I’ve gotten my unit on Monday and have been using it every day. I have a 7940HS (no dGPU) with Crucial 2x16GB 5600, Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB and Sabrent 1TB.
Initially I had some issue with the display giving colors too much “gamma” so they looked overblown to me, but it turns out a windows setting under brightness caused it. The setting is called “Change brightness based on content”. Turning it off immediately made the colors look more to my liking. I have had no other software related issue on the laptop, on the contrary, I love the builtin BIOS that allows me to set the max battery percentage.
What I find annoying are the touchpad spacers. I am using a keyboard on the left, numpad on the right and touchpad in the middle. The slight “bump” between the spacers and touchpad can be felt under the hand (although not to the point it digs into your hands, but it can be felt) and the spacers wiggle A LOT. Left to right movement is minimal, but they also move to the front and back making a “clicking” noise which I at first thought wouldn’t bug me while using it normally. But I have noticed that as I rest my hand and then move it to start typing on the keyboard I also slightly move the spacer to the back with my wrist and that causes that quiet but still noticeable slide and “click” of the spacer. I am unsure if this is just my unit, so could any of you also try to slide your touchpad spacers to the front and back while they’re locked in to see if they make a clicking sound or even if they move for you. If that’s not the case I might have to contact support.
There’s also the issue of how the spacers look, as they’re not perfectly level (and I honestly don’t expect them to ever be perfect since that would require extremely fine tolerances). But I wanted to just inform people that may find that a deal breaker. For example my left spacer is basically flush at the top, but the lower you go, the more it “warps” up and becomes higher than the touchpad module (it is probably like 0.1mm, but it is noticeable with the eye when looking at it from the side). The right spacer on the other hand is basically flush.
I also seem to have a similar, but worse issue with black spacers I got in case I did not want to use the numpad. One of them bends upwards in the middle as if it’s too long for the slot, so it’s pushed up in the middle creating a kind of arc.
Overall I’m satisfied with the device. It fits in my Räven 28 backpack so its ready to go when uni classes resume in a bit over a month again. None of the things that reviewers said are an issue to me. The display flex is there, but I never open my laptop from the sides so I do not see it as an issue. Keyboard flex also doesn’t bother me one bit, although I will definitely request the rubber pads to “fix” it just to check out how it feels with them when they’re available. The fans also do not feel loud, but that may be due to me running a unit with no dGPU module. The speakers don’t sound any special, I would say they’re okay when you do not have any headphones or external speakers, but I also have nothing but studio monitors to compare them to and I’m no audiophile.
All I’m waiting on now is for someone to make an OCuLink expansion bay PCB so that I can get rid of most of my PC with its Ryzen 3600, but still use the 4070 from it with an external GPU enclosure when I’m at home and feel like playing games. Only issue even if that PCB was available, is that there is still no way to buy the interposer connector, so I’m out of luck until the marketplace opens for orders.
I’m definitely keeping my device, but I would love to see a big centered touchpad module with no spacers.
EDIT: Forgot to add this, but ALT codes sadly do not work on the numpad as it seems to be a windows limitation that does not allow them between multiple devices. I have just used the VIA tool on framework’s website to modify the enter key on the numpad to a LAlt key which I use for ALT codes.