[HN Gopher] Framework Laptop 12 review
___________________________________________________________________
Framework Laptop 12 review
Author : moelf
Score : 189 points
Date : 2025-06-18 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| dima55 wrote:
| Is there a single person in the world that LIKES the half-height
| up/down keys?
| browningstreet wrote:
| ..as much as the CTRL key being moved to the wrong place.
|
| (Yes, I could map this elsewhere, but I use too many different
| machines.)
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Define "wrong"? Ctrl-Fn-Super-Alt has been used for ages by
| everyone except IBM/Lenovo and Apple[1], and (for what it's
| worth) Fn left of Ctrl is explicitly not recommended by
| ISO[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fn_key#Fn_and_Control_key_p
| lac...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#Function_keys
| gonzalohm wrote:
| And for Lenovo you can change it in the BIOS
| gonzalohm wrote:
| What do you mean? Most laptops have
|
| Ctrl | Fn | windows | alt
|
| Which matches what one should expect from a desktop keyboard
| (Ctrl is the left-most key)
| soco wrote:
| If most laptops = HP then yes. However my Lenovo has Fn |
| Ctrl...
| nucleardog wrote:
| Where "most laptops" = "everything except Lenovo and
| Apple", more or less.
|
| Easily verified with a simple image search for "<brand>
| laptop keyboard" where "<brand>" is not Lenovo or Apple.
|
| Which is probably also why Lenovo's BIOS has an option to
| swap the Fn and Ctrl keys.
| kej wrote:
| Lenovo seems to be joining the rest of the world with
| Ctrl | Fn, based on the new ThinkPad I was issued at work
| a few weeks ago. I know the older Fn | Ctrl systems had a
| BIOS option to swap them, but I'm not sure if the new
| ones still have that.
| Macha wrote:
| Given how much more I press ctrl than fn, fn on the left
| drives me crazy on the few laptops that do it.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| On keyboards with a sane layout, the ctrl key can be pressed
| with the meat of your hand rather than one of the fingers.
| This is harder on a laptop keyboard than it is with a proper
| desktop keyboard, but is still possible.
|
| ... as long as the keyboard has the proper layout, with ctrl
| in the far bottom left. One thing that Apple gets wrong and
| this keyboard gets right.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There aren't many laptops with Control key in the correct
| spelling and placement like how and where it is on HHKB, even
| most MacBooks except JIS builds get it wrong.
| kesslern wrote:
| I do, but they should be paired with half height Page Up and
| Page Down keys. It's weird with the left/right keys as full
| size.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Ah, so in two rows pg up, up arrow, pg down left arrow, down
| arrow, right arrow I do like that layout, I have an old Dell
| Precision like that (though even its small keycaps are pretty
| big). My Framework 13 has the funny full-size left and right
| on either side of half-height up/down, which is kind of
| annoying, but you can get used to it, mostly.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Probably my preference over there is half-height inverted T,
| with just gaps above left and right: I'm happy to do Fn for
| page up/page down/home/end, and find this is the easiest
| layout to use by touch. Of course full-height is good too,
| but only if all four directions are going to be full height.
| mort96 wrote:
| I like keyboards with those half-height keys. I don't use arrow
| keys much, so it's nice that they don't take up so much space
| that other parts must be compromised.
|
| I really don't like this design though where the left/right
| keys are full size (or other designs where they put things like
| page up/down buttons above the left and right buttons). I don't
| mind that the arrow keys are a squished inverted T shape, but I
| really do think they should get to be an inverted T shape. When
| I _do_ want to use arrow keys, I want to be able to easily
| locate them by touch without looking down at the keyboard.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The half-height keys are fine. I've used HP machines w/ them
| for years and gotten used to them.
|
| Sharing the arrows w/ Home/End is awful, though. I don't know
| how anybody could live with having to use a modifier key to get
| those. I already combine modifiers with Home/End a ton. Having
| to add 3rd modifier (Ctrl-Shift-Fn-Left) to get "select from
| here to the top/bottom" sounds like painful hand gymnastics.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Objectively better than the mad man [<][>][^][v] arrangement of
| old Macs
| apricot wrote:
| I hate them, and will not buy a laptop that has them.
| sixothree wrote:
| I can't tell you how much I need TKL. I'm so tired of seeing
| numpads and not navigation keys. Literally all day long I'm
| using shift-home, ctl-shift-end, ctl-arrow, ctl-shift-arrow,
| pretty much any combination. I need these keys.
| WillAdams wrote:
| As much as I like the ideals Framework is espousing, I'm
| seriously considering just making a folding shell for a Raspberry
| Pi 5 (maybe Pi 500) and a second gen Wacom One 13 (stylus w/
| touch screen) and a battery.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| Unless you're working with MCUs etc. and want the GPIO pins,
| you'd get far more value out of a reasonable ASUS or Lenovo
| model.
|
| The SD card is a big bottleneck on the Pi.
| dmicah wrote:
| There is an M.2 hat for the Pi 5 that allows using an NVMe
| SSD instead of the SD card.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| Like dropping a racing engine into a Hindustan Ambassador.
| Makes no sense.
| sixothree wrote:
| If you get a chance to use one first hand you see the
| performance impact is more than noticeable.
| redundantly wrote:
| I see you're a person of taste. You nicely paired a bad
| analogy with your incorrect assumption.
| nrp wrote:
| You should! That sounds like a great project.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Just saw a kickstarter for something like that recently, a
| laptop built around a CM 5 with even GPIO broken out. Argon 40
| something.
| daft_pink wrote:
| it's really hard not to just buy a MacBook Air at this price
| level.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Linux support
| weird_trousers wrote:
| Sorry but this is not a real value for certain people.
| nrp wrote:
| We saw that there was a gap in the market for laptops that
| treat Linux as a first-class OS target, and we design our
| products with that audience in mind. That there are other
| people in the world who don't need Linux is totally ok.
| rrix2 wrote:
| thanks nirav :) looking forward to my sage 12 for linux-
| based couch surfing
| bobthecowboy wrote:
| My kid is a bit young, but this is the laptop he'll be
| getting in a year or so to replace the garbage Chromebook
| he's currently using (which has steadily gotten flakier
| since purchase).
|
| First class Linux support is requirement #1; Framework's
| repairability on top of that means there's not even
| anything else to consider. It will be the third Framework
| in our house. My wife is happily using the second, having
| easily switched to Ubuntu from Windows 10(?) when the
| video cable connection in her Dell XPS flaked out and
| made the screen useless.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I mean certain people still run wordperfect. You're never
| going to attract everyone.
| throw0101d wrote:
| Depending on the features you need, you can probably pick up
| an M1/M2 for a decent price nowadays that could work well
| enough:
|
| * https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-
| support/overvie...
| e12e wrote:
| No external display support under Linux.
| whitehexagon wrote:
| I have a 4k display plugged into my Asahi M1 (hdmi port).
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Works fine for me. How else do you think the
| studios/minis run it?
| dale_huevo wrote:
| The market doesn't profitably support running desktop Linux
| on a laptop outside of a business/development setting, in
| which case it's the IT department buying the laptop and I
| don't get to choose. Which means "this Dell or this
| Thinkpad". Chromebooks don't count because they are just
| Google data-hoovering appliances not real laptops.
| pengaru wrote:
| Maybe I'm just not the target market, but I wouldn't pay even
| half the asking price for this.
|
| If I'm going to throw money away on overpriced underpowered
| laptops it's going to mnt's pockets. At least that's trying to be
| open hardware (reform).
| criddell wrote:
| Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make a
| laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1? I get
| that Framework focuses on making repairable machines, but does
| that prevent them from making a fanless, hi dpi, good performing,
| long battery life machine?
|
| I wouldn't expect parity with an M4 machine, but it doesn't seem
| unreasonable to think they should be competitive with the much
| older M1.
|
| I have the same complaint with Lenovo (I usually buy ThinkPads).
| Where are the fast, fanless, hidpi, long battery life laptops?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Competitive along which lines? Performance, yes, impossible.
| Battery life? Yes, impossible. Anything else? Definitely!
| lukan wrote:
| Hm, aside from it working reliable, performance and battery
| are my top priority, though.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| IMO the Desktop is their real "killer app." Apple comes
| nowhere close to competing with it on a price/performance
| perspective.
| mhitza wrote:
| > Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make
| a laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1?
|
| Kind of unreasonable. I mean which Intel or AMD cpu can be run
| fanless and perform well?
|
| On the topic of displays, my understanding is that they "kind
| of use what they can get". That's how there can be a 13 display
| with rounded corners in a straight edge case.
|
| What you're asking are the things I'm looking for, though still
| every time I go into their forum I see enough thermal, fan
| noise issues and AMD firmware bugs, that I'm still on the fence
| on buying one.
|
| I wish them luck with the 12, for me sounds like a model for
| "true believers" because it doesn't seem to compete well enough
| with run of the mill chromebooks (or an Air) that are more
| established in the students segment.
| fweimer wrote:
| Intel's T variants in the Core series can be passively
| cooled. They have pretty good burst performance in case you
| need it. I don't know if there are laptops using them (I only
| have fanless desktop systems with these CPUs).
| nextos wrote:
| Besides, at least in Linux, lots of kernel options can
| tweak Intel/AMD CPUs to make them mostly silent.
|
| The problem is that manufacturers don't put much thought
| into building good cooling systems.
|
| Lenovo, for instance, has so many SKUs that it's really
| random. A few are great, but some sound like a hairdyer or
| rev up too aggressively.
|
| Apple gets this. By having a small product line, they
| usually polish all those details.
| criddell wrote:
| > I mean which Intel or AMD cpu can be run fanless and
| perform well?
|
| I don't follow CPU news and have no idea what lake they're at
| now, but I'd be surprised if Intel and AMD didn't have a chip
| competitive with an M1 by now.
|
| When I google "fanless amd intel laptop cpu" I find this old
| thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31142209 which
| does suggest some fanless machines exist. That's from 3 years
| ago so surely there are even more options today, no?
| eloisant wrote:
| To put it simply, I don't think we'll get anything closer
| to the M1 on the x86 architecture.
|
| You'll have to wait for Framework to offer a Snapdragon
| instead of Intel/AMD but they haven't announced anything
| yet.
| miguel_martin wrote:
| The first-generation Intel Ultra lineup is comparable to
| the M1 and M1 Max. See: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-
| compare/intel-core-ultra-7-165...
|
| Intel's integrated graphics aren't as good, but they are
| similar in terms of power consumption & CPU performance.
|
| Compared to M4, well, that's a different beast entirely.
| I'm not sure what's the latest there.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It isn't the chip which determines whether it's fanless.
| Basically every modern chip supports power capping and then
| the power cap is determined by how much heat the machine can
| dissipate.
|
| What that really determines is multi-thread performance.
| Fanless laptop that can dissipate the power of one core? No
| problem. Fanless laptop that can dissipate the power of all
| the cores? For that you have to lower the clock speed quite a
| bit. Which is why you see AMD chips on older TSMC process
| nodes getting better multithread performance than Apple's
| fanless ones.
|
| The cost/benefit ratio of adding a fan is extremely
| attractive. The alternative way of doing it is to add more
| cores. If you have 8 fanless cores at 2 GHz, how do you
| improve multi-thread performance by 50%? Option one, clock
| them at 3 GHz, but now you need a fan; cost of fan ~$5.
| Option two, get 16 cores and cap them at 1.5 GHz to fit in
| the same power envelope, but now you need twice as much
| _silicon_ , cost of twice as many cores $500+.
|
| The number of people who pick the second option given that
| trade off is so small that hardly anybody even bothers to
| offer it.
|
| Apple continues to do it because a) then they get to claim
| "see, they can't do this?" even when hardly anybody chooses
| that given the option, and b) then if you actually want the
| higher performance one from them, you're paying hundreds of
| dollars extra for more cores instead of $5 extra for the same
| one but with a fan in it.
| solardev wrote:
| Doesn't this miss differences between CPUs in their per-
| core efficiency?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The per-core efficiency of Apple and AMD CPUs on the same
| process node is pretty much identical. This has become
| harder to directly compare because they're now using
| alternate process nodes from one another, but have a look
| at this chart for example:
|
| https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-
| cpu_performance_...
|
| What do we see at the top of this chart? TSMC 3nm
| (M3/M4), followed by TSMC 4nm (Ryzen 7000U/8000U), TSMC
| 5nm (M1/M2), TSMC 5nm/6nm mixed (Ryzen 7000H), and then
| finally we find something made on an Intel process node
| instead of TSMC.
|
| The efficiency has more to do with the process node than
| which architecture it is.
|
| It's too bad they don't have Epyc on that chart. Epyc
| 9845 is on TSMC N3E and that thing is running cores at a
| >2GHz base clock at less than 2.5W per core.
| mmcnl wrote:
| You're linking to a multi-core benchmark. The story is a
| lot more in favor of Apple if you look at single-core
| efficiency, Apple is roughly 2-3x more efficient:
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Lunar-Lake-CPU-
| analysis-...
|
| And this benchmark doesn't even include M4, which is even
| more efficient.
| lukan wrote:
| "The cost/benefit ratio of adding a fan is extremely
| attractive."
|
| Depends on your metric. A fan makes noise, attracts dirt
| that needs cleaning, needs more space ...
|
| I really love my fanless devices, even though they never
| will reach the speed of activly cooled ones.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Sure, and you can still _find_ fanless devices, but then
| they 'll typically be the ones not focused on multi-
| thread performance. And if you don't care about that,
| e.g. because you're offloading heavy workloads to a
| server or you just don't do anything compute heavy, then
| you can find a lot of fanless offerings with low core
| counts that are actually quite inexpensive. You can get
| some fanless Chromebooks for under $200.
| ndiddy wrote:
| If someone besides Apple made a fanless laptop that had
| competitive performance with Apple's offerings (i.e. not a
| $200 Chromebook with a Celeron or a cast-off 5 year old
| smartphone CPU), I'd absolutely buy one. I got excited when
| the Qualcomm Snapdragon X was being discussed pre-launch,
| but then it came out with performance worse than the
| original M1 and it turned out that Qualcomm lied about
| giving it first-class Linux support. I really dislike Mac
| OS, but when I can't use a PC laptop in bed or on a couch
| or on my lap without it overheating, I'm not able to switch
| away. It's a shame that the entire PC industry is fine with
| selling laptops that will overheat when not used on a rigid
| flat surface.
| criddell wrote:
| I believe the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 is fanless. Sadly,
| the 8 and 9 have a fan.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| > The number of people who pick the second option given
| that trade off is so small that hardly anybody even bothers
| to offer it.
|
| The number of manufacturers or the number of people? Apple
| was on the path to laptop irrelevancy before the M series,
| it doesn't seem clear to me at all that people don't care
| about noise and heat along with performance.
| kej wrote:
| > thermal, fan noise issues
|
| Anecdotal, obviously, but disabling Turbo-Core [0] on my AMD
| Framework 13 stopped all of my fan noise and heat complaints,
| with no noticeable performance impacts. It went from being so
| loud that my wife on the other side of the room would ask if
| my computer was okay to quieter than my ThinkPad, and from
| noticeably hot to just slightly warm.
|
| Kind of ridiculous that it takes messing with an obscure
| system file to resolve it, but not any more ridiculous than
| issues I've had with other brands.
|
| [0] It's `echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost` or
| something like that, and `echo 1` to turn it back on when you
| want that extra performance.
| mmcnl wrote:
| You might not have noticed, but your single-core
| performance will take a serious hit if you disable turbo
| boost. For the AMD 7480u, turbo boost frequency is 5.1Ghz
| vs 3.3GHz base clock frequency. If you disable turbo boost
| you lose 36% single-core performance.
| VHRanger wrote:
| Wouldnt something like this tool [0] be a cleaner solution?
|
| [0]: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj
| Const-me wrote:
| > which Intel or AMD cpu can be run fanless and perform well?
|
| For example, AMD Ryzen 7 8840U or 7840U can be configured for
| the same 15W TDP as Apple M1. At 15W, the overall performance
| going to be about the same as M1.
| const_cast wrote:
| > I mean which Intel or AMD cpu can be run fanless and
| perform well?
|
| Lunar Lake.
| hu3 wrote:
| I'm confused.
|
| The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is
| faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU benchmarks.
|
| Their office suite benchmarks puts it at almost 10 hour
| battery.
|
| See Framework 13 Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.
|
| To me, being able to run native Linux alone is worth its weight
| in gold, even if it was slower.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| They didn't describe the full specs of their test rigs (that
| I saw) but a similarly spec'd Macbook Air is going to get
| better battery life than the equivalent Framework 12 or 13
| based on the 10 hours they quoted for the 12. (The 13 gets
| even less). And saying that the best possible CPU framework
| offers in a 13 inch format beats the consumer line of
| Macbooks.. sometimes.. you would really need to like/need
| Linux. At which point, get the cheapest Macbook Air M4 you
| can and then just use the money you save to get a decent NUC.
| hu3 wrote:
| Why would I get Air M4 if I want to use Linux?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| There are many different methods through which one can
| develop against/on Linux. For example, I have a pretty
| low spec'd Macbook Air and several different test
| machines at home that I do remote development against. I
| prefer a low-heat, high battery life, good performing
| machine like the Air over a power hungry, loud, and
| constantly overheating workstation. But, those are my
| preferences -- some people want to have a single
| interface through which they do all their work, and the
| most powerful Linux laptop money can buy. If that's the
| case, Framework is great!
| coder543 wrote:
| > The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is
| faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU
| benchmarks.
|
| Every single chart in the article showed the M4 MacBook Air
| beating the Framework 12 by a large margin.
|
| I don't know what charts you were looking at.
| adolph wrote:
| I think the parent comment is referring to its parent's
| question "Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be
| able to make a laptop competitive with the 5 years old
| MacBook Air M1?"
|
| That the Framework 12 is not extremely lagging behind the
| M4 (subjective comparison) might lead one to believe that
| it would be competitive with an five year old M1 Air.
| Taking a quick look at "Cinebench R23" from 2020 [0],
| Macbook Air M1 comes in at 1,520 and 7,804, which compares
| favorably to 2025's "Cinebench R23" in which the Framework
| 12's i5-1334U scores 1,474 and 4,644.
|
| The answer is it isn't competitive performance-wise. Given
| the M1 seems to have some native Linux support through
| Ashai, the Framework's advantages over the 5 year old MBA
| M1 seem to be user accessible hardware changes, touchscreen
| and longer hinge throw.
|
| 0. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/hands-on-with-
| the-ap...
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| Does Asahi actually maintain the Macbook's performance
| and battery advantage when running Linux though?
| aseipp wrote:
| The performance is great, and now there's a fully stable
| userspace graphics driver stack. Peripherials basically
| work. The battery life under load (i.e. development) is
| serviceable, not terrible, but in my (limited, "I turn on
| my laptop after some amount of time" testing) it's not
| even close to macOS especially when turned off. This is
| with a 13" M2 Air.
|
| It's a really good Linux laptop if you can find a M2
| somewhere, IMO.
| nico_h wrote:
| You may have confused the lower/higher is better? I think the
| Air is missing from a few charts though.
| hu3 wrote:
| No, but perhaps you may have. Please take a look:
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...
|
| And for battery life:
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...
| zapzupnz wrote:
| I think the person to whom you're replying may not have
| realised you're talking about one of the Framework 13s,
| not the Framework 12.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is why humans can't be trusted to read article. Often
| they produce hallucinations. Use LLM. Much more reliable.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > but does that prevent them from making a (...) hi dpi (...)
| machine?
|
| It pretty much _has that_ though? 1920x1200 at 12.2 " is 185.59
| PPI. Standard DPI (PPI) is 96. HiDPI to my knowledge isn't
| properly defined, but the usual convention is either double
| that or just more than that - the latter criteria this display
| definitely clears, and the former (192 PPI) is super super
| close, to the extent that I'd call it cleared for sure.
|
| It's pretty hard to not clear at least the latter criteria on a
| laptop anyways. You'd see that on 720p and 768p units from like
| a decade or two ago.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| The baseline of 96ppi is nominal only. Form factor and
| intended distance from screen matters a lot. In the laptop
| form factor, you're aiming for more like 110-125 as 1x. Apple
| laptops range from 221-254ppi as 2x.
|
| 186ppi is designed for 1.5x, an uncomfortable space that
| makes perfection difficult-to-impossible, yet seems to have
| become unreasonably popular, given how poorly everything but
| Windows tends to handle it. (Microsoft have always had real
| fractional scaling; Apple doesn't support it at all,
| downsampling; X11 is a total mess; Wayland is finally getting
| decent fractional scaling.)
| perching_aix wrote:
| There's PPI and then there's PPD. If they want more PPD
| (which is what's field of view and thus viewing distance
| and display size dependent), that's fine, but then it's not
| PPI they should be complaining about.
|
| This might sound like a nitpick but I really don't mean it
| to be. These are proper well defined concepts and terms, so
| let's use them.
| criddell wrote:
| I wasn't thinking about the difference between PPI and
| PPD, so thanks for the clarification.
|
| The bottom line is that I work with text (source code)
| all day long and I would rather read from a display with
| laser printer quality than one where I can see the pixels
| like an old dot matrix printer. Some displays are getting
| close to 300 DPI which is like a laser printer from 35
| years ago.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I can definitely appreciate that. I just think it's
| important that people argue the right thing. It provides
| insight to the variables and mechanisms at play, and
| avoids people falsely giving rhetorical checkmates to
| each other, like I kind of did to you.
|
| The brief version is that if someone has a screen real
| estate concern, they need to look for the PPI, but if
| they have a visual quality concern, they need to look for
| the PPD.
|
| Maybe it will be elucidating if I describe a scenario
| where you will have low PPI but high PPD at the same
| time.
|
| Consider a 48" 4K TV (where 4K is really just UHD, so
| 3840x2160). Such a display will have 91.79 PPI of pixel
| density, which is below even standard PPI (that being 96
| PPI, as mentioned).
|
| Despite this, the visual quality will be generally
| excellent: at the fairly typical and widely recommended
| 40deg degree horizontal field of view, you're looking at
| 3840 / 40 = 96 PPD, well in excess of the original Retina
| standard (60 PPD), which is really just the 20/20 visual
| acuity measure. Hope this is insightful.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| But nobody knows what baseline PPD is (47) and you can't
| actually specify a laptop screen in PPD, you can only
| specify it in PPI. So I think it's reasonable and maybe
| even preferable to use PPI here.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I can understanding finding it reasonable, it's just not
| getting at the heart of the problem.
|
| It also introduces an element of uncertainty: as you say,
| you can't specify a laptop screen's PPD since that's
| dependent on viewing distance. But that's exactly the
| problem: it's dependent on viewing distance. Some people
| hunch over and look at their laptops up close and
| personal, others have it on a stand at a reasonable
| height and distance. To use PPI is to intentionally mask
| over this uncertainty, and start using ballpark measures
| people may or may not agree with without knowing.
|
| To put it in context, for this display, "Retina
| resolution" (60 PPD), i.e. the 20/20 visual acuity
| threshold, is passed when viewed from 47.09 cm (18.54
| inches, so basically a feet and a half). I don't know
| about you, but I think this is a very reasonable distance
| to view your laptop from, even if it's just 12.2" in
| diagonal. It corresponds to a horizontal field of view of
| 32deg.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You could say it masks over the uncertainty in some ways,
| but it doesn't introduce that uncertainty. Asking for a
| laptop with 100PPD doesn't even make sense.
|
| > the 20/20 visual acuity threshold
|
| The acuity threshold for random blobs of light.
|
| The threshold for sharp edges is much finer, and the
| things we put on computer displays have a lot of sharp
| edges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacuity
| perching_aix wrote:
| > Asking for a laptop with 100PPD doesn't even make
| sense.
|
| Won't deny, since again, PPD depends on your field of
| view.
|
| Yes, if you shop for "resolution and diagonal size", you
| may as well shop for PPI directly. This just doesn't
| generalize to displays overall (see my other comment with
| a TV example), as it's not actually the right variable.
| Wrong method, "right" result.
|
| > The threshold for sharp edges is much finer, and the
| things we put on computer displays have a lot of sharp
| edges.
|
| And the cell density is even finer. It was merely an
| example using a known reference value that lots of people
| would find excellent; I didn't mean to argue that it's
| the be-all end-all of vision. It's _just_ 20 /20.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| PPI doesn't generalize across different types of display
| but it works pretty well within a category of monitor,
| laptop, tablet, phone. For TV you probably just assume
| it's 4K and figure out the size you like.
|
| It's wrong but it's wrong in a way that causes minimal
| trouble and there's no better option. And if you add
| viewing distance explicitly, PPI+distance isn't
| meaningfully worse than PPD+distance, and people will
| understand PPI+distance better.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Eh, I suppose. Just the criteria of "is it hidpi? yes/no"
| readily mislead GP for example (i.e. it definitely is,
| just still "not hidpi _enough_ "), so I felt it would be
| helpful if the mechanism at play was clarified. Maybe I
| came off too strong though. Felt it would be clearer to
| use the correct variable at least, than to try and
| relativize PPI.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I guess, but even without measuring pixel inches/degrees
| it feels clearly wrong to me to say that proper 1x on a
| 12 inch laptop screen is only 960x600. 1280x720 or
| 1280x800 makes more sense to me, and then there's no
| confusion because 1920 is a clear 1.5x resolution.
| perching_aix wrote:
| For what it's worth, it's a pretty small diagonal size.
| Netbooks used to be about this size, and those had
| exactly such low resolutions on them. Conversely, you'd
| see 1280x720, but especially 1366x786, more on regular
| variety laptops (~15"), and if you crunch the numbers for
| these (using standard ppi), it maps pretty much exactly
| right. So we've come a long way on Windows/Linux/BSD
| land, even if there's much more to go.
|
| 3840x2160@15.3" for example would be a nice even 3.0x
| display scale, at 287.96 PPI, and 128 PPD at 30deg hfov
| to match the line pair resolving capability of the human
| eye [0] rather than the light dot resolving of 60 PPD,
| although of course still far from the 10x improvement
| over it via hyperacuity that you linked to earlier.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Physiology
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I accuse those 15 inch laptops of being below the bar. 15
| inch should be 1600x900.
|
| If 960xwhatever is okay at 12 inches, then 1366x768
| wouldn't even be the baseline resolution for 15 inch
| laptops, it would be the baseline resolution for 17 inch
| laptops. That just sounds silly to me.
|
| Assuming the laptop screen is just 20% closer goes a long
| way here to figuring out a good resolution. And it gives
| 720p to 12/13 inch laptops at 1x.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Yeah the focus really should be on multipliers. Is it a
| clean multiple of the typical "normal" DPI resolution for
| that screen size? You've got a great screen. No? It's a
| compromise. Simple.
|
| 1.5x looks ok mostly (though fractional pixels can cause
| issues in a few circumstances), but across platforms
| nothing is handled as well as 2x, 3x, etc is. I have a 1.5x
| laptop and wish it were either 1x or 2x.
| perching_aix wrote:
| The appropriate display scaling multiplier for this
| screen is 200% (2x), which is exactly why I regarded it
| pretty much clearing even this bar. On Windows at least,
| you can only alter display scaling in 25% increments
| (this is also why application designers are requested to
| only feature display elements with pixel dimensions that
| are cleanly divisible by 4), and so the closest fit for
| this laptop's PPI will be exactly the 200% preset option.
|
| Using a lower preset than this is trading PPI for screen
| real estate. I don't think that's reasonable to introduce
| into the equation here. Yes, you match the relative size
| of display elements by virtue of (potentially!) being
| closer to the screen, but in turn you put more of the
| screen into your periphery, just like with a monitor or a
| TV. I don't think that's a fair comparison at all. An
| immersive distance (40deg hfov) for this display is at
| 37.1 cm (a foot and a bit) - I think that's about as
| close as one gets to their laptops typically already.
| This is pretty much the same field of view you'd ideally
| have at your monitor and TV too, so either you use this
| same preset on all of them, or we're not comparing apples
| to apples. Or you just _really_ like to get closer to
| your laptop specifically, I suppose.
| Gracana wrote:
| Windows' "real fractional scaling" gives me clipped window
| borders, maximized windows bleeding onto other screens, and
| fuzzy-looking applications. I'm curious if Apple's
| downsampling method works better, because I am not
| impressed with Microsoft's method.
| danbee wrote:
| Yes, it does. It always renders internally at 2x which
| means that's all applications have to support. Then it
| downsamples the final framebuffer to the resolution of
| the display.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| > Apple doesn't support it at all
|
| Apple's HiDPI is "2x scaled" on Retina and >= 4k displays.
| But you can still pick a virtual resolution that isn't
| exactly 0.5x your display's native resolution, and it will
| look great.
|
| For example my external monitor is 3840x2160, and has a
| default virtual resolution of "1920x1080", but I run it at
| "2304x1296". My 14" MBP display has a default virtual
| resolution of "1512x982", but I run it at "1352x878".
| Neither looks scaled, neither has a slow display, weird
| fonts or weird graphics. I never even really think about
| it. In other words, light years beyond the experience on
| Ubuntu and on Windows.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| Yes.
|
| "Repairable" is a bit of a fool's errand. It really hinges on
| availability of spare parts, supply chain, etc. They will never
| sell enough of this niche product to nerds to make that a long-
| term reality.
|
| An old MBP is far more repairable because so many were made
| there will never be a shortage of parts on eBay.
|
| While an emphasis on repairability is noble, the false prophet
| of brick-like pluggable USB modules ain't it.
|
| The newest Apple laptops all have easily replaceable ports that
| do not require replacing the logic board, so that novelty is
| even more useless.
| stavros wrote:
| I'm far more likely to buy a RAM stick off the shelf and
| install it in a Framework than I am to desolder the RAM from
| a Macbook.
|
| Similarly, if I spill orange juice on a Framework, I can just
| buy a new keyboard and install it in a minute. If it were a
| Macbook, I'd probably throw away the whole thing, since I'd
| have to disassemble all of it to get to the keyboard, and it
| would take me hours, if I even managed to not break
| something.
|
| So, "Macbooks are more repairable than Frameworks" is quite
| the take.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| But are you really going to repair it?
|
| Or, upon spilling the juice, realize you can get a Surface
| Go on sale at Walmart (which this seems to be a clone of)
| for a bit more than a replacement keyboard and your time
| (which is way more than a minute) and toss it in the trash
| anyway.
| eloisant wrote:
| The kind of people who buy Framework laptops would repair
| them, yes.
| stavros wrote:
| Yep, I definitely 100% would, immediately.
| nucleardog wrote:
| It really doesn't seem like you're trying to engage
| constructively here.
|
| Framework sells keyboards for the Framework 13 for ~$30.
| I can find a Surface Go on sale for as low as $500.
|
| No, I don't think anyone's going to throw out a
| $500-$1000 device because it needs a $30 part and maybe
| 15 minutes of work (steps here: https://www.ifixit.com/Gu
| ide/Framework+Laptop+12+Input+Cover...) and they could
| instead replace their laptop with a tablet for a mere
| $470 more.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| > It really doesn't seem like you're trying to engage
| constructively here.
|
| So I'm not allowed to disagree? For the record: I think
| the Framework laptop, while a noble cause, is a foolish
| endeavor as executed and they will be out of business in
| 5 years.
|
| I'm assuming you've stocked spare parts because by the
| time you need a new keyboard, there is a chance they will
| be out of production (or out of business) and those
| parts, now rare, will be fetching $100s on eBay.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > So I'm not allowed to disagree? For the record: I think
| the Framework laptop, while a noble cause, is a foolish
| endeavor as executed and they will be out of business in
| 5 years.
|
| :shrug: people said the same thing when I first bought my
| laptop 4 years ago. Parts are readily available today,
| and I expect them to be so in a year.
|
| If _nine years_ after I bought the laptop I can 't get a
| replacement keyboard, I'll be a bit disappointed that the
| project failed, but the laptop will easily be net-
| positive from a cost benefit perspective long before that
| nrp wrote:
| I'll take the other side of that bet!
| radus wrote:
| > But are you really going to repair it?
|
| Yes
| ncallaway wrote:
| > But are you really going to repair it?
|
| Yes.
|
| I've upgraded and repaired my framework laptop several
| times over the years. I've very familiar with opening it
| up and disassembling it.
|
| Replacing the keyboard if I damaged it would _absolutely_
| be something I would do.
| encom wrote:
| FrameWork is not openly hostile towards right-to-repair, and
| do not actively sabotage repair efforts. Try calling Apple
| and ask for spare parts or circuit diagrams. Anything you
| find is either leaked, cloned/copied or trash-picked. It
| barely qualifies as spare parts.
| criddell wrote:
| They don't have circuit diagrams, but they do sell some
| replacement parts and do have repair manuals online that
| are geared towards supported repairs.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/122003
| autoexec wrote:
| They only reluctantly offered those things after their
| hand was forced
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787336/apple-right-
| to-...
| sixothree wrote:
| Wow. The process to replace a keyboard is pretty much
| insane.
| kokada wrote:
| If you go to the Framework website you can still find spare
| parts for their first gen laptops, because one thing they did
| is make sure that the latest gen parts are still compatible
| with their first gen.
|
| Also, on a Mac if the memory or storage dies, you need to
| replace the whole motherboard, that isn't true in a Framework
| laptop. You can't even say that those parts will be difficult
| to get in the future because they're off the shelf parts.
|
| I will not even start on the fact that replacing other parts
| that commonly break in a laptop like the screen or the
| keyboard are hard to do in a MacBook (needs to disassemble
| almost the whole laptop) vs doing it in Framework that is
| much easier and probably takes 20 minutes even without
| experience.
| djaychela wrote:
| >"Repairable" is a bit of a fool's errand. It really hinges
| on availability of spare parts, supply chain, etc. They will
| never sell enough of this niche product to nerds to make that
| a long-term reality.
|
| I don't think that's the case - there are plenty of people
| who realise that eWaste is a problem, and I've lost count of
| the number of times I've been asked why a laptop can't just
| have a "new CPU" fitted to speed it up when everything else
| works. In reality this means a new system board, but
| Framework does this.
|
| >An old MBP is far more repairable because so many were made
| there will never be a shortage of parts on eBay.
|
| That's not comparing like with like. I've done a -lot- of
| fixing of old (2012-era) macbooks and secondhand parts are
| always a crap shoot. Plus there are lots of minor changes
| between otherwise identical-looking parts which mean they
| don't fit (such as the higher-DPI screen connector between
| 2011 and 2012 for otherwise identical-looking parts which are
| indistinguishable until it doesn't quite fit.
|
| >While an emphasis on repairability is noble, the false
| prophet of brick-like pluggable USB modules ain't it.
|
| That's adaptability and means you can get the IO you need.
| The computer could be entirely non-repairable and have this,
| or it could be framework where everything is available brand
| new as a spare part if you need it.
|
| >The newest Apple laptops all have easily replaceable ports
| that do not require replacing the logic board, so that
| novelty is even more useless.
|
| I think you might be misinformed here. Lots of stuff is now
| serial locked and won't work even if you swap it over. And
| that's not counting some of the terrible low-level
| engineering stuff which people like Louis Rossman highlight
| (such as placement of higher-voltage lines right next to
| direct-to-cpu lines in display connectors). And I'm sure you
| know about the simple voltage controller that fails that
| Apple won't allow the original supplier to sell to anyone
| else.
|
| Even replacing the battery in my 2022 MBP (which I'm using
| now and absolutely love) would be a trial compared to the
| framework. One of the USB ports has always been dicky and
| I've just left it as is precisely because this is a can of
| worms.
|
| Watch some dosdude1 repair videos of examples of how much
| work and skill is needed to do something such as upgrade the
| storage in a MBP/Air. And compare this to the framework. They
| are several orders of magnitude different in terms of skill
| level.
| throwaway63467 wrote:
| Lenovo X9 Aura is pretty great. 80 Wh battery which gives you
| 6-10 hours of usage, 15'' 120 Hz 3k OLED screen, new 3 nm Intel
| CPUs. Only half as fast as my M4 but less than one third the
| price, with an upgradable SSD and a customer-replaceable
| battery. My only gripes are the soldered 32 GB of RAM and that
| they only put one USB C connector on each side, otherwise a
| tremendously good machine for that price. I think it has a fan,
| haven't noticed it yet though.
| square_usual wrote:
| What? You can get an M4 MacBook Air with 32 GB of RAM for
| $1400, and from googling the X9 Aura is the same price. How
| is that "less than one third the price"?
| codethief wrote:
| > Where are the fast, fanless, hidpi, long battery life
| laptops?
|
| Does the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition not meet these
| requirements? (It does have a fan but runs fairly cool
| according to reviews.)
| benoau wrote:
| They don't make the CPU or the hardware.
|
| And M1 laptops are what about three years from the vintage
| list? They'll be e-waste at the end of this decade even while
| other laptops fail to match it.
| j_w wrote:
| How is a device that is still functional e-waste? I have an
| M1 which I got near launch and don't see myself throwing it
| out by the end of the decade.
| benoau wrote:
| It's lifespan is practically defined by how long it gets
| security updates after Apple obsoletes it, and your ability
| to install other operating systems when that ends - there
| is only Asahi Linux, and Asahi is still figuring out M1
| support.
| f1shy wrote:
| Exactly that is what I think, and I do think it is just not
| possible.
|
| I'm searching for a new laptop, I want unix, so either linux or
| macos. I was looking at framework, system76, tuxedo and
| slimbooks, and mac air. I want an ANSI keyboard, which seems an
| oddity in Europe (there is English iso, which viscerally hate)
|
| If you want thunderbolt ports, and some good specs, mac air is
| cheaper. And I've heard with arm processors you can tun linux
| at almost native speeds... I'm almost decided for Mac Air...
|
| If somebody wants to add something to make me change my mind,
| you are more than welcome.
|
| BTW I'm replacing a 2016 Macbook pro, which was buggy as hell,
| and I learned to really hate it. Also I'm not a fan of MacOs...
| but !4$ I cannot beat it.
| mmcnl wrote:
| In The Netherlands ANSI is the most common keyboard layout,
| so you might want to look there if you really want/need ANSI.
| Only Apple and Logitech are outliers and insist on ISO.
| f1shy wrote:
| Doesn't NL have a Keyboard like Germany, Span, Italy or
| France? So you all use Ansi? That is my place in the
| world!!!
|
| Thanks. I will search in that direction.
| VHRanger wrote:
| I bought an asus OLED zenbook 14 with the ryzen chip, slapped
| pop OS onto it and it ran with no issues since.
|
| In a lot of ways it's better than the M2 max macbook pro I
| had before (better screen for one). It was also, uh, 1/6th
| the price.
| leptons wrote:
| The Apple M-series laptops get a performance boost by putting
| the RAM inside the CPU, which makes it completely impossible to
| upgrade RAM. That is the antithesis of what Framework is doing.
| Apple are the kings of disposable hardware that costs way more
| than the competition for no good reason. You want 32GB? _You
| 're going to pay a lot for it_. Oh, now you need 64GB? Too bad,
| throw out that old laptop and get a new one.
| qq66 wrote:
| There isn't any CPU that is competitive with the Apple M
| series. Maybe regulators will force Apple to sell the M series
| chips to competitors, if not, it is what it is.
| Chronoyes wrote:
| "60 percent of the SRGB color space"
|
| I never knew they made screens that bad anymore.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| The pricing is crazy, they need to halve the prices to be
| competitive with Apple and Lenovo on the high-end and ASUS on the
| low-end.
| adityamwagh wrote:
| I guess that's just the cost you have to pay for repairability
| and extension.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I've been using my framework 13 for a while now and it's been
| a great laptop - part of what pushed me over was their
| mission of making devices lives longer, my hope is and was
| that maybe the vote of confidence they survive long enough to
| build up to a model the Apple fans here would want or at
| least not complain about.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I'm not sure that will ever happen. I own a Framework 16
| (and am pretty happy with it), because I value
| repairability a _lot_. But the level of repairability and
| modularity that Framework is targeting comes with
| tradeoffs. This is simply the reality. Size, build quality
| /sturdiness, thermals, and more are going to take a hit
| when you have the extreme level of repairability and
| modularity. Framework laptops are probably never going to
| be the right solution for _every_ kind of customer. And
| Macs are probably close the furthest thing on the opposite
| of the spectrum. Every choice is designed to tweak the
| design, aesthetics, battery life, etc. almost always at the
| expense of repairability. Someone who likes the part of the
| pareto frontier that Macs operate on is almost
| definitionally never going to be a Framework fan.
|
| For me, they are great, and I plan to continue to support
| them. But not everyone is interested in the tradeoffs
| inherent in their philosophy, and that's also fine.
| moffkalast wrote:
| How has the build quality stood up so far? My concern with
| these has always been that laptops do generally get banged
| up a bit when travelling around, and if half of it is snap
| fit and designed to detach instead of being all glued
| together like typically, then it has a higher likelihood of
| falling apart when you really don't want it to.
|
| Might still be worth it if they keep producing spare parts
| for a decade or more, every single time my laptop's battery
| goes dead it's a after the manufacturer has stopped
| production of that model entirely and it becomes impossible
| to buy a new one lol.
| nickjj wrote:
| In theory this sounds good but in practice I'm not convinced
| there's a lot of value in the extension aspect.
|
| My desktop is 11 years old. It's an i5 3.2ghz quad core, 16
| GB of memory, SSD machine that I built from individual parts
| for ~$850 in 2014. It has been running 24/7 since then. It
| handles 4k and 1440p dual monitors without issues for all of
| my programming / video editing needs. The only thing it
| doesn't do is run modern games.
|
| I only say all of that because I've never upgraded individual
| parts on it. Every X years I build a new machine that lasts.
| I've been doing that for around 20 years now. The only thing
| I replaced once (not this machine) was a PSU that got nuked
| by lightning and not having a surge protector.
|
| Personally if I were going the laptop route I'd much rather
| get something 80% as fast as the framework but at half the
| price (or less). There's a ton of laptops in the $600 range
| that crush my desktop in specs. Things like a Ryzen 7 7730U
| (16 threads @ 4.5ghz) with 32 GB of memory, 1 TB+ SSD,
| reasonable display / ports etc..
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| To use Cursor's new language, I think it's aimed at the
| "price insensitive".
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I plan on buying one of these for my dad. He is older and isn't
| really technical. Having a machine I can easily repair for him
| is worth the cost.
| paddy_m wrote:
| What do you all use for a modern web development machine. 16GB of
| ram is no longer enough, I will soon upgrade to a new MBA with
| 32GB, but I still fear that won't be enough. I was looking at the
| latest framework and you can get it with 96GB of ram for $2k,
| that's $3600-$3800 for a mac and it's a much larger mac than I
| want. A quick scan of Dell and Lenovo non workstation class
| laptops didn't show any with more than 32GB.
|
| Memory used by various apps:
|
| docker VM take 8Gb for simple supabase images
|
| Firefox take 5-8GB
|
| BasedPyRight takes 2GB
|
| Nextjs server takes 2GB
| devmor wrote:
| If you need an 8gb docker image as part of your local web
| development stack, that's a toolchain problem.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| One of our vendors publishes a 70GB docker image as their
| SDK. It's awful.
| devmor wrote:
| That is horrendous. I'm assuming it contains some kind of
| giant dataset in its entirety?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| No datasets. Most of the size is just apt packages and
| tools bundled into the layers. Around 5GB are "useful"
| things, and another 15GB are a couple of arguably
| justified tarballs (only one of which is needed).
| mhitza wrote:
| The Thinkpad P15 workstation line of laptops support 128gb of
| memory. I've seen refurbished gen 1 at around 600 USD and 128gb
| of ram (has 4 slots) is another 250 USD on top. (Give or take,
| I'm converting from euros, and the US market doesn't VAT so it
| should be cheaper than that)
| dale_huevo wrote:
| 30 years ago we could play Doom with 4 MB of RAM.
|
| Web development has devolved to the point where now you need 32
| GB to view a Chinese take-out menu.
| acdha wrote:
| Firefox takes less than half a GB base plus your usage, so you
| might want to see which extensions are bloating it up.
| ashwinsundar wrote:
| Uninstall Firefox and stop developing junk in Next.js or any
| other vendor-as-a-service frameworks
|
| Install htop/btop and be more conscious about what your machine
| is actually doing. Needing more than 32GB RAM to develop a
| website is absurd
| tcfhgj wrote:
| Firefox is the only browser with manifest v2 support
| Macha wrote:
| My firefox is currently on 450mb on RAM, putting it in third
| place behind KDE's file indexer and one of the currently
| running electron instances.
|
| If you use Linux, then you're not stuck pre-dedicating a big
| block of RAM to a VM to run docker in, you're just using
| whatever the container is using.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I've never got upvotes reciting this but won't stop doing:
| there's right amount of sluggishness that the majority wants,
| and both software bloat and debloat happens until it hits
| honey-like sublime-to-some lagging is achieved. Only software
| and technologies that are _buttery_ smooth, not ethanoly
| smooth, will survive, and nothing will ever solve the software
| sluggishness that frustrates some, which unfortunately include
| myself.
| paddy_m wrote:
| FWIW I didn't choose the docker or nextjs stack. Sometimes you
| have clients or work at a job that makes tech stack choices you
| don't agree with.
| v5v3 wrote:
| Switch from docker to one of the other alternatives and wi be
| less ram probably.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Since you mention "Docker VM" I'm assuming you're using a Mac?
|
| If so my best advice is to not use Docker for day-to-day
| development; reverse-engineer the docker-compose.yml/etc and
| run what you'd run in containers locally.
|
| As a web developer I've been getting away with doing this for
| almost a decade now. It's a one-time cost to review what
| containers the app needs and then map that to a native world
| (install Postgres/etc via homebrew, adjust the env vars, etc).
|
| The only time I run Docker nowadays is when I actually need to
| work on the Dockerfile itself and need to test it locally.
| yread wrote:
| Get a proper laptop where you can install sodimm memory and m2
| ssds. A previous gen base model with decent screen Elitebook
| 8xx or Thinkpad T1x, 128gb ddr5 kit is 300EUR, 4tb ssd 200EUR
| and you dont have to worry about upgrades. My 5yr old machine
| has 64gb/4tb, it was doable for a long time
| Lammy wrote:
| I really love the lavender -- VAIO-core! I do wish I could get
| the other modules in lavender too, but I understand why they
| wouldn't want to fractally-complicate their stock keeping for
| those items.
|
| > the Laptop 12 can only fit a single DDR5 RAM slot, which
| reduces memory bandwidth and limits your RAM capacity to 48GB
|
| According to this post from a Framework team member, a single
| 64GB SODIMM will work too and just didn't exist yet at the time
| Intel wrote the 13th Gen spec, so they only advertize 48GB:
| https://community.frame.work/t/64gb-ram-for-framework-12-sin...
|
| > Old, slow chip isn't really suitable for light gaming
|
| I wish the reviewer would specify what phrases like "light
| gaming" mean to them. My FW12 is in a later batch that won't ship
| for a few more months, but I'm coming from a ThinkPad T470s where
| I already do "light gaming" (mostly TBoI Repentence and Team
| Fortress 2 with mastercomfig medium-low). I can't imagine the
| 13th Gen graphics would be worse in that regard than my old
| laptop's 7th Gen.
|
| Not having Thunderbolt seemed like kind of a bummer to me too,
| but then again my T470s has it and I can't think of a single time
| I ever actually used it for anything. I tried one of those
| external GPU enclosures once, and it was kinda cool just to see
| that such a thing was possible, but I've never been one to want
| to tether a laptop with a thicc cable lol
| nrp wrote:
| TF2 will absolutely run smoothly. I've been playing Persona 5
| on my Framework Laptop 12.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > a single 64GB SODIMM will work too
|
| Wait, are 64GB DDR5 SODIMMs finally out? I've been monitoring
| that for ages but almost lost hope.
| throawayonthe wrote:
| seems so!
|
| https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#ff=ddr5_sodimm&Z=6.
| ..
| nrp wrote:
| Note that they are CSO-DIMMs, and may not be compatible with
| all products. In our limited testing, they do work on
| Framework Laptop 12.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I already do "light gaming" [...] Team Fortress 2_
|
| The system requirements for TF2 are 1GB RAM, a single-core
| 1.7GHz CPU and a graphics card with 64 MB of VRAM [1] - the
| game is 18 years old.
|
| If a review told me a laptop exceeded those specs, it wouldn't
| tell me much :)
|
| [1] https://www.5kgamer.com/game/team-fortress-2
| const_cast wrote:
| TF2 won't actually run on a system like that, the system
| requirements on Steam are a bit of a meme. It's 18 years old
| but it's also been updated for 18 years.
| throw0101d wrote:
| Meta: the purple-lavender colour brings back memories of Sun's
| purple-blue logo:
|
| * https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/media/logos/Sun-Microsys...
| theodric wrote:
| > "A sturdy, thoughtful, cute design that just can't compete in
| its price range."
|
| People will pay untold thousands for a Mac, but God forbid when a
| PC manufacturer charges more than $599 for a laptop. If you're
| whining about the price, Framework isn't made for you. Go buy
| that Acer that you really want. The Framework is Sam Vimes'
| expensive boots that are made to last[1], and I've happily paid
| in full to get a pair.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
| masklinn wrote:
| > People will pay untold thousands for a Mac, but God forbid
| when a PC manufacturer charges more than $599 for a laptop.
|
| The article compares the FL12 to laptops of the same price
| range, _including other framework laptops_ to note that it
| falls short.
|
| The FL12 has worse performances and battery life than an M1
| Air, for more than an M4.
|
| The point of the article is that the 12 should either be a lot
| less expensive or it should be a lot better. It's not whatever
| nonsense you're dreaming of.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| The core philosophy of Framework is repairability and
| modularity. Yes, you are paying extra for those things, and
| so people who do not value them, should probably not buy
| Framework. These comments are full of the old cliche of
| judging a fish in a tree climbing contest.
|
| Repairabilty and modularity come with tradeoffs. Not everyone
| is going to value those tradeoffs and therefore shouldn't buy
| a laptop where those are the priority. But some people _do_
| value those things, and telling them to "get a MacBook" is
| just silly.
| theodric wrote:
| You can repair a Mac by handing it (and possibly your wallet)
| to Apple and letting them replace entire large subsystems to
| remedy the issue and pair the new parts. A few years back
| (pre-Apple Silicon) I got a new top case, keyboard, battery,
| and trackpad because the button in the trackpad had failed.
| Pretty good deal on a laptop that was nearly 3 years old, in
| fairness.
|
| To repair (or upgrade) a Framework, you buy the part and
| install it. That's worth something to me!
|
| Incidentally, I also have a last-gen ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 AMD
| and it's a flimsy POS. Already needed a new motherboard and
| battery and spent three weeks sitting at the service center
| while they rounded up the parts. Wish I'd bought another
| Framework 13.
| sixothree wrote:
| I really don't understand this argument about price. It seems
| extremely competitive on price to me. Am I crazy or am I really
| seeing 48 GB and 2 TB for $1500? For $1500 you get a 16 GB 512
| GB macbook air.
| nrp wrote:
| This is a key part of our product value prop. Our memory and
| storage upgrade pricing is much lower than most other laptop
| makers, and you can find your own on the open market for even
| less. Other laptop makers can preserve their overall margin
| by overcharging on those upgrades, which lets them price
| their base SKUs more aggressively. We accepted the tradeoff
| of not gouging on upgrades.
| theodric wrote:
| I got my wife an entire-ass Framework 13 7840U /and/ put
| 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD in it for less than the cost of the
| _uplift_ to go from base RAM to 32GB and base SSD to 2TB
| from Apple at time of preorder. That was the day I stopped
| being an Apple customer. Maybe for the $300 Walmart laptop
| folks it 's too expensive, but hardly for Mac refugees.
| mmcnl wrote:
| MacBook Air and MacBook Pro actually have very competitive
| pricing, even if you take into account the expensive upgrades.
| I'd buy the Windows/Linux equivalent at the same price in a
| heartbeat.
| username223 wrote:
| I wish them the best, but if they can't compete with a MacBook
| Air on price despite Apple's huge profit margins, then maybe it's
| just not meant to be. People used to talk about paying the "Apple
| tax," but how many people are willing to pay the "Linux tax?" Mac
| OS is a similar Unix with the usual tools, and you can rent a VPS
| if you need Linux on an x86 sometimes. An MBA with an M4 will
| last 5+ years with a battery swap, and still probably perform
| better than whatever Framework releases in 2030.
|
| I guess I'm not the target customer for this. I can see myself
| tinkering with a desktop, but I'd rather just have a laptop that
| runs fast and long enough, and stands up to abuse for 3-5 years.
| sixothree wrote:
| $1500 for 48 GB and 2 TB? Am I missing something here?
| username223 wrote:
| Yes, Apple screws you on SSDs, so that 2 TB adds a lot. If
| you need it, and don't want an external SSD (2 TB costs
| $150), the Framework is cheaper with a slower CPU. Maxing
| internal storage on a Mac laptop is a bad idea if cost
| matters to you.
|
| EDIT: I haven't felt the need to spec a programming laptop
| like that. 16/512 feels fast enough, and 32/512 would have
| room to bloat... er, I mean grow. But I don't use a local
| LLM, and I don't know whether the difference between a
| heavily-quantized thing that fits in 16 GB and whatever you
| can fit in 48 is significant versus the ones running on
| absurd data center CPUs.
| cjcenizal wrote:
| I love the Galvatron color scheme! Feels techy yet nostalgic.
| jbm wrote:
| I was thinking BW2 Galvatron too -- looks great.
|
| After reading everyone's comments about price I expected it
| would be much worse. I might consider it after my current
| laptop dies.
| losvedir wrote:
| > _modular, repairable, upgradeable laptops_
|
| In terms of phones, I largely disagree with the conventional
| wisdom that repairable, upgradeable, Androids are better for the
| environment, more cost effective for the user, etc than iPhones.
| It's true you can't upgrade the battery _yourself_ , but that's a
| different quality from whether the battery can be upgraded. And
| iPhones have a much higher resale value, so they're going to end
| up in landfills more slowly. I personally bought and use a used
| iPhone 11 that came with a replaced battery, and it's great! Old
| iPhones have a long useful life after trade in and resale, even
| if people buying new models here don't see it.
|
| So I'd love to know how much this is the case for laptops like
| these as well.
|
| For example, "repairable" is useful to the extent that repairs
| actually need to happen, and it seems to mean "self" repairable,
| though again that's a different dimension from whether a service
| center can do it. And whether you need _self_ repairable is not a
| thing about longevity, environmental impact (since repair centers
| suffice for that), but rather convenience and possibly price. But
| _price_ isn 't the factor here because the thing is so damn
| expensive to begin with.
|
| "Upgradeable" is useful if you want to.... improve a piece of it
| but not the chassis? Screen? How necessary is this? Do people
| really do that? I've been happy to use a laptop for half a decade
| or more, until finally upgrading everything all at once.
| presbyterian wrote:
| I also feel like Android phones stop getting OS updates
| (including security fixes) much faster than iPhones. You _can_
| root them and install a newer version of Android, I guess, but
| the vast majority of people won 't do that.
|
| Also, I haven't been on Android in a few years, so maybe I'm
| wrong and this isn't a problem anymore, but it certainly was in
| the past.
| staindk wrote:
| A Lot of improvement has happened on Android regarding this.
| I think Samsungs have 6 or 7 years of guaranteed software
| updates, as do Pixel phones.
| prophesi wrote:
| It doesn't just mean self-repairable; you could still go in to
| a service center. It just wouldn't have to be an Apple approved
| one. And would be a lot cheaper due to the reduced costs of
| labor, and likely increase of third-party parts, particularly
| if they become modular / standardized. I had a friend who'd
| replace phone screens and batteries, but at some point it was
| no longer worth the hassle.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > It's true you can't upgrade the battery yourself, but that's
| a different quality from whether the battery can be upgraded.
|
| And how many people end up upgrading the battery is yet another
| quality. I would suspect a small fraction of phones with
| upgradeable batteries actually gets battery upgrades. Having
| upgradeable internal components generally correlate strongly
| with recyclability... however once again, in my pessimistic
| estimation, only a small percentage of recycling actually
| amounts to anything.
| losvedir wrote:
| I don't know, my guess would be that the majority of iPhones
| have their batteries upgraded. Apple currently still gives
| you money for trading in back to an iPhone 8! They probably
| upgrade the battery and put it up for sale in the developing
| world, I would guess.
|
| I only paid $250 for my used iPhone 11, and that's not even
| as old as they go.
|
| I imagine most of HN is shielded from the flourishing
| secondary market of old phones because they can easily afford
| the latest and greatest (counting even a couple years back).
| But at least where I live in Indiana, there's a pretty
| thriving ecosystem of yard sales and reuse, and people are
| not just going to simply throw away a functioning phone. An
| iPhone that's almost a decade old still has value, and there
| are repair shops that could put a new battery in it to keep
| it going for a little while yet.
|
| If you don't think batteries get upgraded, what do you think
| happens? Do people really just throw their phones in the
| garbage?
| butz wrote:
| We need more 10"-12" sized laptops. I regret selling my netbook
| in hopes a device with a bit better specs would come.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > The Core i5 version of the Laptop 12 lasted around 10 hours in
| the PCMark Modern Office battery life test, which isn't stunning
| but is a step up from what the fully specced versions of the
| Framework Laptop 13 can offer. It will be just fine for a long
| flight or a full day of work or school.
|
| This is the key. Framework 12 is a model aimed at schools and
| corporations. I wouldn't be surprised to see a ChromeOS version
| of it appear for schools. Which is great if they can tap into
| that market.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| It's a bit surprising to find so little in these comments and
| the original review talking about the youth first laptop use-
| case. Lots of schools require a touch screen, and kids are
| going to break parts even on a fairly rugged laptop.
|
| All these people talking about MacBook Airs are missing the
| point. None of the schools around me have MacBook Airs as
| allowed laptops for kids BYOD and even if they did, I'm not
| sure they'd have a long life getting the kinds of hits and
| knocks that will happen being carried everywhere in high school
| by a 12 year old.
|
| This laptop is obviously for this use case. I know of no other
| laptop that really covers this use case well. Typically laptops
| aimed at this segment are cheaper, but not rugged, not easy to
| repair, and not really very nice. I strongly suspect that I'll
| only have to replace the screen or keyboard once before the
| total cost of ownership works out compared to a normal laptop.
| nucleardog wrote:
| > A good laptop, but not a good value
|
| Where "value" is purely monetary, I think that pretty succinctly
| sums up my experience/views on the Framework product line.
|
| They make good laptops, but you can generally get more for fewer
| dollars. If you're shopping on price, you can probably just skip
| right over their entire product line.
|
| That doesn't mean that their offering doesn't have value. It has
| value has a vote with your wallet for sustainable, repairable
| products. It has value as an easily repairable and customizable
| laptop. It has value in some esoteric use cases it can be
| customized into (e.g., 4xM.2 NVME slots).
|
| Would love to see some reviews just get this out of the way up
| front and spend more words on the product itself.
|
| Personally, I'm glad there's a company out there serving a market
| niche besides being the lowest cost, most value-engineered
| product. I don't mind paying a bit extra for that in exchange for
| the other value I get out of it.
|
| (And all that said--at the high end specs their prices get a fair
| bit more competitive. The price to upgrade a laptop from 16GB ->
| 128GB on Dell's site is _more than an entire FW16 w/ Ryzen 9 +
| 96GB RAM_.)
| atrus wrote:
| I think the repairabilty makes it hard to even compare monetary
| value, since in theory, you'd be keeping the same body, while
| swapping out the mainboard. Is it cheaper to buy two other
| laptops compared to one laptop + mainboard? That's what, a 3-5
| year timeline? Who knows what prices/capabilities/etc will be
| like then.
| nucleardog wrote:
| Yeah, I personally take that into account however I can see
| why someone may not.
|
| Framework has released fairly consistent upgrades for the
| Framework 13, but there's no guarantee that they will
| continue to do so, will release upgrades for the Framework
| 16, etc.
|
| I think in a few years when they've been in business for
| closer to a decade than not and released updates across the
| whole product line, it'd be pretty hard for anyone to make an
| argument that that _shouldn't_ be factored in.
| benrutter wrote:
| Yeah, this is my experience with a Fairphone 4. It seemed
| pricey initially, but I have saved sooo much by being able to
| carry out simple repairs.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| How often do you break your phone that you've save sooo
| much? Mine is at least 2 years older (I got it 2 years
| before the Fairphone 4 was released) and I've spend 0$
| dollars repairing it.
| XorNot wrote:
| In a laptop context the advent of soldered on RAM and
| SSDs has made this a more significant issue though.
|
| That 1TB I thought was enough might not be, and suddenly
| I need to buy a whole new machine to upgrade.
| leptons wrote:
| It could also be worth it to keep the same body and upgrade
| over the years, just to avoid the frustration of re-learning
| a new laptop keyboard layout.
| brudgers wrote:
| Thinkpads have had similar layouts for decades. The
| keyboard mechanisms have of course changed, but the Emacs
| friendly dual ctrl and alt symmetric about the space bar
| have remained.
|
| Also being the most Linux friendly laptop also means they
| have very long update lifespans and being well built tend
| not to break...though there are plenty of repair parts and
| spares.
| linsomniac wrote:
| >in theory, you'd be keeping the same body, while swapping
| out the mainboard.
|
| I love the idea of Framework, but the upgradability seems
| questionable to me. I base this off my experience with
| desktops where I've rarely over the decades upgraded more
| than the hard drive and RAM. When I'm looking at upgrading
| the motherboard it seems I just end up going all the way and
| getting a new case/ps/etc at the same time. Maybe that's just
| me though?
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Because the old machine is still useful intact. I don't see
| a difference between laptop and desktop here. I agree I
| don't see myself ever swapping in an upgraded motherboard.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| I think there are some important differences. Desktops
| are a continually evolving space and a hobby all on their
| own, due to all the different cooling options and
| aesthetic upgrades available. And since a lot of these
| involve a case swap you might as well do the whole
| enchilada.
|
| The niche created by Framework, in contrast, is all about
| reuse. It's just a different game.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I've kept the same PSU for two motherboards and the same
| chassis for four motherboards. I've kept my main monitor
| across two motherboards and my second monitor across three
| motherboards.
|
| If you're a Framework customer it's not entirely unlikely
| you buy a case for your older mobo and now you have a power
| efficient home-server (or something) at your disposal.
| paxys wrote:
| You can't upgrade the hard drive or RAM on modern laptops
| either.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| You can upgrade SSD on most laptops other that Mac.
|
| My Dell XPS13 came with a 1TB SSD, which recently was
| replaced with a 4TB one...
| pdpi wrote:
| I bought the DIY FW13 a while back, and it took me 40
| minutes from receiving the box to having it fully
| assembled, Fedora installed and a Youtube video playing. I
| bought the hi-res display a month or two ago, and the whole
| replacement took ~20 minutes. In between those two
| experiences, the whole upgradeability thing feels very very
| real for me. If anything, it's easier to work on than my
| desktop PC.
| paxys wrote:
| And it isn't just about upgrading for better specs. I'd wager
| the majority of people's laptop replacement cycle is triggerd
| by a single part dying (screen, hard disk, keyboard, hinges,
| PSU), the device being out of warranty, and the store quoting
| more for the fix than a new device would cost. Being able to
| purchase the $50 part online and do the repair yourself will
| probably save the average person thousands over a 3-5 year
| span.
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| Most laptops I know have lasted 5-7 years and then been
| replaced. It's totally unclear to me that a single part
| would have changed any of those replacements.
|
| I'm curious if you have a different experience where you
| ditch a laptop after less than 3 years because a single
| part has broken as you imply.
| AJRF wrote:
| I am happy to pay more money given the companies goals, and
| that extra money is an investment to me. If I didnt buy it they
| have one less sale, and I won't have contributed to making the
| world have more companies like framework. I have hope others
| are doing the same despite them not being the cheapest.
|
| If they stop delivering, ill not buy their next thing, and ill
| be sad.
| econ wrote:
| I think monetary value can be accomplished by streamlining a
| second hand marketplace. If you've purchased a device the
| vendor can keep track of what and when. It should be relatively
| simple to put the known device or part back in the shop.
| Depending on the part and age they can also buy back and
| refurbish parts. A standard discount on an upgrade if you
| return the old part. Etc
|
| One could even allow other manufacturers to offer parts and do
| certification for a fee.
|
| It should be possible to push down prices and make update paths
| more appealing.
|
| https://community.frame.work/t/community-market-category/522...
| distances wrote:
| And note that if the price is a pain point, you're free to
| order the Framework DIY without RAM and NVMe and get them
| cheaper elsewhere. Should bring it closer to the competition
| price point.
| mmcnl wrote:
| I don't really understand the repairability appeal of the
| Framework. Hasn't that already been a selling point for the
| business line laptops of HP, Lenovo and Dell for years? They
| all offer premium business laptops with removable RAM, SSD and
| battery and very detailed maintenance guides. Part availability
| is good too.
| hokumguru wrote:
| What's the current procedure for getting HP or Lenovo or Dell
| to sell you replacement monitor? What about just a chassis if
| you drop yours and get a dent? Even a spare battery? If
| you're not buying one of their premium business laptops,
| you're kind of SOL.
|
| How about in five years from now when all of that is still
| fine, but you just want to replace the mainboard.
|
| What about when framework comes out with upgrades down the
| line? The great thing is because they're so modular you can
| just buy that and slap it in without having to buy an
| entirely new machine.
|
| That's the appeal
| bradfa wrote:
| Dell Latitude and Lenovo Thinkpad parts are pretty easy to
| come by on eBay. I've bought a handful of different parts
| from drive caddies, OEM batteries, hinge assemblies,
| keyboards, and trackpads without much drama. Dell Latitude
| service manuals are top notch with detailed procedures and
| diagrams. Dell has a decent track record of maintaining
| their firmware for a reasonable number of years after
| release.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| Lenovo parts are easy enough to buy direct these days, at
| least for recent/current models.
| chpatrick wrote:
| To a point, but new mainboard means new laptop for all of
| those brands. With Framework it's a five minute process to
| get a new CPU.
| 0xTJ wrote:
| While HP's service guides have been good, even on their non-
| business models, the actual serviceability isn't great. You
| have rubber feet that can't be re-applied after removal, and
| good luck getting replacement parts as an average consumer (I
| haven't even been able to get a first-party battery for my HP
| Envy x360). Not every laptop is going to a corporation with
| an IT department and direct procurement connections.
|
| RAM, SSD, and battery are also the very minimum in terms of
| serviceability on a laptop, they've been traditionally user-
| serviceable. It's components like the touchpad, display,
| ribbon cables, etc. that haven't been traditionally
| easy/possible to replace.
| chickensong wrote:
| My previous laptop was HP, and servicing it was fairly
| unpleasant. It required removing around 30 screws of multiple
| sizes to get access, where the Framework requires 5 screws,
| which are captive. By the third time I needed to service the
| HP, the part I needed was no longer available directly from
| HP, and the 3rd party price was too expensive to sink into an
| aging laptop.
|
| Some of the business lines are better, but the ultrabook
| styles that Framework is competing with can be pretty
| difficult to work on because the internals are so optimized
| for performance in a small space. The big manufacturers also
| tend to change the internals enough between models/versions,
| that if you want to fully gut and swap the insides, or maybe
| just replace the keyboard, the chassis is incompatible.
| Framework is designed to service over a longer period of
| time.
|
| There is a tradeoff, because the super-optimized layouts of
| the big manufacturers are often superior. But for me at
| least, the Framework is good enough, and when I do need to
| make changes, it's a better experience. I'm also voting with
| my wallet for the change I want to see, even though the cost
| is probably a slightly worse laptop.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Repairability sounds good in theory but in practice outside of
| two year warranty period I'm fine if I have to replace the
| device because of failure, but I got 4-5 out of most of my
| devices. Like my 2018 Intel MBP was the worst laptop in terms
| of thermals/battery etc. It's still going with a family member
| I handed it over to. I don't think I've had a laptop die on me
| in last 12 years of using laptops, I usually keep them around
| after upgrade or pass them off to family.
|
| And the upgradable internals sound like more of a hassle than a
| benefit - especially since buying a different device will be
| cheaper and probably a better experience since they don't have
| to engineer for replaceability.
|
| Theoretically you'd get the option to plug in stuff not
| available in other laptops like strix halo - but then they
| still don't offer that in laptops. So meh.
| christophilus wrote:
| Kind of with you on this. I just installed Arch on my wife's
| old 2013 MacBook Pro. Works like a charm.
|
| My work laptop (Fedora Linux, Dell XPS)is over 5 years old. I
| haven't bothered to replace it, but will next year just
| because. The old one will become a retro gaming device for
| the kids.
| bloomca wrote:
| I broke some of my devices, and some have battery become
| useless, and the price of changing is just not worth it, but
| overall? They last really long time. I even have some shitty
| 7 years old Chromebook still working okay passed to a family
| member, and Macbooks in general last very long.
|
| And upgrading laptop components after 5 years just doesn't
| sound like a good value proposition.
| kelnos wrote:
| I guess Framework is maybe too new for us to be able to come up
| with figures here, but monetary value is hard to measure for a
| product where the intention is you don't ever fully replace it.
|
| Sure, I might have spent a few hundred more on my Framework 13
| back in 2022, but if I'd bought a Dell XPS 13 instead, I
| probably would be fully replacing it with a new machine in 2026
| or 2027. But with the Framework, I'll instead only buy a new
| mainboard and RAM. My "next laptop" will cost ~$1000 for the
| same specs as something that would cost ~$2000.
|
| So sure, it's going to take me a bit longer to realize the
| savings, but there still _will_ be savings, and I appreciate
| the sustainability aspects too.
| brudgers wrote:
| _It has value has a vote with your wallet for sustainable,
| repairable products._
|
| The author of the fine article's strategy of used Thinkpads is
| more sustainable because reuse is among the most sustainable
| practices and there is an abundance of Thinkpad repair parts
| and spares machines.
|
| Of course, Thinkpads are not terribly upgradable. But upgrading
| is often the opposite of sustainable...in many cases CPU's,
| etc. are fast-fashionesque.
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| > A good laptop, but not a good value
|
| One of my mentors had the great sentence: "I dont buy laptops-
| they suck, because they are tailored to transport. I buy
| desktops- and connect them via internet to flat transportable
| terminals. And desktops can be upgraded, merged, reused and send
| to the closet as server at the EOL-"
|
| And he was kind of right. For almost all purposes, even for
| gaming in a way- a remote desktop is kind of superior. Yes,
| stadia is dead- but for everything else- this shall do.
| atrus wrote:
| Using Steam Streaming/Moonlight-Sunlight/Tailscale is a _dream_
| for remote gaming.
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| You are absolutely right- forgive me, im kind of out of touch
| with the whole steam revolutionizing gaming on linux.
|
| I think the comment about the "transporttax" on hardware,
| ergonomic and cooling still holds up though even in a world
| where things like steam-deck exist.
|
| Even more so, if you may have lightweight ar-headsets one
| day, with a glorified cellphone + mouse and keyboard.
| patwoz wrote:
| Nah, it's ok for browsing the internet and for ,,slow" games
| but for anything else it sucks
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| One could argue, that the "reusability" of the laptopbricks, in
| a desktop-server blade like structure is the biggest argument
| for the framework as a laptop though.
| mac-attack wrote:
| I am of the same mind. Desktop for heavy lifting and a mid-
| range Chromebook (technically a chrultrabook now) for browsing
| w/ a lightweight yet modern feel.
|
| I do think the plunge to leveraging a desktop/server across
| devices does require an understanding of ssh/rdp and
| tailscale/reverse proxies though, which is why it isn't as
| popular as it could be.
| arccy wrote:
| Reliability of Internet is also a problem
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| From the pics there this laptop does not have a matte surface on
| the screen? Looks like a glossy screen. One would hope matte is
| an option.
|
| EDIT: Yes, it looks like matte is an option and they don't charge
| extra.
| nrp wrote:
| Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16 are matte.
| Framework Laptop 12 has coverglass (non-matte) to get the
| durability needed for stylus support.
| rfwhyte wrote:
| I'd be a lot more into Framework if they had come out with a
| single other GPU option than the Radeon 7700S that's been the
| only GPU option available since the brands launch. The 7800M and
| 7900M have both been out over a year or more, and Framework has
| made zero mention of when or even if those models would ever be
| available as upgrades for Framework devices. I don't even really
| play games, but for my video editing workloads, more GPU cores
| and VRAM make a world of difference, and the RTX 3070 level of
| performance out of the RX7700s that's thus far the only GPU
| option for Framework devices just doesn't cut it. There's just no
| way I'm spending $2500+ USD for a laptop that has worse
| performance than devices costing half as much at this point.
|
| They just aren't really delivering on the promise of "Future
| upgradeability" in any kind of meaningful way so far, and I just
| can't see the value in purchasing what's undeniably a wildly
| overpriced machine based on promises that have yet to be
| delivered upon. They've had plenty of time to communicate when,
| or even if, new GPUs are coming, yet there's been absolute radio
| silence from the on this front.
|
| Personally I think they need to focus more on actually delivering
| on the fundamental promise of the brand, that being future
| upgradeability, than on releasing new devices, as until they can
| demonstrate they are committed to delivering on their promises, I
| won't be buying any of their devices.
| wffurr wrote:
| They already released several updated mainboards for the 13 and
| 16 with newer Intel and AMD chips.
| rkagerer wrote:
| At the high end, what are some alternative laptops you would
| consider which are _not_ Apple? (Preferably with full-sized arrow
| keys)
| Const-me wrote:
| Couple months ago, I have replaced 3.5 years old HP Probook
| with XMG EVO 14. Specifically, I have ordered a configuration
| with Ryzen 7 8845HS, 64GB DDR5-5600, and no disks because I
| reused 4TB WD Red SN700 from the old laptop, and still have the
| second M2 2280 slot free should I need more storage.
|
| Pretty good laptop, the screen is great even, colour-calibrated
| 2880x1800 IPS configurable to 60 Hz refresh rate. However, the
| up/down arrow keys are not full size, their height is smaller.
| ls-a wrote:
| I can't believe companies are still squishing those arrow keys
| together. How could this terrible keyboard design drag for so
| long
| wffurr wrote:
| Who needs arrow keys when you have hjkl?
| caycep wrote:
| I was thinking of posting one of those Ask HN things re what ppl
| thought were the best laptops for linux in 2025, i.e. a Thinkpad,
| a Framework, a System76...or a MacBook running utm...
| spankibalt wrote:
| "Interesting" product placement (already within their portfolio,
| compared to the Framework 13). Sadly, they didn't succeed in
| making their unique features (compared to their and the market's
| other offerings) really useful by:
|
| 1. Using substandard digitzer tech (something as performant _and_
| economical as Wacom EMR is needed). One _cannot_ compromise here.
| I get that this might also be a licensing issue.
|
| 2. Making the device too big. 10.3 inch or smaller is better; the
| possibility of using the device in a train's or on a plane's
| fold-away tray table, just to be stashed away in a cross-body or
| small messenger bag after use, is still a killer feature. More
| real estate (by way of screens, ultraportable projectors, et
| cetera) can always be thrown into the mix later.
|
| 3. Choosing a wrong, or to be more precise _obsolete_ , form
| factor. It _needed_ to be a detachable for more modularity and
| flexibility. So, it 's just another, admittedly very
| maintainable, premium-priced classic convertible. Its attached
| keyboard is a design-compromising dead weight and/or wasted space
| whenever not in use, very much like (the unused) maneuvering jets
| on older VTOL aircraft while in conventional flight.
|
| 4. The display is not of primary importance here, but there's no
| need to make it that bad. Top-notch, wide-color, flicker-free IPS
| displays do exist.
|
| 5. Sturdy but lightweight metal, not plastic.
|
| And so the search for a well-designed, modular SFF general
| computing device continues. They nailed the colors tho, and
| hopefully continue to set an example in Linux support. I wish
| them plenty sales, I'm sure the machine will find its fans.
| keb_ wrote:
| I was _this_ close to buying the newest generation Framework, but
| in the end, could not justify the price when I found a far better
| bang for my buck and respectable self-repairability with a
| refurbished Gen 5 T14. It 's even surprisingly thin and light.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I dig this laptop _a lot_ but two things have put me off:
|
| 1. No full AMD options. I don't trust Intel's thermals and
| performance for several years now. Maybe they have rebounded but
| I no longer care. For me it's "AMD or get away from me".
|
| 2. No backlit keyboard. _There is no excuse for this in 2025!_ I
| can forgive a lot of things, lack of biometric auth included, but
| no backlit keyboard is a cardinal sin.
|
| I don't care about price. At this point I am ready to pay extra
| for libre hardware that is 100% open/free source ready and even
| working best with it. I would easily pay Macbook prices for a
| machine. But going for Intel and for no backlit keyboard -- nope.
|
| Hope somebody from Frame.Work is reading. AMD has better
| thermals! (Or had, a few years ago, again, haven't checked in a
| while.)
| 0000000000100 wrote:
| Our company bought about 4-5 Framework 13s, and boy were they a
| bad experience. All sorts of driver issues, random crashes, USB
| ports not working right, etc.
|
| Just about all of them had some kind of issue, which is really
| fun when your PM has a USB port not work randomly.
|
| Ended up going back to HP laptops, 30% cheaper for the same specs
| and they just work consistently.
|
| Would love to hear a hobbyist perspective, Frameworks are not a
| good choice for a business but I would be interested to hear if
| the replaceable parts / ports provided value for someone. My gut
| feeling is that something that can't be replaced easily in the
| Frameworks will die and it'll just end up being cheaper to
| replace the whole laptop.
| chickensong wrote:
| The first run of Frameworks had a weak hinge on the monitor,
| which isn't an uncommon problem with other brands of laptop.
| With Framework, you can easily replace the hinge, but that's
| unlikely with most other brands, and you'll need to pay to
| replace the entire monitor.
|
| Another example, I didn't need an HDMI port anymore, and wanted
| an extra USB-C instead. Just a few bucks to swap with
| Framework, but impossible with other laptops.
|
| I did have an issue with one of my USB ports on the Framework
| however. It was solved by removing the module and updating the
| bios firmware. Can't say I've ever had that happen with another
| laptop. I agree they're probably not ready for business use
| yet, where cost is the primary measurement.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| It seems that the swappable modules would also make it easy
| for someone to install e.g. a keylogger, though.
| TheGuyWhoCodes wrote:
| You can lock the modules with a button and also screw them
| in from the inside.
|
| Not saying it's perfect but it's a far cry from just
| swapping a module.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| I have one as a developer laptop running Linux. It works fine,
| battery life is bad. (On AMD 7640U Framework 13).
|
| I currently couldn't recommend them to anyone except users
| (developers?) who want to run Linux specifically. Otherwise a
| Macbook is going to be a much better computer at a better
| value, or just get any boring Windows laptop provider.
|
| Pros compared to Macbook: - Runs Linux - amd64 makes some
| legacy software work easier - Easy and commodity prices to get
| 96gb of RAM and 2tb SSD.
|
| Macbook pros: - Massively better battery life - Snappier/faster
| in general usage - Much more polished than Linux
|
| I evaluated Thinkpads as well but trying to find one with the
| right configuration that wasn't too expensive or worse than the
| Framework was pretty hard.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Does anyone else see the touchscreen as a straight-up downside? I
| don't want that, have no need for it, absolutely do not want
| anyone touching my screen, and it's just more shit that can
| break.
|
| It looks fantastic aside from that, though.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I have a Framework 12 laptop running Ubuntu. I use it mostly for
| dev (so I don't care about gaming, Windows, etc.). I mostly like
| it, but I have two gripes:
|
| - the touchpad is atrocious
|
| - battery life is mediocre
| class3shock wrote:
| For anyone considering the 16, mine has had some teething issues
| (1. motherboard failed and I was sent a replacement 2.
| keyboard/touchpad started having a issue losing connection which
| I still need to submit a ticket for). The USB A port also feels
| like it's gonna break at some point (the rest seem fine). The
| linux experience has been about the same as on a Dell XPS 13 with
| the consistent issues being poor battery life and an inability to
| sleep properly. If I were to do it again I would get the 13 not
| the 16 but would still give it a shot.
| poisonborz wrote:
| I just wish somebody would make a quality, powerful 2in1 laptop
| model with a long commitment. Thinkpad X Yogas were the ones, but
| their price/perf is down the drain and you can't get one with
| DGPU.
|
| There were some passable gaming models from others but with the
| usual QA issues of non-business products, and mostly one-off
| experiments/no refreshes.
|
| Dear HA, tent mode in a laptop is great, please generate more
| enthusiast demand.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| I like the idea of framework but after using a MacBook for years
| and having an iPhone, there's just no competition. Even if the
| performance could be the same, you just simply don't have the
| ecosystem. I can mirror my phone on my Mac (securely). I have
| unified clipboard and notifications. Not to mention all the other
| apps that just work across all my Apple devices. Enterprise and
| commercial software support... I could go on. An I used to run a
| fully riced out tiled arch setup.
| simonh wrote:
| The counter argument is that Apple could, and should make their
| devices just as repairable and upgradable and we'd have the
| best of both worlds. I don't entirely buy it, I think
| architectures like the Framework are a trade off, not a pure
| win. Google tried to build a modular phone but the project
| seems to have fallen apart (Ho, ho).
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| Sure they could but they have an edge like framework has an
| edge. If you value the idea that you can theoretically repair
| your laptop one day (which is an assumption that it will
| break) more than everyday usability and features... then
| that's your choice. Outside of breaking a screen I've never
| one had a laptop just "break". And for anything else well...
| there's AppleCare.
| subsection1h wrote:
| > _I can mirror my phone on my Mac (securely). I have unified
| clipboard and notifications. Not to mention all the other apps
| that just work across all my Apple devices._
|
| Can you provide examples of important work you perform with
| mobile devices that cause you to prioritize them so heavily? I
| don't use my phone for any important work, so for me, as a
| Linux user, choosing macOS as one's primary OS because of its
| integration with iOS is like someone choosing Windows as their
| primary OS because they have an Xbox with Game Pass.
| XorNot wrote:
| When are we getting a decent keyboard?
|
| I would buy a Framework but the keyboard is as junk as every
| other laptop keyboard out there right now. The whole "MacBook"
| trend of laptop keyboards has ruined the entire industry.
|
| I want the old style low travel keyboard we had which still had
| some travel, a dense layout and actual shape to the key caps.
| red369 wrote:
| Just my own anecdote about the Framework 13: I also felt I paid a
| MacBook price, but was much happier paying for future
| repairability/upgradability. I am so sick of buying things that
| feel disposable that I would a pay a premium not to.
|
| But I have a dream that Framework will change one thing that
| seems so trivial, and which would make my relationship with my
| Framework laptop and purchase decision so much simpler.
|
| If they can't ship replacement parts for faults/design flaws
| outside of their supported regions, which is understandable even
| if frustrating, at least allow me to use freight forwarding! I'm
| now living in a country Framework don't ship to, and so every
| small fault I have ever had with their product is permanent. I
| had goodwill for years, but their design fault with the backup
| battery has tipped me to no longer recommending buying from them.
| Obviously most people don't move countries, so this won't be an
| issue for them, but it's the feeling that they didn't seem to try
| hard to find a solution. It's the opposite of what I felt early
| on when I found their excellent documentation on faults, and
| their BIOS updates which addressed every complaint (adjustable
| brightness of power LED, limit charging capacity to a
| percentage).
|
| That feeling, and an effectively non-repairable laptop, are
| things I could have bought from anyone!
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