(I wrote this for another message board I frequent so some/most/all of this has probably already been mentioned/discussed. Not relinking the photos since I’m sure you’ve all seen those too.)
My Framework 16 arrived this week and I spent some time with it. I’m sure anyone interested can find plenty of thorough reviews on it, but I have some initial impressions. I bought it mainly for Linux support, which I’ve read to be quite good but haven’t tested myself yet.
TLDR: It’s probably not worth it. You can get something 10-20% faster for almost half the price. At current pricing, I think most users would be better off just buying a new non-FW laptops when the time comes to upgrade - it will be easier to resell or hand-down an entire laptop than FW16 parts.
I did the DIY edition with the upgraded CPU and dGPU. I added my own RAM and NVME (and swapped the WiFi card from Mediatek to Intel). I probably over-bought the modules (3x USB-C, 3x USB-A, HDMI, DP, Audio, Ethernet, MicroSD, and the 250GB Flash) and the RGB Macropad (was curious), but even scaling that back some it is still basically a $2.5k+ laptop when fully kitted out. I skipped the Windows license, but did buy their 180W USB-C charger (it’s not included). The DIY edition is something of a misnomer - it comes mostly assembled (at least the difficult bits). It took me less than 15 minutes to assemble (going slowly) and boot.
Performance wise, I have a Lenovo Legion pro 5 with a 7745HX and 4070m to compare it to (and numbers from my previous Legion model 5900HS/3070m). The 7940HS in the FW16 has the much better iGPU, but otherwise is about ~10% slower in my benchmarks than the 7745HX, which clocks higher and has 2x the L3$ (32MB vs 16MB). The FW16 dGPU option is AMD’s 7700s, which is about 20-30% slower in the synthetic benchmarks I ran vs the 4070m. It even loses to the 3070m from my previous Legion 5. When using numbers I have on a desktop 6700XT GPU for comparison, I’d expect the 7700s to be +/- 10% of a desktop 6600. I do expect decent enough in-game performance though.
The $200 upgrade for the 7940HS is basically pure waste with the FW16. Vs the 7840HS, you get +200 base clock and +100 on max boost and iGPU clocks which is probably meaningless in the real world. You also get EXPO and Curve Optimizer support, but neither of these options are exposed in the BIOS. Neither is cTDP. CO and cTDP might be accessible via software, at least on Windows and probably on Linux.
The novel Expansion Card system is, IMO, clever but not as useful as it might seem. The FW has 6 expansions ports. There are some restrictions and recommendations for specific ports (i.e. 4 of the 6 can be used for charging, 3 of the 6 for display). My Legion Pro 5 has a dedicated charging port, an HDMI port, an Eth port, and an Audio jack. So I would need 4 of the 6 FW16 ports just to replicate that. The Legion also has 4 USB-A and 2 USB-C ports (1 of which can do 100w charging). Thus 10 (fixed) ports versus 6 modular - no DP option of the Legion but the Eth port also sits flush. 2 of the 6 FW16 ports are USB4 capable which is nice and a win over the Legion. I think the FW16 needs 8 expansion card ports, even if the extra 2 were limited to USB2/audio/card reader/slow. The dGPU module only has USB-C output too - it would have been nice to include built in HDMI and/or DP too (Yes, you can use the HDMI or DP expansion card in the dGPU module, but it sticks out like a dongle). The process for removing the dGPU, while not hard, does not lend itself to daily changes. For example, if you need max battery for work/school and want to pull out the dGPU in the morning and then add it back in at night for gaming, it will take about 5-10 minutes, and requires accessing the internals. Ideally it should be just as easy as the expansion cards - open a latch or two, swap, close latch.
There are also quirks, like the backlight on the numpad module is not linked to the keyboard, so you have to enable or disable them both separately. There is also no Num-lock indicator light which is a big WTF (but there is a Caps-lock one). There are 2 NVME slots, but only one is a 2280 and the other a 2230 (I couldn’t find a 1TB+ 2230 drive with a DRAM cache). FW lists liquid metal cooling, but I think it’s just phase-change and not classic liquid metal. The keyboard feels fine to me but I don’t like the key tradeoffs made, like the half-height arrow keys. The secondary options are displayed as the main icons on the F-keys, with F1, F2 etc. in small print (I would prefer that reversed). The track pad seems quite good, but the finish on the track pad module differs too much from the track pad spacers. The entire track pad area seems like wasted opportunity - the track pad module takes up about 80% of the width of the laptop but the track pad itself is maybe 40%. Shrink that down, and now maybe the track pad can shift over and extra space can be used for input - macro/stream-deck like functionality, LCD readout of speeds, battery, temps, etc, or move the numpad here to allow for a larger main keyboard with better key spacing. Ideally, the top and bottom halves should be interchangeable too, so I could put the keyboard on the lower half and use the top half for other input devices or maybe even a display.
If you are hard on your laptops and break things, then the FW16 might be a good investment. The parts list is extensive and seems priced fairly. Spill on your keyboard? It’s $59 and takes 10 seconds to swap. New screen hinges? $24. New screen? $279. The internals are accessed through the top - remove the keyboard, track pad, etc (which is tool-less and quick) and then remove 16 captive screws and one ribbon cable to take out the midplate and you will have access to the RAM, drives, etc. Things are labeled and parts have repair instructions. It’s quite nice, although accessing the RAM, NVME, and wifi card on my Legion isn’t too hard either. The trade-off, aside from cost, is that the chassis is a bit larger and heavier (but not excessively so IMHO).
As for upgrades, I think this is where the Framework concept will fall short. I trust they will have upgrades. The FW13 model did have both an Intel and AMD platform upgrade, which is a positive sign. Presumably the 16 will have at least 1 platform upgrade too, hopefully more. And dGPU upgrades. But current pricing is $749/$949 for the mainboard and $499 for the dGPU. You can get a new laptop for those combined prices, even current gen (though maybe when it’s late in the cycle) and it will certainly be easier to hand down or sell your old complete laptop than your old FW16 mainboard or dGPU module. They can be repurposed sure - you can buy a custom case (FW13 version - no FW16 version yet) and turn the mainboard into a desktop PC/HTPC/NAS, etc. but that is another expense and comes with some limitations too. Discounting the input deck for keyboard/touch pad, the FW16 only has 7 connections (6 USB-C expansion slots and the 8 lane PCIe interposer for the dGPU), new tech like Occulink might not be possible or at least, not convenient, and thus require an entirely new laptop. Speaking of the interpose, it should be possible for a FW16 desktop case to convert those lanes into a tradition PCIe x16 slot (x8 electrically) to use a traditional discrete GPU.
I am not sure if FW will ever have the marketshare to have options for every type of user. Right now, I think they should have a high-powered 4080m/4090m option for a dGPU. Put that in a thick dGPU module and give it great cooling with large fans to keep the noise down. Users still have the option for no dGPU or the modest 7700s. I’d also be interested in the 16c/32t 7945HX / 3D CPU mainboard. Both of these will challenge the 180w adapter, but 240w charging should be possible on the FW16. Maybe someone else has their use case change and wants to downgrade their FW16 to a 10-15W ultra-low power version. I worry that upgrades will be limited to “next year’s model but the same” rather that upgrades up and down the product stack/tier.
I’m also waiting for someone to exploit the modularity. There are no physical locks or authentication for the parts, so it should be quite easy for someone to modify the keyboard module to be a keylogger. It would be quite simple for a secretary or employee to swap the keyboard on their boss’s FW laptop. The Goodix fingerprint biometrics have already been hacked (and patched, but I’d wager other exploits remain).
If costs come down then some of my arguments would change. Same with the secondary market size - but how many FW16 users are out there right now waiting to buy up used 7700s dGPUs when we upgrade? I suspect there will be many more sellers than buyers, which means used pricing will be cheap. Certainly everyone has different needs and the FW16 might be the best choice for you. I bought one intrigued by the premise and with a desire to support them, but it would be hard for me to recommend paying the price premium for most users. The Legion Pro 5 I mainly compared the FW16 to I bought new for $1400, with a 7745HX, 4070M, 16GB, 1TB NVME, 16" 2560x1600@240Hz, 4 RGB zones, Win11 Home, and either a 230w or 300w charger.