Are you keeping your Framework laptop?

Framework Laptop 13
24

I’m probably keeping mine, though I rate it a 6/10 as a daily driver.

My primary problems with it are the problems of any new laptop (I absolutely cannot stand the state of today’s laptops). Two things every new laptop seems to have: Modern Standby, and a god-awful touchpad. I just deleted 3 paragraphs explaining why, because honestly, nobody cares :joy: Been a laptop-first user for almost 20 years now. Touchpads fill the need for me, not needing a mouse – unless they suck. I hate that Framework makes me reach for a mouse, and I can be on my nearly-10-year-old $150 Dell Latitude and feel more at-home there, than the daily I spent $1k+ on.

I just really hope Framework will offer a touchpad swap with buttons, and perhaps an AMD-based motherboard that disposes with Modern Standby.

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26

Keeping mine, and I’m very happy with mine. I was coming from a Surface Pro 4 that was on its last legs. I don’t need a beast of a machine so the Framework is good for what I need and I support their visions of repairability. I know how unrepairable some manufacturers make it, I successfully replaced the screen on my SP4.

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27

I got mine in batch 2, and I’m keeping it - it’s my daily driver and I use it a ton. I’d like better battery life, especially when sleeping, but otherwise I’ve been very happy with it.

28

Too big - picks up stray movement.
No OEM driver from no-name company PixArt - no fine tuning, no filtering. (BTW, I’m a Windows user - maybe it’s less terrible in Linux)
Slide-clicks unavoidable - go to click something, end up clicking something else.
Inaccurate - despite being a touchpad-first user for around 20 years, only on this specific touchpad, I’m constantly missing targets when moving the cursor. This is far harder to quantify, but it’s a constant pain point.

OK, well, :man_shrugging: I use sleep exclusively - except now with the Framework I’m manually putting it to hibernate every night, knowing it’ll burn 5% battery unnecessarily before going to hibernate anyway otherwise. Done with the computer, I close the lid. Use the computer, open it up. I hate the excessive SSD write wear that constant hibernate does.

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29

Keeping it, yes. Do I use it much? Not really. I have an M1 MBA for work, another personal M1 MBA, a 2013 MBP that I really need to donate, and a Raspberry Pi 4. I use the MBAs daily; the battery life is incredible.

I use the Framework for Stardew Valley.

I bought it to support the company. It was worth the money.

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30

Keeping Framework Laptop. But only using it when watching movies now. My daily driver in personal life is still around 7 years old Mac Book Air (Intel Core i5, 11.6 inch). I am much more comfortable on Fedora (tailing manager i3 and sway) than mac OS. But following 2 things are my criteria to migrate my personal data to Framework Laptop.

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31

Keeping. With suspend then hibernate, most of the battery drain issues don’t really affect me anymore. During the day I use a company provided laptop connected to an external monitor and mechanical keyboard, but after hours this is my go-to machine - the keyboard and screen quality really help.

I set it to powersave in GNOME - haven’t done much additional tweaking besides running powertop when I remember - if I need to do a large software compilation I can turn it up, but when at home I outsource it to my Asus Mini PC (8-core Ryzen) anyway

1 Like
33

Of course I am keeping it.

I’m batch 2 DIY and bought it because it EXACTLY fit my needs, supports the software I use, and the design requirements. Add the Repairability & Frameworks goals, and it is perfect - for me.

FYI I do electronics, hardware, and software design. Along with 3D modeling, Live multi-camera video production, sound & video editing, communications protocol analysis, a ton of internet support, consulting, and more.

It has been rock solid, hit 5.1 in my benchmarks, does fine on battery life and temps are great.

I don’t use sleep or hibernate on any computer because I have the patience to shutdown (20.84 seconds)

Power up takes less time than my enjoying some coffee (30.02 seconds to fully signed in… with BIOS display on & my chosen boot delay)

Yep I don’t understand why folks need faster on/off than that.

Order date: July 23, 2021 (Batch 2)

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7

Memory: 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200

WiFi: Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 No vPro®

Operating System: Windows 10 Home (Download)

Storage: 500GB - WD_BLACK™ SN750 NVMe™.

With most recent firmware and drivers.

Current Modules installed:
Back Left: USB-C
Front Left: USB-C
Back Right: 250g storage (1 per client)
Front Right: USB-A

I own several more of USB-C & A, 2 HDMI, DVI, micro SD, several 250g storage, 4 of my own mod’d modules for my special projects.

I use a USB-C expansion adapter at my desk for all my external USB devices, 3 monitors, LAN, power delivery, etc - so I have 1 cable to connect.

And found through the forum here a great carry case for travel.

What’s not to like…

5 Likes
34

Guess I’ll be keeping mine around then…and remind myself that Framework’s laptop is a platform. Hope the next mainboard will be better.

For now, I’ll just go and grab this for the time being (i7-1280p, 16:10 QHD+, 100% DCI-P3, touch and pen support, flip / yoga :
# Summit E14 Flip Evo

Info: Summit E14 Flip Evo - Determined to Succeed

35

Ouch, 16gb soldered RAM for $1800…

5 Likes
36

Hence, for now…until Framework has a newer more solid mainboard & BIOS offering.
-20 chars-

37

That’s CAD, so about 1400 USD, right?

38

Yeah…

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Framework seems to be behind in the time to market game. Later than other competition means no offering at the moment (and there’s no timeline / announcement either). That’s just pushing potential supporters / customers to look elsewhere.

39

Hold on, it has soldered RAM and it’s still thicker than the Framework? I feel they didn’t even try.

1 Like
40

Wonder if it’s due to the flip and touch related design (structurally needs to be more robust?).

41

Shouldn’t matter. 2-in-1 is just a hinge implementation (and more aggressive thermal throttling because hand-held). HP 2-in-1s have socketed RAM.

42

Guess they’re not trying then. Thinness is overrated…but I do like having DIMM slots, but as a stop gap measure…I don’t see myself using the MSI more than 6 months anyway…something better will come along (hopefully from Framework by then).

43

Wish I had $1800 to throw away like that :joy:

2 Likes
44

Heck yeah I’m keeping it. Batch 5 with hard use: worked on course development in a rainforest in Belize and will be taking it to a cacao farm in Grenada next week. I’ve run Zoom courses on it for a dozen students worldwide (much nicer camera than any laptop I’ve had). I use the beast.

Sure, power management could be better, but I got 6 hours of flight-time reviewing a 250 page PDF and still had nearly 70% battery remaining. I used to hibernate to avoid power loss during suspend, but now I just turn the machine off. It boots in like 5 seconds anyway.

I’ve seen folks grumble about the lack of ports. Maybe they haven’t noticed that you can swap ports in and out as you need them, which I very much do. Usually I run with just a USB-C and some snack drawers; last week I dropped in the HDMI and USB-A for a class.

Only significant problem I had was my hinge. After a bit of noise, Framework sent me a replacement which is far superior to the original. And their customer support has improved a lot since then.

I’ve used ASUS Zenbooks (nice, but the power supplies eventually give out), XPS13 and 15s (last longer, but the displays eventually give out), and my current “other laptop” is a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (really nice, nearly indestructable, ridiculously good customer service, but I also paid a substantial amount for a 5 year onsite repair contract). In the end, the Framework is the most Linux-friendly of all of them. I run Manjaro-Gnome and nearly everything just worked out of the box. Even the fingerprint reader. That honestly never happens.

Are there things Framework still needs to nail down? Absolutely, but they’ve shown that they learn and improve as the go. Ditching my Framework at this point would be short-sighted.

7 Likes
45

I contemplated about that…and if everything goes to plan, then it’s around the same amount as what I’ve thrown at the Framework’s 11th gen mainboard:

  1. Assuming I can sell the MSI for $1200 CAD after 6 months.
  2. The 11th gen mainboard as it stands is useless to me, as it’s just gathering dust.
  3. I’ll need to sell the 11th gen mainboard, and purchase the next gen mainboard from Framework, in order to make use of the ‘platform’. (1. It’s not clear if the existing 11th gen mainboard issues can be addressed via software. 2. 11th gen is now n-1)

If the next mainboard is another dud (for my use cases…and I understand that I’m not very forgiving when it comes to functional compromises), then the Framework ‘platform’ will continue to be a paperweight on the shelf.

In short, I need to spend some dough anyway in order to get a reliable daily driver at this point in time. (with or without Framework) For reference, my Framework unit came to $2700 CAD+. So, around $800 to save my sanity and excessive cursing for the next 6 months. (The 1185G7 mainboard is currently priced at $1039 CAD + tax…even after discount)

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