Experience with my almost three-and-a-half-year-old Framework Laptop 13

General Topics
1

I bought my Framework Laptop 13 on December 20, 2021. After nearly three and a half years, it’s starting to show its age. It has served me well, but I’ll need to replace it soon.

The bad:

  • Bezel damage: The bezel is broken but still stays in place—though sometimes pieces fall off, and I have to put them back.
  • Hinge cover: The hinge cover is broken, so I’ve taped it together.
  • Keyboard issues: Two keys (the dash to the left of the right Shift key and the pound symbol above the right Shift key, next to the Return key) no longer work. I’ve reprogrammed other keys as replacements and ordered a new Input Cover Kit. Also some key covers have peeled showing patches of the transparent key below it.
  • USB port failures: The two left USB ports have a hardware issue that prevents suspending and drains the battery. As a workaround, I’ve set kernel parameters to unbind them (fixing the battery drain) and temporarily disable the entire USB subsystem for suspend. I wrote shell scripts to automate this.

Given that it’s been three years, it has met my expectations. Framework isn’t Apple—my previous MacBook Air lasted six years—so while this laptop has been good enough, it’s not outstanding.

The good:

The display, RAM, storage, and CPU all still work perfectly!

If asked whether I prefer Apple or Framework, I’d still choose Framework.

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2

Sounds like you’re pretty hard on your hardware. I’ve only had my FW16 for a year, but I haven’t seen any problems like that yet, knock on wood. :wood: :smiley:

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3

You mean repair / upgrade part(s) of it, right? Not to replace the whole unit.

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8

Sorry I posted the wrong answer to the two commenters and then I got terribly confused.

9

I used it almost daily. That’s more than a thousand days. As a programmer the keyboard suffered a lot.

But I did the same to the Macbook Air. The only thing I had to replace thrice (!) was the power adapter (the only really bad thing about it). The keyboard looks tattered but still holds up fine. One corner is dented because of a drop. And the battery was almost dead after six years. If the Macbook Air were repairable, I would have replaced the battery and perhaps the mainboard because of CPU progress.

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10

Not yet decided. I would need to replace the mainboard in any case but if I keep the old laptop I could check how something ran on it and if I replace the mainboard this wouldn’t be possible.

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The input cover arrived. When opening the laptop (the first time after 3 and half years!) there was a lot of dust everywhere. I took the time to clean everything carefully. The USB port failures disappeared. Now my laptop again feels like new, only the taped hinge cover and the broken bezel are not really eye candy.

Programming will be fun again with all keys working!

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