Framework Laptop 16 User Reviews

Framework Laptop 16
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A quick review from me, just received my batch 5 laptop 4 days ago.

Keyboard
I personally do not notice the keyboard flex everyone is talking about. I do like the feel of the keyboard and do not have any issue typing with 10 fingers on this keyboard. The only thing I need to get used to is when numlock is not switched on (from the numpad) the enter key on the numpad switches the backlight. I now know that I use that enter a lot, also during my bootloader (I have dual OS).

Assembly
During assembly it was all very clear and well documented how to assemble the laptop. I ran into a small problem with the midplate that was not recognized on startup, however that might have been my own fault as I found out that the connecter cable was not plugged all the way in on the midplate side. I might accidentally pulled it slightly out.

Performance
Coming from a 300 euro laptop which I used to browse the internet this is mighty fast. But it can be faster when you plug it in, there are some options to make the battery life a lot better in the BIOS. Disable these and it will be quicker in performance and in battery drain…

For now I am very happy with my new laptop and working on finding a lot of things out about it. Can’t wait for any future upgrades, even the small ones like a sd card reader :slight_smile:

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i would expect that you could adjust that behavior, given the nature of the firmwares on the input modules. could be worth investigating; the hardware should facilitate you, not require you to change your habits without benefit.

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That is a very good idea, thanks for the input. I do have to look into that. Also to get my RGB mouse synced with my keyboard :slight_smile:

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You can remap every key using VIA, which interfaces with QMK (The firmware the numpad and keyboard use) at https://keyboard.frame.work/ .

If your mouse is supported by OpenRGB you should be able to sync it, since OpenRGB has support for QMK.

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Yes I just fixed it with that page, mapped the on/off backlight button to the calculator button which I use less often. Thanks to @eso for pointing me to the possibility to remap it.

Unfortunately it is not, but thanks for the tip. I will keep it in mind. :wink:

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I’ve had my Framework 16 for a few weeks now as I was part of the Batch 1 finale in early March due to the wayward Linux keyboard affair. During the past few weeks, I installed Arch Linux on it and used it in a variety of non-travel scenarios. These are my thoughts on it so far.

The Good

  • The chassis (minus the input deck - see below for details) is very well built with durable materials. It’s even more impressive than my previous all-aluminum HP Elite Book which also had a great build quality.
  • The laptop is big but is small enough to fit in larger bags. It is fairly light for what it is.
  • The snap-in input expansion module system is great. I wish more manufacturers offered this.
  • The UEFI firmware is easy to navigate and is well designed. The menu layout reminds me of the Steam Deck’s “Insyde H2O” firmware menu.
  • Compatibility with mainline Arch Linux and KDE Plasma 6 is decent as of Linux kernel 6.8. There are a few features (mainly the display’s variable refresh rate feature) that are not completely mature and/or supported out of the box yet but it is quickly getting there.
  • Screen quality is excellent.
  • The Ryzen 9 series processor is FAST. It seems like it is almost as fast as my desktop’s Ryzen 9 processor.
  • Battery life seems pretty decent. I can run it for several hours as long as I keep it from over engaging the dGPU. Fully engaging the dGPU seems to burn through the battery in less than an hour.
  • There’s a certain financial peace of mind that you get from using a system that is designed around repair instead of replacement.

The Bad

  • I am glad that I only ordered the GPU expansion module because swapping between modules on the road looks irritating due to the reliance on a module specific screwed-in interposer module. As implemented, I look at the expansion slot system as more of a “future upgrade” slot than a “hot swap” slot.
  • I hope Framework offers a combined keyboard and numeric keypad module in the future. While the modular system mostly works (except for the weird split backlight controls - see below), I would really like to see a more rigid unified module without the gap and separation between the keyboard and the numeric keypad area.
  • Running on battery power tanks the frame rate on high end 3D games. I think this is more of a “current limits of mobile dGPU technology” issue than an actual Frameworks design problem.
  • Out of the box, the current version of “libinput” on Linux does not support “disable trackpad while using keyboard” mode due to a missing configuration file. Uncorrected, this can cause some errant cursor movement during a heavy typing session. However, this issue is easy to correct through a configuration change and an official fix will be included in the next “libinput” release.

The Ugly

  • While I appreciate what Framework was trying with the modular trackpad, they should have made 3 trackpad SKUs (right/center/left alignment) and avoided using spacers. The trackpad spacers suck and I had to manually bend mine to get them to fit properly. I really hope Framework goes back to the drawing board here because the keyboard and trackpad issues are the only bad apples on an otherwise excellent product.
  • The numeric keypad module is in desperate need of a numlock indicator light. I am not really certain how design missed this critical feature.
  • There is no synchronization of backlight mode between input modules. While this enables some unique use cases, most of the time I just want one set of backlight controls that keep both input modules on the same synchronized backlight configuration.
  • I can not connect the laptop to the iPhone 15 Pro Max via USB-C. When connected, both devices go into a endless connect/disconnect loop. This needs to be fixed at the firmware level.
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Some people have come up with a solution for this: turning the Num Lock backlight on/off based on the status.

I haven’t done it myself yet, because… I honestly have no idea how to work with QMK, eheh… At some point I’ll research that…

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Guess that’s an issue of your used distribution. Using KDE Neon here and don’t see that behavior. When I’m typing, the trackpad is off.

That, I can’t confirm either. Mine did fit from the start correctly. So no bending etc. to be done.
Coming from the RC world though, a tip when bending them: heat them up with a hair dryer before bending them. Makes it easier to bend, and while they cool, they get sturdier.

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Yeah, on Hyprland there’s also an easy setting in the config that can change this behavior to how you want it. Probably similar to what Arazil did manually in the libinput config file.

My trackpad spacers fit decently, but as many others have said the fit is… meh.
If they were to ever release a new trackpad with Sensel tech with either improved spacers or just one that fits the entire width, that’d be an instant buy. Ideally they’d also offer more options for the touchpad spacers, like they do for the keyboard spacers.
As it stands, the touchpad is good. Luckily I’m not used to Apples trackpads, as those felt decently better the few times I tried them. If they were to partner up with Sensel for this, the touchpad could turn from a minor weakness to an actual strength of this laptop.

This is just me hoping though ^^

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@Christoph_Straten I’d really like to thank you a lot. I was curious what Hyperland was (I’m a Debian/KDE guy), and reading more, led me to screensharing. And annoyingly, for work, we use Slack which still runs as XWayland, so can’t share Wayland windows. And Hyperland docs mention KDE folks created a workaround! So now I have something to try today at work.

Also, Hyperland looks interesting. Will need to do even more reading. But being on Debian, even on Testing, going to probably be a somewhat old version.

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Do note, that Hyprland is a tiling compositor and not stacking one. See Window manager - ArchWiki for more info
Personally, Hyprland is really really nice to use on the Framework 16, everything works out of the box and it’s the smoothest Wayland compositor I have ever used.

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Yup, that’s a good one.
Regarding screen sharing, that isn’t yet properly accelerated by the encoder and instead is done in software (aka on your CPU). Newest chromium/electron versions are starting to support it, if you set the correct flags.

For Discord/Vesktop this still doesn’t make the screen share perfectly smooth, as it always streams with the source resolution. It seems like they’re getting there soon, so I’m looking forward to smooth screen sharing on Linux with Vesktop (modded Discord client).

Fully agree. It’s got a lot of eye candy and also just works™ as you’d expect it to. It also has force_zero_scaling = true like Plasma, so that XWayland apps can scale themselves properly if needed.

Something I discovered a few months ago was pyprland, specifically its scratchpad plugin. It can summon windows on every workspace and unsommon them with a few easy keybinds. This is such an awesome upgrade to usability, I encourage you to try it!

To keep to this threads original purpose, I’ll write up my thoughts on this laptop after using it for a week (next monday). It’s pretty much exactly as I expected it to be after spending a lot of time here, with all its good and bad sides. The good surely outweigh the bad ones, I’ll 100% keep it, no questions asked.

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My FW16 (batch 3) review:

FYI I’m a programmer by trade so I spend 8+ hours a day using a laptop.

The screen is fantastic. I’m especially enjoying the color vibrancy, crispness and 165Hz smoothness. Given that the screen is the main point of the laptop’s use, this is the biggest win. I was at many times in the last 4 years looking to buy a System76 laptop but their screens were always 16:9, only 1080p & only 250 nits which just falls short these days.

The keyboard is subjectively just average. It’s not bad but the key press action is so soft that it takes a lot of getting used to & I keep mistyping. I’m used to a more firm key press that gives a more positive feedback.

I’m very happy with the touchpad. It’s not quite up to the refinement of an Apple haptic feedback pad but it performs much better than any of my previous laptops. Being able to 2 finger scroll horizontally in Linux is a new experience for me!

The speakers are surprisingly good. I used them for watching some TV shows and listening to music and was pleasantly surprised.

Overall performance - I’ve waited 8 years to upgrade from a Core i7 6820HQ. In my daily work I’m getting 3-4x faster single threaded performance in some tasks which is awesome! Having a high performance iGPU with open source driver is super great. This is basically the best Linux laptop CPU available currently and when FW release a Zen5 mainboard I’ll upgrade to that :exploding_head:

Gaming - I’m not playing anything massively graphically taxing. It handled a 3 hour “Beyond all Reason” session no problem. The fan noise was perfectly acceptable for basically maxing out the GPU & several CPU cores.

Linux compatibility - I’m running Ubuntu 24.04 nightly and with the 6.8.0-20 kernel everything works perfectly, even suspend!

Battery life - not bad but could be better. At 60hz on low brightness it’s idling @ 6 watts. My 8 year old Dell idles at 4 watts on 14nm! I’m sure the FW16 efficiency will improve with software optimization tho.

Repairability - this is a dream come true. Knowing that I can just replace every component is incredible. One day there might be an OLED panel I can just swap out!

Overall I’m a highly satisfied customer. Knowing that there’s a commitment from FW to support Linux properly is huge. The Linux work that I’ve seen happening on these forums is impressive & the support I’ve received already is much appreciated!

I picked up an Anker Prime 100W GaN charger and it’s tiny. Works great with the FW16.

Thanks to the FW team for delivering an incredible laptop!

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Some initial thoughts on my laptop:

  • arrived with the USB cable non-functional which took a while to suss out whilst figuring out what was not working.
  • once plugging in the BIOS start seems VERY slow to the point you think there’s something wrong. Much more feedback would be appreciated, especially if there’s a memory error. I don’t want to have to remove 17 screws to discover what LED is/isn’t flashing.
  • download link for the AMD game no longer works, even though my old laptop couldn’t play such a game - waste of time and I hope the cost wasn’t “Bumped” to cater for this. I’ve raised a support ticket about this as it was unfair to expect customers to download before the delivery.
  • Keyboard and numpad don’t seem to be able to be aligned with the numpad on the left hand side. Keyboard is not centralised.
  • Linux Mint installed very well, I had to wipe it once and start again as there was some weird UEFI boot error. However I’ve sorted that now. Fiddling with UEFI settings didn’t help.
  • Overall it seems a good laptop, but was it worth the money? Only time will tell. It fits together mostly well although the alignment on the numpad-touchpad area could better.
  • The USB are too tough to pull out and need some sort of spudger, which is ok but a little irksome.

Anyway some initial thoughts, this from batch 4.

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That was clearly disclosed in the confirmation email, and anyone that read it should know to redeem the code (not necessarily download and install) before the deadline. My previous laptop didn’t have the heft to run the game, but that’s not related to redeeming the coupon in ANY way.

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Maybe in your e-mail but my invoice and other email with the code contained no such date or time. As it’s part of my order I expect the product, especially as I couldn’t run it properly (at all?) before delivery of the main product. I’ve taken it up with Framework support and like I said as it’s part of my INVOICE, therefore I’ve not had a complete product delivery yet.
Also with a failed USB cable and other issues, I’m not 100% delighted with the offering just yet.

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I don’t recall a reading about a redemption limit, but I operate on the “no-take-back if redeemed” notion. :slight_smile:

I don’t recall if I redeemed it on the Android Steam app or on my desktop. Either way, I always try to redeem a code right way if I get them (either purchased in advance or as part of a bundle). You can always download and install later to play.

I personally only played a little bit of Starfield before I got bored. :frowning: Not my kind of game I guess. Looking at Helldivers 2 and that looks like fun, but it’s a $40 game (enough to make me pause). I just bought the first game bundle for around $10 with tax and all. The base game is now back to $19 I think. Again, redeemed right away but haven’t played it yet.

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We’ve been over this already in the other thread. I even copied and pasted the relevant parts in there for you.

The T&Cs were clear. If you read them.

You didn’t have to download anything, just redeem the code via steam which is available on multiple platforms and as a website.

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That’s the memory training, mentioned in the build instructions.

It’s a catch 22 unfortunately. If the RAM isn’t working, then there’s no frame buffer to enable the graphics output to display the error message on the display. Hence an LED indicator or beep code from the POST.

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I have a batch 6 release with maximum specifications on all counts.

I have already had one thermal overload event take place resulting in a forced shut down and it does run hot when a demanding process is taking place. I am a power user so I hear the fans in action frequently. I have updated the bios to the latest version which was only one point behind, in the hope that things improve.

The other thing that I miss so far is a back lit keyboard for my UK variant. So come on Framework, I am looking for an option to buy one soon.

Interchangeable ports are great and a bought a whole load of variants, but there are just not enough docks to put them all into so compared to my old MSI laptop I do not have the same flexibility. I am having to swap in and out a lot for different needs as they arise depending on what I am doing on a particular day.

The screen is lovely although the ratio does take a bit of getting used to especially as a photographer I am usually editing in 16:9 and not this screen’s 16:10.

Sound is great for such a small device. I am a musician too and very critical of good sound so usually use top of the range headphones but the built in speaker does a pretty good job. They are not going to burst an eardrum but the quality is balanced even if the bass is not going to shake the room.

I have to say I was concerned that I was buying a relatively unknown brand, with modular technology never seen before in a laptop but I have been pleasantly surprised. Framework deserves to become a leading player.

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