I have had a ‘Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition (11th Gen Intel® Core™)’ since 29 June 2022.
After insisting strongly, spending time making videos as requested by the SAV. He was kind enough to change my hinges on 23 Feb 2023.
A few weeks ago the ‘Ctrl’ key on my keyboard lost its paint. In the last few days, it has cracked in the middle. However, most of the time I use my computer with an external keyboard.
The new hinges are already starting to weaken.
The fact that the computer has faults doesn’t bother me too much in itself, as the brand is young. On the other hand, the fact that the after-sales service doesn’t recognise it and is reluctant to correct problems is more of a problem. As for the keyboard, I was told that it was normal for it to get damaged over time. I’m not very young, I’ve already had several makes of computer. I’ve never had a key break on an HP, Huawei or Apple, but I’ve kept them for well over two years.
I’m quite disappointed, because I really like the concept of a repairable computer, but the hardware has to be reliable, especially given the price of the computer.
I’d like to know if it’s me who’s had bad luck or if the problem is recurrent.
Thank you for your help.
PS: there may be problems with my English, I’m French.
Your english is great. If you have the original hinges, it may be worth investing in upgrading to one of the stiffer sets of hinges. I still have the original 3.3k ones on one of my machines that is used less often, but on the former daily driver (hello 16"!) I upgraded to the 4k hinges and it has been solid ever since.
Regarding the key, that’s a drag, but it does happen, especially as laptops keep getting thinner and thinner. I am looking at my work Dell XPS that has flaked and cracked left shift and left ctrl keys. My crummy solution was to drip a little superglue on the cracks to try to hold things together. It’s not prettty, but so far it seems to have worked. If the key is too far gone you can try to search online for replacement key caps (they would be third party), replace the keyboard, or replace the input cover. None of those addresses the key breaking in the first place, but they are solutions, of a sort.
I haven’t had the issues you’ve run in to, but one of the threaded inserts for the motheboard screws came out on my FW13 (and I’m not alone, plenty of other people on this forum ran into the same issue). For a company that encourages swapping motherboards, you’d expect framework to design that part better…
For me its been pretty damn durable, the hinges. The only problem I have had ever, is the modules themselves for usb-a, usb-c, etc…
I ran into a problem where I guess I must have forced it and it broke one of the expansion port areas.
As for the durability of the rest of the computer? Its fine. I used to have heavy anger issues, but I have actually felt the build quality of hinges on my framework 13 inch. It feels stronger than my lenovo thinkpad x230. And that is hard to do. X thinkpads tend to be the most durable of the thinkpads I have had.
Point being, durability is excellent on the framework 13.