Ask HN: Would you recommend a framework laptop?
It's that time of my life where I need to find a good work laptop. With the prices that laptops go for I'd rather not impulse buy and (maybe) regret my decision.
My last purchase was a Vivobook S(15?), and even with the discount I regret it to this day. It didn't even run Windows 10, and I had no time to look for another one as my uni courses already started. 700 euros for a raspberry-grade CPU that sucked the battery dry in less than an hour.
The DIY option from Framework seems very intriguing. The customizing part seems rather cheap (I could get extra accessories in case I change my mind for ~10 euros per piece).
My question is if anyone has experience with them and would recommend them, as I want to avoid another flop.
100 comments
[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadI'll definitely add Thinkpad as my options. One of the worries I have is that you're completely reliant on a company to provide support. They can drop the ball anytime (not that I expect them to, but it's good to be aware of it).
But to me it looks like you just want a laptop that does it's job reliably and have a limmited budget.
Wouldn't recommend Dells or Frameworks. You don't need an Apple for college work either.
I bought a used t540p 5 years ago and it's been the crappiest laptop I've ever used. Terrible display with about 15deg of visibility. Flimsy plastic parts that broke in multiple places during replacements. Display randomly got damaged while in my bag, keys constantly falling off, even after fully replacing the kb when keys just stopped functioning, worst trackpad ever, RAM just started failing.
Honestly the framework is practically macbook-quality in comparison to a used thinkpad IME but maybe I'm looking at the wrong series or era?
Overall, I'd buy one again, though this time with an AMD CPU, not Intel.
A few years ago I bought a new PC by buying components. When I put it together it didn't work, I took it to a computer repair shop and then couldn't figure it out either. Not knowing which part was broken or if it was something I did wrong, I ended up throwing everything in the trash.
Since then I just pay the $200 for it to be assembled and get 5 year warranty. IMHO self-assembly makes no sense unless you're a youtuber earning money from making videos doing it.
The situation you described does suck, but I've built several machines, often from cheap used parts, and been lucky enough to never run into it. Most of the time self-assembly makes sense, you can't really "do it wrong" easily if you pick compatible parts and follow manuals. If it doesn't work getting used RAM stick or PSU for testing is usually cheap, if those don't fix it then it's probably either CPU or motherboard. Any computer repair shop should probably have those lying around anyway.
Also as, machinestops said, you can get the Framework laptop prebuilt.
As for the repair shop, kind of sounds like they just didn’t want your business.
I said there was no point in doing it, not that it can't be done. With a top Elonesque mind such as yours you should probably know the difference. Tips fedora.
I'm glad to hear that Framework is getting traction!
Some brave souls have been combining the internal beauty of Framework with the external build quality of Macbooks: https://community.frame.work/t/i-converted-a-macbook-into-a-...
> you can swap in a new mainboard
This is what I like to hear, the fact that replacing a part doesn't mean buying an entirely new laptop.
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a new mainboard, but the new mainboards don't support my RAM... Which I went all out getting 64GB of. Don't want to throw that out, and don't want to buy another 64GB.. So now upgrading what should be just one component means almost buying an entirely new machine.
Had my 13 for a couple of years now, Debian/XFCE.
I've owned and only owned a 13 laptop for about ten years now.
I can't imagine buying a laptop from a major vendor (Samsung, Sony, Asus, etc). There are some smaller vendors, but they don't sell what I want in terms of a spec, and what FW offers, both in terms of kit (the spec I want) and repairability / honesty / lack of stuff being pushed on you / etc, I can't think of anyone else I could buy from.
Note that being able to self-repair is a very good thing. One of the keys died, early last year. I ordered a new keyboard, it arrived, I spent an afternoon swapping them over. Took a couple of hours. Compare that to posting the laptop off for a warranty repair - and that's if the vendor gets the repair right. I remember once having Sony make a repair, and the messed it up, broke the Windows install (which I had at the time), and it only went down-hill from there.
(In the end Sony support wanted to bill me 250 EUR to fit a new spinning-disk HD, to replace the 700 EUR Intel X-25 SSD I had bought and fitted, so they could have in place on the laptop a vanilla install of Windows, to "fix" how they had broken my fully-installed and configured for development Windows, where they had in fact swapped out the motherboard (underneath an installed Windows!) to replace a fan.)
Being able to buy parts and install yourself, if you can do it, is a billion light years better than relying on large company customer support.
One or two other notes;
1. Being able to swap the ports around, and change what's in each port, is something once you've had it, you can't go back.
2. The lappy runs hot out of the box; you have to configure thermal management yourself, in Linux. Mine runs at about 70C tops now (instead of going to 100C and staying there).
3. Sleep mode doesn't work properly, in that there's plenty of power drain. I've not updated the BIOS since I purchased - I have a vague thought this might have been fixed.
4. Battery life out of the box is not comparable to big-brand laptops, but I sat down, sorted out power management, and on Linux, I get more than 10 hours out of a battery at 80% (the max charge I have configured on mine, to extend battery life).
If I knew I was going on a long trip, I would put the charge up to 100%.
When I do go on a long trip, then there's benefit in conserving battery life, because the charge I'll take with me will be substantially higher.
2. My fw16 actually makes my legs feel cold when I put it on my lap so I'm gonna say they fixed this
3. Haven't had it long enough to know much about the drain but wanted to add that suspend and hibernate both actually work for me which is a bit of a novelty and I've had a variety of linux laptops over the last 20 years[1].
4. This may be a FW13 vs 16 thing or maybe just because mine is new but it unscientifically seems ok so far. Probably not quite as good as my M4 mac laptop I'm migrating from but on the other hand everything actually works on this vs a bunch of things not being able to use the GPU acceleration on the mac (eg pytorch) so I'll take this one.
Just to double down on the support thing. It's really great to work with a company that acknowledges linux and supports it as a first-class offering[2]. I've worked with companies (eg Dell) who at one point would sell you a laptop preinstalled with Linux and then if you had any problems with the hardware itself treat it as though Linux was the problem and you were some kind of highly suspect individual for not running Windows.
[1] In fact this is the first linux laptop I've ever had where suspend/resume and hibernate/resume and suspend-the-hibernate all pretty much just work and there aren't some weird things where hibernation doesn't work at all or after resuming from hibernation the wifi/sound/some random other thing doesn't work. I had a linux laptop once where the keyboard would accept my luks password on resume from hibernate and then bafflingly disable itself as part of the resume process which I don't even know where to start.
[2] eg https://community.frame.work/t/status-of-official-linux-dist... they actually have a real linux support lead and will give you actual support on linux although you'll have to lean on the community more if you're not using a supported distro
So bottom line is it might be possible to make it work but in my brief attempt I couldn't get it to work.
If you're at all linux-capable I would say it's hands down a better dev experience in every way (and that's coming from someone who's used macs for years and years in both a professional and private capacity).
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5486533
This sounds like a similar issue I've had with my own computer. I assumed the problem was that the board is form 4th gen intel, DDR3 RAM, and it definitely doesn't support an EVO 970 since it's from ~2014. I had to put the bootloader on another drive to avoid this. Not a very pretty solution, but it still works!
I'm not sure how framework is supposed to fix a SSD firmware issue if the vendor doesn't fix that.
Also out of interest which SSD was it?
It's not really much of an issue anymore with newer CPUs.
Through you won't beat M2+ Macs when it comes to battery life.
I have an ASUS Vivobook S14 with an Intel i7 12700H, so about 3 years old at this point. I love it, runs Windows 11 (and the games I play) just fine and the OLED screen it has is amazing.
Anyway, if you want a "safe" laptop so you can get stuff done? Just buy something with respectable hardware (Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 or higher) from any of ASUS, Dell, or Lenovo. They're widely popular brands for a reason.
Or if you want a foolproof laptop, just get a Macbook.
My dad also bought a Vivobook which runs windows 11 perfectly fine, so I would say I just had a bad edition.
[1] When they sent the original to me one of the ram slots was broken so if you put any ram in there the device wouldn't boot. After a bit of diagnosis-by-email they replaced the main board.
Yes, they are repairable. That is where the list of Pros ends for me. Perhaps the only unique selling point is being able to upgrade the motherboard later, but...
The screen, keyboard, touchpad, and IO are all inferior to a ThinkPad.
You can only ever have 4 ports, which is considerably less than your average PC laptop of similar dimensions and weight will have.
ThinkPads and other corporate-tier machines are dirt cheap used after 3-4 years, and finding spare parts for them is usually a non-issue as long as you don't mind eBay. Lenovo will happily sell you parts for a few years after the laptop is released, although availability and pricing are not great.
Framework had a partnership to only sell Western Digital SSDs when I ordered mine, and it later came to light that WD had serious firmware issues with these models resulting in sudden data loss. [1]
Additionally, the 12th Gen model has received ONE firmware update in over a year since release. [2] While Framework have committed to delivering more frequent firmware updates, they don't have a good track record there. No LVFS support either, so you have to burn a USB stick to update.
Prior to the firmware update, I've had the laptop completely discharge the battery while powered off, refuse to power up until being connected to a charger for ~15 minutes, and then display a large error saying the screen and battery were not connected (they were).
Even after the firmware update, I still have issues with phantom battery drain when the laptop is completely powered off.
[1] https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-wd-black-sn850-sudde...
[2] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/framework-laptop-bios...
And this is all true. I love mine but frankly I have to admit I make excuses for it. It's almost really good. It has a lot of really good qualities, and lot of bad qualities that erase the good.
That 11th gen motherboard I replaced? I bought their official extwrnal case, (and some ram and a wifi card with antennas from a local microcenter to make it functional) to make it into a stand alone computer, even though I have essentially no use for it. Well it's a good thing I have no use for it because a bios update bricked it.
They don't put out enough updates to actually fix problems and so problems just remain for the entire life of the thing, and the few updates they have put out are complete and utter dumpster fires that break in a dozen different ways.
That battery I replaced? It was only about 2 1/2 years old. Why did a brand new battery go all explody in only 2 1/2 years? I have 10 even 15 year old laptops with pouch cells inside that never puffed up. Maybe longer even. They no longer hold a charge but they never puffed up.
My screen never looked 100% good. It has uneven lighting and uneven color, and is overall a bit pink. I have tried to correct the pink with color profiles in X but never got it to look like the neighboring external monitors. But a profile can't fix uneven color or uneven lighting anyway. Luckily I just don't care that much since I use larger better external monitors for most things and I don't do any art work. But that is really a ridiculous thing to have to just accept when most other brands just have good looking screens.
Battery life is garbage. Do every possible trick you can in either linux or windows, get 4 hours.
Why do I even say I love it?
I don't know. As far as I can tell, I should not say that. I love the idea. I love the sales pitch.
The sales pitch is repairability right?
My daily driver before the Framework was a X1Carbon 5th gen. About a year after I got the Framework I decided to refurbish the thinkpad because it was still awesome. I got a new battery, cpu cooler, and usb port all pretty easily (though frim ebay and aliexpress not from Lenovo), and they were all easy to install. The machine came apart all with screws just like The Framework. The Framework just makes it official with help and documents, but actually I've never even looked at a single one of those qr code instruction links. I'm sure they're nice, and I'd preferr if Lenovo did the same thing, but in fact I don't actually need instructions for things that are screwed together and don't have obtuse hidden land mines where something will be destroyed by doing the obvious thing.
The lenovo repair was essentially exactly as easy even though it was totally unsupported by lenovo themselves.
But that X1 Carbon is 50x better to use. Way tougher. Screen is even. Keyboard is way better. Actual mouse buttons (something I personally value highly, I hate huge touch pads with no buttons like Apple and Framework has).
I don't know if a current X1 Carbon is as easy to work on as one as old as 5th gen, so this comparison may no longer be valid.
It was a bit on the chunkier side, but that thing hummed on for a decade of constant usage with not a single problem.
MacBook if you want/need the Apple ecosystem and have the money.
Anything else if you have other constraints you care about (e.g. price), or are enthusiastic about something (e.g. modularity).
That being said, it's definitely more expensive than much of the competition is for similar specs. I don't mind paying a little extra to vote with my wallet and the build quality has exceeded my expectations. I'm gambling on them supporting this chassis design for a few more generations, so I can buy the very last motherboard upgrade that they release and extend the life of this machine a little further.
I know someone is going to say otherwise but I tried (iirc) Debian, Ubuntu, and variants of Fedora (vanilla and Silverblue). None performed as well as Windows. But I only cared about power/heat/noise/thermals. I ended up swapping for MBP because I didn't like WSL but it was very good as a Windows machine.
And ofc, you are getting upgrade path, can replace things when it breaks, etc. Support on their forums is also very good, if you are able to try to fix things then a forum is better than regular support which will just tell you to send it in and wait weeks/months.
At slightly above price of FW, you can consider MBP (MBA didn't work for me either, same issue with thermals).
In my experience, the main things that let FW down are the things it can't control: OS and CPU. And I expect both to improve over time.
The AMD ones are fast and have good battery efficiency, but unfortunately we've measured higher failure rates on AMD mainboards and matte displays compared to the Intel frameworks. That said, I'd still recommend the AMD frameworks. Haven't tried the latest Intel Core Ultra Series yet. Another downside on the AMD laptops is the 4 USB ports aren't equal - 2 are USB4 and 3 can drive a display, and some use up higher power. On Intel, all 4 ports are TB4/USB4 and function the same.
Main advantage of framework is we end up doing more frequent upgrades that cost us less, since we just need to replace mainboard or RAM - most engineers in our company get upgraded yearly, and we recycle the older mainboards into desktops (by putting them into a 3D-printed chassis) for non-tech shift workers. Also if parts break out of warranty - displays, keyboards, etc, cheap enough to fix that it doesnt bother us.
Main complaint I have is with warranty replacements - they really make you jump through a lot of hoops (they ask for a lot of photos/videos multiple times which involves opening up the chassis multiple times) before they accept fault and ship a replacement. Basically they're getting you to do the debugging for them so they can send a replacement for just the affected part, instead of you needing to ship out the entire laptop to get it repaired. On the plus side, you dont need to ship the entire laptop to them if something small is busted.
https://greg.molnar.io/blog/framework-laptop/
https://greg.molnar.io/blog/framework-16-first-impression/
And if you have any specific questions, I am happy to answer.
I have a work supplied M1 Mac book pro. An outstanding machine.
I have an older intel Mac that’s still running well, but starting to struggle.
I bought a dirt cheap Thinkpad t495 about 6 months ago, it’s dual booted W11 and Ubuntu and while it’s not a superstar performance wise it’s a very good machine and well worth the ~£200 I’ve spent on it. I did replace the trackpad with an X1 carbon one and also replaced the keyboard for a backlit one, I also increased the NVME storage and maxed out the ram (about an extra £150 in total). There are not many machines you can do these types of upgrades to so I’m quite please with it.
I would suggest a thinkpad if you can find the right model you can upgrade.
I'll opt for a good Thinkpad for now, and I'll have my eye on Framework until they mature a bit more. Thanks for the info!
I know that it’s not a fair comparison, but I still compare it to macbooks because I’m a mac user for years.
Pros
- Linux support is amazing, basically you just install one of the popular distros and ‘it works’ (c). I used PopOS and was pretty happy. You also get all the Linux tools like eBPF out of the box, which is +1 compared to mac.
- Extensibility is a big deal. You can get 1 TB / 32 GB version for pennies compared to mac, where upgrades from the base are ridiculously expensive.
- Design and look is very neat.
- Keyboard is a classic one and also good.
Cons
- Battery life is really bad; same with cooling. At some point I started having more meetings at work and it gets extremely hot, noisy, and dies very quickly.
- Touchpad is just subpar to mac. Also chassis rigidity is meh. I know they improved the display cover design (switched to CNC), but I have the first revision.
- Display is 2K’ish. I don’t really understand, why they go with this resolution. Even their new display is around 2.5K. IMO, Linux works best either with 1080p/1K or 4K with x2 scaling (I prefer the latter) because fractional scaling is bad. I struggled a lot with external 4K monitor because it was nearly impossible to adjust all sizes so texts were good on both and especially when you disconnect and go portable. I know it’s Linux and you can DIY everything, but for me it was just too much of a headache.
I still fully support this company and wish them all the best, but since getting the MacBook Pro 14 with M2 (company’s, not personal) in the mid-2023 my Framework is waiting for two things: i) 4K display module; and ii) ARM main board. If they release these upgrades I will jump into Framework right away and give it another try.
So I recommend it if Pros are more important than Cons for you.
UPD: formatting and conclusion
In the past, my jam has always been to buy used Thinkpads and run them into the ground. If my Framework got stolen today, I don't think buying another Framework would be a slam-dunk decision for me but I'd still consider it.
tl;dr: happy enough with the laptop and Framework support; hopeful that the dream of repairability/upgradeability pays off; but it does feel like a bit of a compromise on quality.
p.s. I'm quite sensitive to noise and really did not want a machine that ran its fan all the time; the AMD Framework 13 is pretty good for this unless gaming or under some other high load and then it's a rushing sound not a whine.
When I first got it, the touchpad didn't click properly. There was a bit of back and forth with support (they wanted to see video of the issue) but all in all, they shipped the replacement part within 3 days of the report. That's acceptable, in my book.
Then there was a very strange issue where the machine would randomly shut down while sleeping, seemingly related to using Windows 11 with the 12th gen CPU. Turns out you need to disable 'connectivity in modern standby' if this is the case:
Anyway, aside from that, I've had no issues.The main benefit in my view is that you don't need to worry about 'timing', in terms of generational improvements in the hardware. In my case, I didn't get the AMD CPU I wanted, but when I decide to upgrade, I can do so for a pretty reasonable price: https://frame.work/gb/en/products/mainboard-kit-amd-ryzen-70... . Likewise, if any component breaks, I can be confident it's not going to cost me the whole machine, and I can do all the servicing myself.
This would be inconceivable in any other laptop, especially one of this form factor.