A review and some feedbacks of Framework Laptop 12 after 1 month of using

[ky1]

This is my first time to buy a Framework Laptop because I’ve been looking forward a < 13 inch laptop with touchscreen and RAM/SSD slots, so that I can develop some linux applications for touchscreen,

Now I’ve gotten my preordered Framework Laptop 12 (i5 1334U) and have been using it for 1 month. Some personal quick reviews:

System

• openSUSE Tumbleweed. Everything is available out-of-box with mainstream kernel, except for wifi seems not stable (describe laterly.)
• Micron Crucial DDR5 5600 64GB (CT64G56C46S5)
• WD BLACK SN770M 2TB M.2 2230 PCIe Gen4 NVMe PCIe SSD (WDS200T3X0G)

Overall Case

Good

1. I feel the case is quite tough, with rubber-painted (?) skidproof material around margins. Its pretty good as long as it won’t degrade and become sticky after years.

2. Oh yeah power key is not on the keyboard. That’s one of my least favorite design in recent years.

Bad

1. The switch to “lock” expansion card is incomprehensible. What does it mean when red block show? Totally donno. When I pull the Type-C cable, the expansion card sometimes removed along with the cable no matter it’s lock or unlock (red?). My suggestion… at least add lock / unlock icon on both sides, instead of ambiguous color?

2. And I have to say 1.3 Kg is not good for a 12 inch laptop… (because of case? battery? slots?) Donno how is Panasonic’s Let's Note series able to manufacture < 1Kg 12inch laptop + long battery life + durable case. But if this is the trade-off of expandable SSD slots / RAM slots / expansion cards, I can ignore this weight.

Display

The only point I don’t like is… Its minimum brightness is still too bright for me, mainly using indoor. Let me compare with my Surface Go 3

Touchscreen

Touchscren works great under Wayland.

Stylus

I’ve tested stylus is compatible with Surface Go 3’s.

BUT, do you really not to consider design a pen holder? Even a fabric label like Wacom Bamboo tablet also better than nothing:

Keyboard

Argh… I personally feel this is the most terrible part of Framework Laptop 12. This is one or two of the worst laptop keyboard I’ve ever used in my life (among dozens of laptops of Apple, Asus, Acer, Hp, Microsoft). I’d rather call it’s a disaster.

1. The groove around kayboard is too deep and narrow.

The groove around keyboard is deep, it’s okay, but also narrow, which cause my thumb keeps getting blocked by the overly high bezel when trying to type on the keys of the most-bottom row, either Ctrl, Super, Alt, or Space keys (see the attached video):

Very annoying… I’ve never encountered such problem when using any other laptop of Acer, Asus, Apple, HP and Microsoft. Take my old HP Pavilion g4 for example, it also has a deep groove, but it’s wide so that won’t get thumbs blocked (attention the red annotations in the photo):

2. Terrible tactile feel and occasionally missed keystrokes

I have to say the tactile feel of this keyboard is also among the worst three out of the laptops I’ve used. It’s too mushy, lacks tactile feedback, and often miss my keystrokes (I also read some other reviewer mentioned this problem before I getting my FW12), fails to register key presses even when I clearly hit the keys. I can’t tell whether I’ve actually pressed them or not, especially when entering passwords without visual feedback. In the end, I have to deliberately press the keys with much more force than usual.I can only say that I really hope there will be upgrade kits in the future that can solve the keyboard problems once and for all…

3. No backlit.

As a human being from 2025, this is more inconvenient than I’ve expected, especially for a keyboard has a terrible tactile feel.

(4. Little wish…)

Having fingerprint recognition would be a bonus, especially for user use this 2-in-1 convertible laptop as a tablet frequently. Although… I’ve never have had a laptop with a fingerprint scanner, so I’m not sure how well it would work, especially on Linux.

Overview of Keyboard…

…I’m eagerly looking forward to an upgradable Input Cover Kit available in the future…

But I like the idea that BIOS provides some customizable niche options which can applied on keyboard (For example, switching fn and ctrl key position.), though I don’t use it because the original layout is already what I want.

Stability

• I encounter about 3~5 freeze and unsolvable via REISUB in this month. I still don’t sure who is the murderer.
• Suspend is quite speedy, but failed one time in this first month which cannot be solved by REISUB, so force poweroff.
• Wifi card seems not very stable with one of my ASUS Wifi router, Firefox often shows NS_ERROR_INTERCEPTION_FAILED. Switching to another Wfi router seems solve problem.

Battery

Not outstanding but also not too bad.

This is the plot which drawn by system since I began to write this article until I finished this article (power saving profile, minimum screen brightness), as a reference:

[ErisLoona]

@ky1

The switch to “lock” expansion card is incomprehensible. What does it mean when red block show?

That bit is actually covered in the setup guide, red means unlocked.

I do agree about missing keystrokes though, it’s really quite common for me too, although I personally do like the feel of the keys.

And I’ve also had some weirdness with the WiFi on Windows.

[ky1]

@ErisLoona

That bit is actually covered in the setup guide, red means unlocked.

Yeah I read it, but what the ridiculous is that no matter it indicates lock or unlock, the expansion car can be pulled out… I even suspected I was reading a wrong installation guide.

[Ivirono]

Mine expansion cards are a bit hard to pull out even when it’s unlocked. I have to use two fingers and nails. Haven’t tried to pull them when they’re locked for obvious reasons:)

[BigT]

@ErisLoona

I do agree about missing keystrokes though, it’s really quite common for me too, although I personally do like the feel of the keys.

Same here. I seem to get missed keystrokes occasionally when I’m typing quickly. If I very carefully and slowly depress a key, I can feel the tactile “bump” happen, but the key hasn’t registered yet. I have to push it a tiny bit past the “bump” for it to register a key press. Maybe other keyboards are the same, but it’s just the high amount of resistance that remains after the “bump” on the FW 12 keyboard? Or maybe it has nothing to do with that. I’m not sure what’s causing the missed keystrokes, but it as I’ve gotten more use on my FW 12, I find it happens more than pretty much any other keyboard I use, including the FW 13. Not enough to be a major issue, but enough to be noticeable and slightly annoying.

[2disbetter]

A lot of the power, suspend, and performance related things are going to be very dependent on your distro, etc.

Regarding the keyboard: I can see what you are talking about with the keyboard “bowl” but I have never had a problem with the ledge. I rest my palm on the top cover and I have no issue with my thumb hitting the space bar. I suppose I have some what larger hands and maybe that is a factor here. I just am having a hard time seeing a scenario where my thumb is resting flush on the top deck. I mean even now while typing my thumb is resting on the spacebar, and I don’t ever feel the ledge from the bowl.

I have the occasional key press drop out which I suspect has to do with the pogo pen connection.

And once again, I think a Framework 12 Pro variant would be super awesome. Better display panel, fingerprint built in, backlit keyboard, aluminum enclosure, etc. would all be possible there, where the price point is not the constraint that it is for the education market.

[ky1]

@Ivirono

Haven’t tried to pull them when they’re locked for obvious reasons:)

I didn’t tried to pull out the card when they are locked on purpose. Instead, the expansion card was unexpectedly pulled out along with USB-C power line when I was pulling out the power line.

[ky1]

@2disbetter

Regarding the keyboard: I can see what you are talking about with the keyboard “bowl” but I have never had a problem with the ledge. I rest my palm on the top cover and I have no issue with my thumb hitting the space bar. I suppose I have some what larger hands and maybe that is a factor here. I just am having a hard time seeing a scenario where my thumb is resting flush on the top deck. I mean even now while typing my thumb is resting on the spacebar, and I don’t ever feel the ledge from the bowl.

1. If there’s really no such problem, then the experienced laptop manufacturer like HP should not design such wide-groove on purpose (HP Pavilion g4 has one of the most comfortable laptop keyboard I have ever used, though it’s cheap and ugly). The fact is, This problem on FW12 keeps disturb me during this whole month when I’m typing then I hardly neglecte it. And on other dozen of laptops of various manufacturers I’ve used, I also never notice such problem neither. (BTW I noticed that the official keyboard of Surface Go series also has similar thin groove like FW12, BUT its groove is shallow and it has a pretty great keystoke tactile feel, keys are also firm enough, so I also didn’t notice there are any problem.)
2. I guess the shape of my thumb may be one of the reason. (The interphalangeal joints of my thumbs are relatively thick)

@2disbetter

And once again, I think a Framework 12 Pro variant would be super awesome. Better display panel, fingerprint built in, backlit keyboard, aluminum enclosure, etc. would all be possible there, where the price point is not the constraint that it is for the education market.

I really like FW12’s plastic case, solid, firm, strength enough, and beautiful enough, so doesn’t need a metal as a plus.

I personally dislike aluminum case… A company-issued MacBook Pro 2015 has a metal casing that always gives me the creeps. Every time my nails touch it, it feels like scratching a chalkboard — absolutely uncomfortably creepy. Conceptual representation :

(Clip from: Full Metal Panic, Kyoto Animation (C))

And I saw many complains about the reliability problem of the fragile aluminum case of FW13 and FW16 on Internet, that’s an important reason causing I consider not to buy them…

I have a HP OMEN 16 which also has a metal case but I don’t sure what material is painted on the surface so its touching is… nice … or maybe can say nice (because the touching of plastic case is still the best), at least not bad as the naked (?) aluminum on MacBook Pro.

[Rightaway]

The keyboard feels horrible to me too. As I said elsewhere, especially in contrast to a Thinkpad, it’s unprecice and wobbly, feeling cheap. No decent pressure-point…. And yes, you know that you need backlight when you have none…

The position of the locks is easy to remember without looking… want to remove the card, then the switch has to be pulled in the direction you will pull the card. You added a card, than push the switch to the middle of the case.

But the fact, that your cards come out by pulling the cable, while being locked, seems to be an issue with the case (or the card) to me.

I like the plastic case too. It’s nice, feels well, etc. The only issue I see, the thermal design might be hit by the thermal resistance of the material. The CPU is getting very hot (I have a similar CPU in a Thinkpad with metal case, and you can’t touch the case in the region of the CPU when on load), and so so the fan has to do a lot of work. Might be the CPU isn’t the best choice, as of thermals, for a plastic case. I am interested how the case will look after some hundred hot hours…

[ErisLoona]

I just did 10 rounds of TypeRacer practice and I found that if I press the keys quite deliberately (i.e. harder than normal / almost hitting them) I don’t actually miss any keystrokes. I also tried with and without resting my hands by the trackpad just to see if that skews the pogo pin connection, but it seems it is just a mental thing and how I hit keys normally that just doesn’t work for this keyboard. I’ll have to adjust the way I type to eliminate / reduce the missed keystrokes.

Also, with regards to

@ky1

the expansion card was unexpectedly pulled out along with USB-C power line

the expansion cards seem to be the issue, as I remember (but cannot find at the moment) another post saying they can pull out the expansion cards while locked, but for them it was only the plastic ones (i.e. the USB C), the metal ones were locked tight.

[James3]

Step 4 of this page should explain things a bit:

How to Install and Remove Expansion Cards

Extract:

1. The next two steps show how to remove an Expansion Card.
2. Use your finger to flip the Expansion Card latch into the unlocked position.
3. The latch displays a red bar when it’s unlocked.

[Rightaway]

@ErisLoona

the expansion cards seem to be the issue, as I remember (but cannot find at the moment) another post saying they can pull out the expansion cards while locked, but for them it was only the plastic ones (i.e. the USB C), the metal ones were locked tight.

Well even for the “metal”-cards it’s plastic, as only the cover is metal. The hooks to hold the lock are made of plastic

[bebna]

My Impression:

Replacing the bottom cover (cracks) was easy enough and I didn’t need any more tools than the supplied tool. Hardest part IMHO was the removal and resetting of the WiFi antennas from the card. I was surprised that they had some part glued down with tape, but that wasn’t a problem to remove and I guess you could replace them easily enough with common thin tapes.

Keyboard, bummed about the missing backlight, especially after reading that the pin exists already here in the forum. Otherwise I feel it is good enough. I wish they would have just reused the FW16 modules and brought out a cheap plastic module instead of a full top plate. That way we would perhaps also have gotten color matched ones. Using that gray one as standard is such an ugly eyesore.

Touchpad: good. No macbook, but close enough to not really matter.

Display: worst part. no amoled as expected by this price point, but overall very week from the brightest setting, so basically not usable outdoors for me if I can’t find shade for it. Backlight is also uneven and on a black screen you cant find multiple white spots on each edge.

Pen (noname usb-c chargable one I got with another device, so it can also be pens fault): wobbles when with slow lines, needs to be stabilized by software, very close detection, like 1-2cm from display max, so jumps too fast from pen to touch-input IMHO.

Battery: depends massively on the workload. It jumps from 8hrs to 30mins fast. Even going with my own power setup instead of power profiles didn’t really made it more stable or predictable.

Performance: Mostly use it for documents, wikis, notes, some programming, web browsing, inkscape. I3 + max ram and a ssd with cache makes performance a non-issue on my linux setup. No gaming from me on this machine, but it does render the harder PDFs like Financial Times easily. So I guess some light gaming (2d / older rom emulation / card based games) should be fine.

Sound: meh. Use headphones. Mic seems to be also more for emergencies. Webcam same.

Ports: Don’t know what is what with the locks either, always forget it til next time I interact with them and just pull and get it out.

Fit and finish: Like an used car that wants to hide that it already had a crash or two.

Would I buy it again? Not sure, tend to be more in direction of no. It arrived to late to be a gift for a pupil, so I now use it as a congress / travel notebook that can take a beating and be lost/stolen to keep my better notebook save at home. Display and Keyboard are the two main things that makes me think twice if I want to pack or use it, often choosing a different device.

[ky1]

@ky1

3. No backlit.

As a human being from 2025, this is more inconvenient than I’ve expected, especially for a keyboard has a terrible tactile feel.

Now I found a workaround within 2 USD… IKEA HÖSTULOTA

Yes, it’s quite large for FW12 but as a workaround it’s still better than nothing…

[Rightaway]

That ist funny

[2disbetter]

Are two needed? I would think 1 would be enough? What is the power draw of one of those? I wonder what the impact to battery life is.

Good solution!

[ky1]

@2disbetter

Are two needed?

No actually, I bought 2 just because I guessed it may look funny (tentacles?), and it indeed is.

@2disbetter

I would think 1 would be enough?

Depends, it’s pretty bright, so 1 is also enough for keyboard, but

• I feel 2 LEDs may be better for eyes in totally dark room.
• The shadow of hands with 1 LED may be a disturb, 2 LEDs can reduce this problem (See the following 2 photos).
• The light of 2 LEDs gives me more romantic atmosphere.
  
  
  
  
  

@2disbetter

What is the power draw of one of those? I wonder what the impact to battery life is.

I don’t do a formal test on battery, I just use it normally like what I used before. Because in these 2 months, I feel power profiling / what kind of apps you’re running (ex: game in VM, youtube in browser) may impact the battery life more than these LEDs.

[Rightaway]

Homepage says 0.7W

If this led can not be controlled in any way (except turning it on and off), I think you could calculate with it.

So it should be around 1.4% per hour.

[2disbetter]

Thanks! It is adjustable to some degree, but I think 1.4% battery is not that significant. Seems like a really great solution! Guess I have a reason to go to Ikea! (My wife will love that!)