I do have quite a few regrets and some buyer’s remorse about the Framework 16. In regards to the size, I knew all the computers that had the performance I wanted were going to be bulky.
Initially, I saw that there was quite a lot more value in buying something like a Lenovo Legion instead of the Framework, but I was adamant with getting the Framework as I liked the modular design and Framework’s mission.
Upon receiving it, it was even more exciting being able to use it. Unfortunately, that was when the hardware issues came to plague me. I had a severely underperforming CPU (14600 score on a 7940HS which is supposed to get 16500+ in Cinebench R23). The GPU also was experiencing quite a lot of coil whine and I’ve had to get 3 replacements.
After a super long RMA email chain, I had a mainboard and new dGPU module sent to me, but the issues were still present, so they decided to have me send it to their repair center. The repair center repair eventually took a month and a half, before I finally recieved the laptop back with only a dGPU replacement (I was hoping they were going to replace the underperforming mainboard too, but unfortunately not).
Now, my laptop gets around a 15500-15600 (Max with a cold start) score in Cinebench and the dGPU performance is still average (have yet to test it for coil whine).
Overall, if the hardware performed up to spec (similar to the reviews, 16500+ in Cinebench, etc), I would’ve been happy with what I bought even if it wasn’t the best value. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and I really felt like I was thrown a half baked product that had a lot of unpatched problems. The mainboard performs well under the average 7940HS performance (due to thermal issues), while the GPU performance is average, I just regret knowing that I could’ve bought a lot more for my money (like this Lenovo Legion 7 Pro 14900HX, RTX 4090M).