufacturer might add: extra complexity (=
| bugs and maintenance costs) with no extra revenue
| potential. Linux has a similar problem, and additionally
| there are enough problems needing attention that I expect
| power optimizations beyond the big ones just do not have
| the interest / resources. For instance, if a 5%
| improvement would require a large kernel / driver
| refactor, I suspect it's a hard sell. Plus, macOS doesn't
| need to support anywhere near the number of
| configurations that Linux does, so it probably is less
| effort to do. So all those 5% increases that Apple can do
| add up.
|
| Then there is the aspect that Apple can tune its OS for
| power saving. Update Cocoa to save energy and everyone's
| app uses less power. I expect GTK and Qt have other more
| pressing problems. On top of that, I expect Wayland and
| especially Xorg are not designed with minimal power
| consumption in mind. Etc, all the way down.
|
| That said, 2.5 hrs does seem like it could definitely be
| improved.
| celrod wrote:
| I would love to see a Snapdragon Elite X in a Framework.
| zilti wrote:
| I'm getting at least 8 hours out of my AMD framework.
| CarVac wrote:
| Two hours??
|
| I get 6 with Ubuntu on my 1240P Framework, and that's with the
| BIOS limiting the battery to 80%.
| nrp wrote:
| With 12th Gen, 6-7 hours looks like around what we'd expect
| for normal, real life usage on Linux. With 13th Gen or Ryzen
| 7040 Series, we've seen even better, e.g. (though on Windows
| for this reviewer):
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/review-framework-
| lap...
| ativzzz wrote:
| Yea I got a FW a few years ago and regret it. For just a few
| hundred $$$ more I could've gotten an M1.
|
| The battery situation makes me never use it. Compare to a
| macbook when I can just close it and open it up weeks later and
| it just turns on with plenty of charge still left.
|
| Every time I need to use the FW i need to plug it in first or
| charge it if I want to take it somewhere. Defeats the point of
| a portable computing device
|
| When I travel with it, i need to make sure I shut it down and
| not just close the lid, or it discharges and cooks my backpack
|
| Everything else is fine though
| depressedpanda wrote:
| Protip: Make sure hibernation works then enable suspend-then-
| hibernate in logind.conf
| ativzzz wrote:
| I got the FW when I was between jobs so I had a bunch of
| time to tinker with it and mess around with Linux configs.
| Now I have a baby and a job so unfortunately my desire to
| tinker with config is pretty much 0 at this point
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Making hibernation work on Linux is the pain. Is it even
| possible on the Framework?
| hakcermani wrote:
| .. same here FW13 12gen .. fast battery drain even in sleep
| mode. It is reported due to the expansion cards that I guess
| cannot be turned off ?
| stebalien wrote:
| My FW13 AMD laptop (61Wh battery) can last 11hr+, technically.
| If I'm doing anything other than light web browsing, that
| quickly drops to 8hr. If I'm watching videos, it's more like
| 5hr.
|
| Unfortunately, at least on Linux, it requires quite a bit of
| tuning for the moment. But there are some pretty good guides.
|
| Suspend battery life still isn't great, but it's _much_ better
| (with s2idle supported) on the latest-gen AMD platform.
|
| I previously had the 11th gen Intel and... I got much better
| battery life than you, but it was still pretty bad.
| aquova wrote:
| This is really interesting to me. I too have an 11th gen
| Intel machine running Arch, and while I get better battery
| life than 2 hours, it's still the weakest part of the system,
| and I very rarely put it to sleep, I just turn the whole
| machine off. Someday I was planning on upgrading to the AMD
| motherboard, but didn't really see a reason to do so yet, but
| this might accelerate my plans.
| stebalien wrote:
| Yeah, sleep on the 11th gen is basically worthless. But the
| battery upgrade (especially after a few years of wear and
| tear) and the new AMD board are worth it.
|
| ... unless you watch a lot of video. Hardware video
| decoding uses more power than software video decoding in
| many cases:
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/10223
| progval wrote:
| Another data point: my FW13 12th gen, also on Debian, reaches 6
| hours. I didn't tune anything other than cap the CPU to 2GHz in
| order to avoid fan noise.
| darthrupert wrote:
| After a year of waiting them to start shipping to where I live, I
| gave up and ordered a new Lenovo.
| blindfolded_go wrote:
| Same. After wanting a Framework 13 for years, I am now going to
| wait for a Snapdragon Elite X Lenovo instead.
| bityard wrote:
| Note that if you want a Framework laptop and order it today, it
| won't ship to you until between early April or late June.
|
| If you need a laptop now, you are better off getting a higher-end
| business-class laptop from Dell or Lenovo. (And probably a lot
| better price too.)
| nrp wrote:
| Note that that only applies to Framework Laptop 16, which we've
| seen massive pre-order demand on. Both the Intel and AMD
| Framework Laptop 13 models ship within a week from inventory.
| high_priest wrote:
| Or pay the scalper tax, buying second hand.
| einpoklum wrote:
| It's useless with this near-zero-height keyboard. Instead of
| offering us a usable keyboard, they put in RGB lighting.
|
| Unless they offer something we can press with decent key travel -
| and I mean no less than 2.5 mm - I'm not buying.
|
| (For those who don't know what I mean:
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/557179/full-travel-keyboard-... )
| lousken wrote:
| my thinkpad keyboard from 2014 definitely has <2mm key travel
| and it feels amazing, in fact is the best keyboard for typing
| that I own
|
| and yes, I do say that even though I also have a keychron
| keyboard for my desktop
| einpoklum wrote:
| > and it feels amazing
|
| If you used the ones from 2012 and earlier, you would find
| the 2014 laptop keyboard only passable...
| lousken wrote:
| I did use older keyboards like the one on the x220 as well
| and while the feeling was a little bit better, I just can't
| use a keyboard without a numpad (reason I am not using 14
| or 13 inch laptops) and I also think the keycaps on the
| newer model are superior
| bityard wrote:
| Phoronix do a good job with benchmarks, but their reviews
| typically stop there. There is another review from Verge that
| goes a lot more into daily use concerns and build quality:
| https://www.theverge.com/24047424/framework-laptop-16-review
| ziml77 wrote:
| I'm looking forward to mine (batch 13, no clue how long that
| means I'll be waiting) but I'm a bit disappointed in it based on
| LTT's review. Needs to be modded with some thermal pads behind
| the keyboard to cut down on flex. And somehow the screen on their
| unit is partially obscured by the bezel and has obvious
| uniformity issues. For the price I expect better and the only
| reason I'm still going through with the purchase is because I
| really love the idea of a properly modular laptop. I've been
| hoping for their success since I first heard of them and I
| continue to hope they grow and improve.
| thenobsta wrote:
| I'll chime in and say that I love my FW13. It's a great machine.
| I got the DIY kit and had my 7yo put it together. It was
| straightforward with a little help from dad (even installing
| Ubuntu!). Now we fight over who gets to use it.
| nrp wrote:
| It's awesome to hear that. A big part of creating Framework was
| the urge to prevent a world where kids could no longer tinker
| with their parents' computers.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| That's wonderful to hear. I attribute my innate love of
| computers to my father making a mess of the kitchen table
| while working on the family PC.
| thenobsta wrote:
| Love it. I'm excited to upgrade the mainboard and to put the
| old board in a new shell or the cooler master case. We'll see
| what the kiddo wants to do.
|
| Maybe she'll become a gamer and we'll get a 16.
|
| Anyway, you've got my total support and $. I get that we're a
| niche market though. It would be great to see my non-techie
| friends sporting the Framework Gear -- I think they'd love
| the pre-built machine, but the messaging steers them to
| thinking it's only for DIY-ers. E.g. -- My sister would love
| the FW13 because she doesn't have special performance needs
| and cares about sustainability, but she got very intimidated
| buying an MBA, so guiding her through buying a Framework will
| be some work on my end (...messaging that would land for her
| would be that Framework solves all your basic problems
| (browsing, video-chatting, and netflix) and when you need
| more power you can upgrade for only the cost of the
| components).
| ornornor wrote:
| Any chance you'll ship to Switzerland soon? Our only options
| are to ship it to Germany or France, go pick it up, pay
| import fees and taxes on top of the country's 20% VAT, and
| then be denied warranty because delivering to a pick up
| address voids the warranty. It's quite frustrating :/
| grudg3 wrote:
| Tagging onto this, I still am unable to buy it in NZ, after
| expressing interest 2 years ago.
| dheera wrote:
| I love my FW13 too. I just wish it had more options for
| components. I can of course pick my own SSD and RAM
| configuration but that's true of every Lenovo laptop.
|
| I wish I could get a 4K screen, an eInk screen, a touchscreen,
| a Dvorak keyboard, a OLED keyboard, an IMU/GPS/barometer
| expansion module, a pico projector expansion module, a
| software-defined-radio expansion module, a larger aperture
| webcam module, an IR webcam module, a depth camera webcam
| module, an Arduino expansion module, an IR emitter expansion
| module that controls TVs, etc etc etc.
|
| But nobody seems interested in making this stuff. I guess the
| community that uses Framework laptops isn't really capable of
| that level of hardware engineering (me included) and the
| companies in China doing hardware haven't caught onto making
| stuff for Framework.
| nrp wrote:
| We've seen Microcontroller, SDR, and IR Expansion Cards from
| the community! We'd definitely love to see some of the even
| more complex ones though, and expect that as the community
| continues to mature and grow, some will make it through:
| https://community.frame.work/c/developer-program/85
| dheera wrote:
| Yes, I've seen those though unfortunately I'm not a
| hardware engineer and would have a hard time reproducing
| them. Even if I could figure out how to get a PCB made from
| a KiCAD file I wouldn't be able to do the surface-mount
| soldering without botching everything.
|
| I'd love to be able to just pay for them and buy them and
| then get rolling with software :)
| iguessthislldo wrote:
| I just got my AMD Framework 13, which I'm mostly happy
| with, but I'm in the same boat. It's great that's it's
| possible to attach these devices to the laptop, but the
| true nature of this seems to be that you have to make
| these things because there isn't a real market for them
| beyond what Framework is selling.
|
| I did come up with something I would want enough that I'm
| willing to try to make it though. Taking inspiration from
| some other modules like it, I'm currently looking into
| adding this microcontroller with a transparent case:
|
| https://github.com/01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB
|
| If I'm happy with it, I was going to try to have it show
| battery status like some other laptops have. This might
| be possible by wiring up another microcontroller to the
| SMBus on the battery. I'm still researching that part
| though.
| ammar2 wrote:
| > Even if I could figure out how to get a PCB made from a
| KiCAD file I wouldn't be able to do the surface-mount
| soldering without botching everything.
|
| For what it's worth, some places like JLCPCB can source
| and solder SMT components to your designed boards as long
| as you pick from their available parts library.
| thenobsta wrote:
| I get that. There's tons of amazing possibilities and it's
| fun to imagine them and to hope they come out. I'm going to
| try to make something with my kiddo for the FW, but of course
| the focus will be on bonding and helping my kiddo build
| skills, understanding, and connection. So we might not quite
| get to putting the e-ink reader on the backside of the lid.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > I wish I could get a 4K screen, an eInk screen, a
| touchscreen, a Dvorak keyboard, a OLED keyboard, an
| IMU/GPS/barometer expansion module, a pico projector
| expansion module, a software-defined-radio expansion module,
| a larger aperture webcam module, an IR webcam module, a depth
| camera webcam module, an Arduino expansion module, an IR
| emitter expansion module that controls TVs, etc etc etc.
|
| > But nobody seems interested in making this stuff. I guess
| the community that uses Framework laptops isn't really
| capable of that level of hardware engineering (me included)
| and the companies in China doing hardware haven't caught onto
| making stuff for Framework.
|
| I relate to your sentiment of wanting tons of modules, but
| I'm going to disagree on the skills of the community.
|
| For some of these options (4k/eink screens for eg), you need
| such a panel to be available (panelook to search ->
| aliexpress/ebay to buy). SDRs, IMUs & sensors could be doable
| relatively "easily" if they interface via USB/PCIE.
|
| There are lots of hardware tinkerers in youtube, hackaday and
| of course even here on HN. I'm a mechanical engineer with
| some electrical/electronics knowledge, and I could likely
| make a half-decent module if I had the
| time/money/reason/ethusiasm for it. There's a guy who's
| turned an iPad screen into the FW13 display (on the framework
| community). There are probably dozens of people who may read
| this comment who are far more skilled than I am.
|
| If you are very keen to do this yourself, you might want to
| start with learning 3d modelling and building up from that
| (from a mechanical side). 3d printing metals with something
| like SLS is commercially (relatively) easy and (imo)
| accessible compared to say 10-20 years back.
| dheera wrote:
| > you need such a panel to be available
|
| Aren't they available? Just take apart a used MacBook for a
| retina display, or take apart a Boox 13.3" tablet for the
| eInk display.
|
| Or just buy this https://www.waveshare.com/13.3inch-e-
| paper-hat.htm
|
| But good luck reverse engineering it. I wouldn't know where
| to start.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > Aren't they available? Just take apart a used MacBook
| for a retina display, or take apart a Boox 13.3" tablet
| for the eInk display.
|
| Yeah for sure, what I meant is that DIYing a fully custom
| screen with a custom resolution etc isn't very easy :)
|
| If you're buying a panel or scavenging an existing panel
| it's much "easier". Of course that hasn't stopped
| youtubers from designing their own 7-segment LCD
| panels... (example
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zoeeR3geTA or
| https://youtu.be/ZA5vlDdpbkw)
| vaylian wrote:
| > I'm a mechanical engineer with some
| electrical/electronics knowledge, and I could likely make a
| half-decent module if I had the time/money/reason/ethusiasm
| for it.
|
| I consider myself to be a decent software engineer. But I
| am inexperienced in the area of creating my own hardware. I
| guess a lot of things are just knowing how to stick
| together pre-made components like "panels, SDRs, IMUs &
| sensors"? But how important is it to know circuit design?
|
| There are a lot of unknown unknowns. And it is not clear
| what a good learning path would be to get started with
| hardware hacking as a hobbyist.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > I consider myself to be a decent software engineer. But
| I am inexperienced in the area of creating my own
| hardware. I guess a lot of things are just knowing how to
| stick together pre-made components like "panels, SDRs,
| IMUs & sensors"? But how important is it to know circuit
| design?
|
| For most of the sensors mentioned in the initial comment,
| I would assume there are already commercial USB/eDP/PCIE
| sensors/components, and at least for framework these
| connectors on the motherboard are clearly exposed. I'd
| imagine it's possible to have some RJ-xxx sensor needing
| a RJ-USB converter too, but with the sensor+converter I
| think it is as easy as "design a box, throw them in".
|
| HOWEVER - ESD is something I've heard can be pretty nasty
| and show up where you least expect it to. Proper
| grounding design would help. Beyond that, I am not aware
| of any "major" issues (there's also general
| environmental/power noise but ground could help with some
| of those issues like the "wonky touchscreen when
| charging". Also stuff like debouncing and pullup/down
| resistors if using buttons).
|
| My personal knowledge of circuit design isn't very good,
| I studied it till high school and had an intro to EE
| class in uni (which actually wasn't bad, learnt the
| basics of opamp circuits etc) but I don't remember much
| of those now.
|
| > There are a lot of unknown unknowns. And it is not
| clear what a good learning path would be to get started
| with hardware hacking as a hobbyist.
|
| I think if you want to get started, the most
| "comprehensive" way would be by looking at syllabus of
| undergraduate EE programs (or MechE for the physical
| side), and perhaps going through the relevant/interesting
| chapters.
|
| However the "easiest" will be by just building basic
| circuits - using an arduino, or making a hand-wired
| mechanical keyboard. Googling issues like "arduino button
| changes on its own" will give results like
| https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/186/button-
| state... which talk about floating pins.
|
| This is as much as I know on this topic (I have "tried
| learning more esp. in high speed designs but that's
| vast), if anyone else has helpful suggestions I'll be
| happy to learn :)
| corethree wrote:
| >the companies in China doing hardware haven't caught onto
| making stuff for Framework.
|
| Don't worry. They will catch on... making and copying not
| just components but the entire framework. It really depends
| on how popular it gets.
| nextos wrote:
| How are the thermals and fan noise?
| Asmod4n wrote:
| According to the reviews i've seen its about 20 degrees
| cooler than other laptops with the same spec, making it way
| more quiter.
|
| The battery time is also several hours longer than
| compareable laptops of the same size.
| nextos wrote:
| And fan noise at idle / web browsing?
| lwhsiao wrote:
| LTT released a video that shows battery life benchmarks:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUCm4wKarpQ
| verdverm wrote:
| I thought my framework was great at two weeks, it was around 2
| months that my mind started changing, and at 10 months that I
| replaced it with a mac
| lousken wrote:
| without a particular reason(s), that is a useless comment
| moribvndvs wrote:
| After trying to replace the battery in a 2014 MacBook Pro,
| doing a repair in a 2020 MBP, and my experience (performance
| aside) with an M3, I wish I could buy your framework (alas, iOS
| development).
| lencastre wrote:
| Cliffhanger! Plot twist the mac was a knock off dell
| keb_ wrote:
| I'm really interested in getting a Framework to run as my Linux
| laptop. Does anyone have experience using GNOME on their
| Framework (preferably AMD)? How is the heat dissipation and
| battery life? My main issue with most laptops is how they get
| uncomfortably hot after a while. That and also bad trackpads.
| willmorrison wrote:
| I'm running gnome in fedora silverblue on an Intel 13"
| Framework and I only get ~6 hours of battery life doing web
| browsing, school work, light programming, and watching videos.
| anonporridge wrote:
| I wanted to love Framework, but it just doesn't compete at all
| with my X1 Carbon.
|
| Then again, I've failed to find any laptop that I like more than
| the X1 Carbon. It's damn near perfect.
| binkHN wrote:
| Love the X1C, would love it more if it wasn't Intel-only.
| paxys wrote:
| It absolutely competes if you value upgradability. The two are
| about the same price for similar specs, but the moment you buy
| the X1 the clock starts ticking. Heck even the RAM in it is
| soldered to the motherboard these days.
| cempaka wrote:
| Oxide & Friends has a good episode with Framework's founder:
| https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1632642
| nfriedly wrote:
| One more person chiming in to say that I'm really happy with my
| 13" AMD Framework laptop.
|
| It wakes from sleep and reconnects wifi before I'm done opening
| the lid, I can charge it from either side, the screen is
| beautiful, it's nice and lightweight, the performance and battery
| life are good enough that I don't think about it.
|
| On the down side, the touchpad is a notable downgrade from the
| macbook I use for work, and the speakers are down-ish-firing and
| fairly weak. Also, twice in the ~1.5 months I've had it, it has
| completely frozen for about 30 seconds (even the mouse cursor
| didn't respond) before hitting a windows bluescreen and then
| rebooting. No idea what's causing that, but there is some
| suggestion on the forum that it's the AMD graphics drivers.
| However, I also have a GPD Win Mini with a similar APU and it's
| never once frozen like that on me.
|
| I'm probably going to switch it to Ubuntu in the near future, so
| that might sidestep the freezing issue, although I expect it to
| eventually be sorted out either way.
|
| But, again, overall I'm very happy with it.
| dheera wrote:
| > It wakes from sleep and reconnects wifi before I'm done
| opening the lid
|
| My experience was this is only true for "s2idle" suspend but
| that mode causes battery drain of 30% every 8 hours which was
| way more than I was willing to tolerate. It's okay I guess if
| you're just commuting and unplugging-plugging or something. But
| it didn't work for me for leisure travel when I would often go
| 24 hours without opening my laptop.
|
| In "deep" sleep mode (which only works with some SSDs) power
| drain is minimal but it takes upwards of 15 seconds to resume
| and reconnect to wifi. This is what I use now. I just tolerate
| the 15 seconds, but I wish it were as fast as a Macbook.
| radus wrote:
| This is my experience as well :/
| nfriedly wrote:
| You're probably right about that. Mine hibernates after a few
| hours, and then it does take a bit longer to be ready to use,
| but I've never noticed significant battery drain in between
| usages.
|
| My SSD is a SK Hynix P41, which I believe does support the
| lower power states.
| dheera wrote:
| Yes, I use a SK Hynix P31.
|
| I previously used a Samsung 980 Pro and that did NOT work
| with deep sleep.
| mey wrote:
| I am less bullish on the screen of the FW13. The color accuracy
| at various brightness levels leaves a bit to be desired. Gamma
| calibration seems to be problematic. My Gen 1 Surface Book,
| Dell Ultrasharp monitors (that are a decade old and only 99%
| sRGB), and M1 Macbook Air all have much better displays for
| accuracy out of the box.
|
| The upside is that, if/when FW offers a better screen in the
| future (with touch?) I feel comfortable doing the swap myself.
| Lio wrote:
| Whenever I hear about a new Framework launch it makes me think of
| the Sandbenders computer in Idoru[1] by William Gibson.
|
| Nice to see sustainable, reparable and upgradable laptops come to
| market.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru
| danShumway wrote:
| I'm very excited about this; I'm not in a position right now
| where I particularly need a laptop, but my existing laptop is
| very much EOL at this point, to the point where some components
| have started failing, and depending on reviews I strongly suspect
| that when I need a new laptop the Framework 16 will be it.
|
| The biggest feature I want is a good stylus/touchscreen for
| portable drawing, in my dream world that would be something I
| could swap in and out, possibly replacing the keyboard. I can
| imagine having the front keyboard mostly be a touchscreen display
| and just sticking a narrow module to one side of the screen with
| hotkeys...
|
| Having a decent laptop that I can add a GPU to and take a GPU
| _off of_ , add a digitizer and use as a drawing tablet or remove
| a touchscreen for trips where I don't need one, switch keyboards
| for specific projects -- quick swapping of components isn't just
| cool from a repair perspective, it's a major selling point to be
| able to have a single device that can serve multiple roles on
| demand. In most cases you probably don't want a GPU on a laptop;
| you want extra battery life. Until you do. And when you have some
| rendering workload or something intensive to do, you turn off the
| computer, plug in the GPU, and turn it back on.
|
| I really hope that 3rd-party components take off. I'm trying to
| be responsible and wait until I have an actual need (and at the
| very least I want to wait and see reviews), but I'd be very
| tempted to buy one of these as soon as they launch if there was
| digitizer support, there aren't a lot of good, repairable, linux-
| compatible drawing tablets on the market.
| Solvency wrote:
| I'm still bummer Framework teased having translucent laptop
| shells and then reneged on it. Even Apple no longer indulges in
| this style. I miss it.
| rpmisms wrote:
| When can I get an Ortholinear keyboard module? I will happily
| switch from my MacBook air the moment Ortho is supported on a
| laptop. Did anything ever come of the collab with Jack Humbert?
| jakamau wrote:
| I have the DIY FW13 Intel 11th Gen with Fedora. I've had an
| overall positive experience and have enjoyed tinkering with it.
|
| My only negative with it has been the issue specific to 11th gens
| where the CMOS drains and eventually dies if the laptop is left
| unplugged for days-to-weeks at a time.
|
| On the whole Framework handled the issue well, there was no
| permanent fix without soldering or replacing the board. The
| company was upfront, provided support, a replacement battery, and
| even published a how-to on modifying the mainboard after the
| fact. With a start-up I was expecting some bugs. This one was
| irritating but not a deal breaker. I think how they handled the
| problem and how they've proven their commitment to upgradeability
| through the 12th, 13th, and Ryzen boards speaks well of the
| company.
|
| While I am extremely keen on the AMD versions that have rolled
| out recently, I can't justify the purchase when my current FW13
| still works well enough.
|
| The FW16 probably isn't for me but I hope it's successful. I
| really want to see the docking station that can double as an eGPU
| using the FW16 discrete GPU module. There was a prototype
| mentioned in passing about a year ago but it's been radio silence
| since then. I hope the success of Framework laptops and the
| growing market for gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck makes the
| modular eGPU concept a little more reasonable. It's still
| incredibly niche but one can dream.
| schmorptron wrote:
| It looks like the next-gen Zen 5 AMD cpus will be another large
| leap anyways, so not needing to upgrade now should make you
| even happier down the line! :)
| tonoto wrote:
| I just wish it was possible to make an order from Sweden
| desireco42 wrote:
| When I need a laptop, I think 13" is factor I would go for.
| Definitely some creativity around even shells would be great, if
| not exotic keyboards and more. I currently have Thinkpad with
| PopOs! and love it, so I would go with that.
| cdata wrote:
| Just gonna add my voice to the chorus of folks singing the
| praises of Framework's laptops. I have used the 13 for the last
| few years, and I'm planning to upgrade to a 16 soon. As a long-
| time Linux user, it's been my favorite laptop by far. A great
| machine, and a zero-compromise experience from a hardware support
| PoV. In fact, when you consider Framework's standard-setting
| level of user serviceability, it makes other laptops seem like a
| pretty major compromise.
| sdwolfz wrote:
| Honestly, this article ended up being more of an endorsement for
| the Tuxedo Pulse 14 laptop than for Framework, at least to me.
|
| The price difference between the two is noticeable (more than the
| 5% geometric mean result) and Tuxedo as a company officially
| supports Linux in their machines, as opposed to Framework which
| don't. Yes I know about Framework laptops working with Linux
| installed, and about Framework drivers existing in fwupd, but
| Tuxedo actually sell laptops with Linux pre-installed and
| Framework doesn't; yes that distinction actually matters, it
| means the company itself is willing to put their name on the line
| with Linux support.
|
| Sorry @nrp, I did not want to be so negative about the Framework
| 16, but I do think you have tough competition from Tuxedo in
| particular and the customizability might not be enough to justify
| the price difference (at least it is not for me).
|
| Back to the benchmarks themselves, I'd assume the Framework 16
| would perform a bit better (at least more than 5%) compared to
| the Framework 13, I'm guessing there might be some optimisations
| that could come in the future to improve the results? Maybe it's
| strength is in longer lived benchmarks because of (supposedly)
| better thermals, or in performance per watt?
| postpawl wrote:
| No modular GPU makes Tuxedo Pulse 14 a pretty different
| product?
| sdwolfz wrote:
| Maybe, for my personal purposes it does not. Considering how
| I use, and intend to use a laptop, I wound not purchase the
| GPU module.
|
| I'm judging the two as a replacement for my current laptop,
| and the GPU does not really affect that. The soldered RAM on
| the Tuxedo Pulse 14 laptop does indeed give me doubts, I'm
| not saying it's flawless, only that, at least to me, it
| provides a better overall justification for the purchase.
| layer8 wrote:
| For a customizable/modular laptop, it's a pity that we can't have
| full-height cursor and function keys, or even a ThinkPad-style
| seventh row.
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| that arrow key configuration is an absolute show-stopper for me
| and has been since MS came out with a version of their original
| white ergo keyboards with that configuration.
|
| it was this:
| http://xahlee.info/kbd/i/Microsoft_Natural_Keyboard_Gen1-s.j...
|
| vs this:
| https://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/ProductImage/23-109-...
|
| I'm pretty sure it was still the 90's when I developed this
| special hate for changing the arrow keys.
| 0x38B wrote:
| My 11th gen Intel Framework is my only PC and has been a great
| machine. I use it for dev, gaming, and general computing.
| Integrated Intel graphics goes surprisingly far if you run games
| at 720p - Skyrim, Dishonered, the Mass Effects, and more recently
| Battlebit all run well. I'd imagine the more recent Ryzens would
| be much better.
|
| I want the 16 for more screen real-estate and better gaming; I've
| had family notice my laptop and make positive comments, so I may
| pass it on when I eventually upgrade.
|
| On a related note, I saw someone else with a Framework laptop at
| a coffee shop the other day here in Alaska - super cool! First
| time I've seen another Framework user :)
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