Finally pulled the trigger and preordered the FW12 with the new chips. Yay!
Is there anything special about the FW 12 charger? I’m thinking about changing the preorder to drop the charger and use the savings to bump the RAM from 8GB to 16. I have plenty of existing USB-C chargers
I like that the cables are both removable and replaceable. It’s also fairly compact and I’ve had no issues with it (the Framework charger).
But otherwise, nothing really special. I have it connected to my desk and charge whatever needs charged at that desk. But I also have a ugreen charger in the other room and a Steamdeck charger by my bed and I would say they do 90% of the charging of my Framework 12.
I can only say that I haven’t bought the original charger and charge mine with various PD-compatible chargers, primarily with 20W Toocki charger and it’s fine. I have one 30W Essager charger that is kinda noisy that makes my touchpad and sometimes touchscreen behave weirdly when plugged in but it’s more the charger’s than the laptop’s fault.
Pro tip. Use a ≥55W charger to let the CPU+iGPU use 20W of sustained power rather than just 15W.
Note that this will only work if your battery is ≥30%, if it is installed. If the battery is not installed than it will need a ≥60W charger to work.
As long as the charger supports USB-PD there should be no issue with third party chargers. I have a Framework 12 and a Framework 13, both charge fine using existing USB-PD chargers from my old Dell XPS 13, an Anker power supply, my Steam Deck charger and so on. I don’t even own a Framework charger.
The ground pin on the FW chargers is supposed to prevent leakage current from tingling you on the surface of aluminum chassis laptops. Not a concern for the FW12 though, and many chargers do well enough even without a ground pin.