Batch 10 DIY here. Overall, really pleased.
In terms of feedback, the fit and finish of the touch pad edges is lacking. The corners in the back on either side of the touchpad are slightly curved up, leading to sharp edges between the spacers and the touchpad. The front corners are flush.
In the future, I am also hoping for more color options for the touchpad and the front spacers (at the very least a black option). The current color customization options look a bit half-baked and busy.
supposedly producing black aluminum in an industrial fashion has ecological implications they don’t want to be responsible for.
AIUI to produce any colour on aluminium requires anodizing then dyeing the anodizing while it is still porous. Both of these steps require chemical processes which are not ecology friendly, which is why FW do not do it as it goes against their ecology friendly ethos.
Moon Dancer OS, what will they think of next…
Just finished setting up and upgrading my new laptop. First impressions are mixed. As others have noted the trackpad module is raised on one side rather dramatically and is quite annoying to brush when using the arrow keys. This bowing of components also affects my structural under plate. In my opinion the mounting point for the trackpad and bottom spacers is too low on the pieces to properly tame the sharp corners. The sixteen screws, is well ridiculous coming from the 13 inch model and the lack of actual rigidity it provides to things like the keyboard. Despite using the same keyboard from the 13 inch models certain keys like the function key for my OS don’t work on this model and work just fine on the original. I’m not sure if this trackpad is the same as well (although clearly smaller which is again baffling considering how much this computer costs) but likewise there was additional configuration needed to get the firmware to recognize certain gestures and buttons and am still working through this. By far my largest gripe is the e-waste mediatek wifi card that we are being forced to purchase. I had to switch out to my old Intel ax210 from my 13 inch which has vastly superior support in the OS’s I use and buy a new one for my 13 inch. Lastly the BIOS for these AMD machines is shockingly lacking in terms of available features in comparison to their Intel counter-parts. It’s still early days for me and many of these issues will be improved or fixed with software updates.
@byteskeptical I have to admit, that it must be a monday model you gathered.
Everything works out great on mine. Spacers are aligned. I had to be careful on how to place them though (it is a bit tricky to put them in place), but once I understood the logic behind the way they are placed and have to snap, everything is smooth.
For the rest, using Linux and KDE Neon with the HWE kernel, everything worked out of the box. No problem on the track-pad nor the keyboard. Even the mediatek WiFi card shows no issues. Connected to my Mikrotik it shows 300Mbps on 2.4Ghz and 600Mbps on 5Ghz. Most issues are due to compatibility with bad AP’s. But it is true that sometimes on mainstream AP’s you don’t get updates of the firmware, so you have to update all clients or buy a new WiFi card on the devices where you can actually replace/change it …
I’m glad things worked out better out of the box. Question since your running linux does the display port dongle work for you? On an Ubuntu 22 live environment is wasn’t working for me. I’m honestly quite surprised by your lack of issues with the Mediatek card but my opinion on the devices have been biased by previous experience and things may have improved since the last time I gave them a chance. Whatever the performance of the device maybe, support for linux and bsd’s has been not great and currently it isn’t supported on my OS of choice. Would not be a problem but for the fact that Framework doesn’t provide even an option for an alternative when pre-ordering which is just pedantic since one can simply buy from the marketplace or elsewhere on the interwebs.
I actually don’t know what you expect and what Is you use. But in general, using Ubuntu type OS is a rather stable experience (Using only Linux, and that since 1992).
The Display Port dongle works out of the box without a problem. Using it right now. There are screens it will not work with, but that is an issue with the screen’s and/or DP card firmware.
For the mediatek card, I just made sure to use the HWE (Hardware Enablement Kernel) when the hardware is very new. Usually that makes it.
Well I expect things to work but if they don’t I would want to know why or how I can fix it. I was pretty candid about the OS and version I was trying.
That’s kind of the point of my question though. I don’t doubt that this hardware has better support in certain OS’s over others or with certain hardware over others. Those are the details I’m interested in. As a linux user since 92 surely your aware of the pitfalls of having incompatible hardware and wanting to avoid those incompatibilities if possible or fix the underlying incompatibility.
That’s a good suggestion for compatibility in the kernel but there have been documentated inefficiencies with idle power and throughput documented in several threads [0]. Now things may improve or perhaps have already improved with updates but that’s why threads like this exist to document the current state of things.
well, I check hardware/tests etc first, and if that is not available, what hardware is used and how it works on other devices.
I cannot confirm to have since I use it, that I have high idle-power with my RZ616 …
If you give me a way to test it, I’m willing to try.
Got my batch 10 Framework 16 on Monday.
Assembly was dead easy, installed:
dd).dmidecode.As expected the spacers don’t line up super-well on the top surface. What I wasn’t expecting though is the very obvious horizontal ridge between touchpad area & keyboard area across the entire width of the laptop. And the same again between laptop and grill/power button area. In both cases the laptop area is 1-2mm lower than the adjacent areas. Maybe that’s a deliberate design to help keep the components in place but I hadn’t heard anyone mention it before. I don’t notice it in normal use.
Installing Ubuntu was only slightly traumatic - the USB A slots need more of a shove than I’m used to which took me rather longer to realise than it should’ve. And for some reason I had to disable IPv6 before it’d connect to the internet but that may be more to do with my home setup than anything else 
I ordered without a PSU thinking a phone charger would do the trick. I’ve tried a variety but none work - the charging light comes on for a second or two before going out. I bought a MOMAX universal travel adapter which works but I don’t yet know how quickly… It’s supposed to be able to supply 140W through its PD port, I can’t figure out after a couple of minutes googling how to check the actual charging power I get though. If it charges to full overnight that’ll do.
It’s a big laptop - about the same width as my 10yr old 15" MacBook Pro but slightly thicker & heavier and quite a lot deeper. It’s not as comfortable to use on my lap (which I do a fair bit) as there are what I’m going to call standoffs running across the majority of its width on the base, presumably to improve cooling when using it on a table. They dig in a bit which necessitates moving it around every so often to give my legs a break.
The keyboard is a little softer to my old Mac keyboard but I reckon I’ve got used to it already. And I’ve seen no sign of the flex other reviewers have mentioned. Shame it’s got a Windows key on it but maybe I ticked the wrong box when ordering?
I haven’t put much strain on the laptop yet so I’ve yet to hear the fans and I’ve no real idea of battery life just yet - it looks like I should get somewhere between five and eight hours from a full charge though. That’s fine for my use.
Overall I’m happy - it’s not perfect by any stretch but I’m happy enough to put up with that for the sustainability / upgradability.
After a few weeks with my batch 6, here are some early impressions.
I got the DIY without GPU, with standard keyboard and num pad, and I added 64GB Crucial 5600 RAM and a 4TB Western Digital Black SN850X SSD.
Summary - good
Summary - bad
Setup
Quality/Feel
Keyboard
Heat
Fans
Screen
Speakers
Expansion ports
Fingerprint reader
Touchpad
Performance
All in all, I love it and I’m happy with my purchase.
The MOMAX universal travel adapter is … a bit rubbish. I really doubt it’s putting out 140W as the laptop says the battery is still being drained even when the charger is plugged in. I’ll get more data in time but in the short term I’ve ordered Framework’s 180W charger partly so I know it’s not the laptop and partly because the MOMAX will do in a pinch (like going on holiday) as it will charge the laptop overnight if nothing else is plugged in…
I find the speakers pretty quiet though. I find I need to be up at or near 100% volume a fair bit, my old MacBook Pro I hovered around 60-70%. Disappointed with that tbh.
I wonder if it’s a driver or OS issue? In Windows I find them more than adequate. Like I don’t think I’d ever use 100%. I’m probably not going over about 50% (I’ll have to check that when I’m at home and update this if I’m way off).
I have 2 HP X360 laptops. Both are somewhat weak on volume, which may partly be due to age…
Anyway, I am running Linux Mint, and have installed the applet “Sound 150%”, which lets you crank it up that far if need be.
I intend on putting Linux Mint Edge edition on the FW when it arrives, scheduled for May 1st.
This is because on Windows, the slider only controls the power profile when on battery, on AC the laptop is always on “performance”. To lower the temperature on AC power you can navigate to the power options, set the “processor power management” to 99% max.
I’ll give that a try, thanks. I haven’t messed around with the power settings at all yet, except to set my preferences for what happens when I close the lid/press the power button.
I’m using Ubuntu but haven’t updated the BIOS yet. It’s on the TODO list…
My top bits of feedback so far:
And a huge one so far:
Why the wasted space next to the up arrows? There was perfectly good space to put page up and page down keys. Fn+Arrow basically means I’m constantly having to raise my hands to use the trackpad to scroll because there’s no good pgup/pgdn.
I was hoping to replace my Dell E6x40 I’d used for forever without losing anything. But, alas, that was a better keyboard.
Numpad is good, screen is great, guts seem to work well so far, etc. But for a “luxury” device, I had expected more polish on the input modules.
OK, good, not just me. Disappointing.
EDIT: Attaching images of trackpad. I didn’t see them anywhere in as far up the thread as I went.
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