Since the user review thread isn’t sticky and got a bit off-topic, and since I’ve got a lot to say, I’m posting my review in it’s own thread. I’ve been using the FW 16 for 4 weeks now as my daily driver, coming from a desktop machine with a Ryzen 9 5900X and 64GB of RAM.
I went with the Ryzen 7 7840HS (instead of the Ryzen 9 7940HS since I’ll upgrade to Zen 5 as soon as possible anyway), and put in a 96GB/5600MHz Corsair RAM kit. No dGPU since if this is a work machine for development and data science and if I had use for a dGPU it would need to be one from Nvidia, unfortunately. I’m running Fedora Linux 40 (KDE) and get most of my packages from nix via home-manager.
The good
So far the performance has been pretty much what I’ve been expecting: Around 50-70% of the speed of my desktop machine, which is in line with what the CPU should be able to do in theory.
At first glance the laptop looks quite nice when closed and still reasonable when opened.
Fedora 40 works well without any customization. I haven’t had crashes so far. The exception is the fingerprint sensor, which sometimes doesn’t remember it exists after waking up the laptop, and some keyboard hiccups (see below).
My 96GB RAM kit works well, even though it’s not officially supported.
The display is very nice. Fast, bright, great viewing angles.
For me, the screen wobble is barely noticeable and the screen doesn’t feel too flimsy when opening the lid.
The expansion cards are sitting nice and tight without any wobble.
The touchpad is a bit small but feels and works well, for the most part.
The keyboard feels slightly better than expected (I was worried after the initial LTT review); no flex.
Assembly was easy, though not easier than any Thinkpad or Elitebook I’ve opened (except that I didn’t need to fear breaking off plastic latches, which is quite nice).
Using VIA I could map “press for ESC / hold for CTRL” to my capslock key, which is pretty amazing for a laptop keyboard.
The bad
The battery life is what I expected yet still disappointing. I’m getting around 3-4 hours of development time out of it (with the brightness around 35%), and the laptop feels like it should have a much bigger battery to justify the weight. Of course the battery also drains quite a bit during sleep, to the point where I’m shutting down the laptop if I don’t plan to leave it plugged in at night, such that it doesn’t run out of battery while sleeping.
The laptop gets very hot, especially in the center area of the underside. It’s barely lap-friendly and often also not desk-friendly, because the keyboard heats up a bit as well. Again, given the weight you’d expect a better cooling solution. Since the hottest area is so far away from the vents, it seems like the heat can’t be transported away efficiently enough. I’m questioning if Coolermaster was the best choice to partner with for the cooling solution.
The FW 16 feels flimsy. Everything about it suggests that you need to be careful when handling it, making sure to support the weight at multiple points, not holding it in the wrong parts etc. For example, I’d usually grab a laptop at the front edge (the area next to the touchpad) when moving from room to room during a Teams call, but supporting the entire weight of the FW 16 at the front edge could mean bending the flimsy aluminum panels, or worse, dropping the machine because the panels are only held in place with magnets and plastic.
Talking about the flimsy aluminum panels next to the touchpad: They look and feel quite bad, and risk damaging the display through protruding edges.
The amount of screws you have to remove to get to the SSDs/RAM is absurd. I’d wish there were more screws in other places though (e.g. everything that’s currently a magnet).
Under Fedora 40 I’m getting a double keypress around once per minute or so. I haven’t figured out if this is a keyboard problem or a software problem.
The footprint of the FW 16 is not backback-friendly at all, and there are maybe 1-2 fitting sleeves on the market, none of which has a small extra pocket for some USB sticks or expansion cards. It feels like without all the keyboard modularity (that’s ultimately more a gimmick than anything else), it might have been possible to reduce the overall depth of the laptop by having a smaller bezel below the screen and less space above the keyboard, which would also move the CPU closer to the cooling fans, but I’m not a laptop engineer so what do I know. What I do know though is that this will not be changed anymore, because from all conceivable upgrades to this machine, reducing the outer footprint is definitely not one of them.
Voltage/amps on ports 3 and 6 seem flaky. E.g. my Pixel 8a charges for 3 seconds on port 6, then disconnects, charges again for 3 seconds, disconnects again, …
The ugly
The speakers are surprisingly bad for such a large laptop. Again, I knew they’d be bad before I bought the machine, but yet I am still disappointed.
The touchpad panel makes an audible click sound when I rest my left palm on it. Even worse, the sound is very similar to the mechanical touchpad click, but definitely comes from a different location. And yes, of course I have re-seated everything multiple times.
The black plastic spacers next to the keyboard are extremely rattly. They feel and sound like a cheap plastic toy and bring the overall feel of the FW 16 down to that of a 500$ Acer laptop.
The keyboard is inconsistent - the left edge feels okay, the right edge rattles, especially the “del” key.
Grabbing the closed laptop on the black plastic of the expansion bay shell visibly bends the plastic, so I had to stop doing that - which adds another item to my “don’t hold it that way” list.
With all above being said, the current value proposition (given the very high price point) is quite low. Fortunately my employer covered 100% of the cost, otherwise I’d be kinda mad.
What needs to change
I hope that Zen 5 comes soon and with it a much better cooling solution.
I’d really like an entire top assembly (including the part with the many, many screws) with an ANSI keyboard and a bigger touchpad as a single solid piece, or at least something that’s being held together by screws. 80% of the perceived flimsiness comes from this area and fortunately this seems fixable. If this deviates too much from the vision, at least a single-piece touchpad module would be nice, as discussed in multiple places elsewhere.
I still have hope for better speakers.
Maybe there’s still some software optimizations possible to increase battery life?
In conclusion, unfortunately I find the FW 16 to be barely recommendable in the current state. This might change with an improved top assembly, a clear upgrade path and a lower price point. From what I’ve read and seen, the FW 13 seems to be the clear winner in terms of haptics, perceived build quality and value proposition, so for people who believe in the framework vision (as I do) and aren’t certain they actually need a large screen, the FW 13 is probably a much better choice - though I can’t say from personal experience, since I don’t own one.
While some owners of the dGPU module had very bad experiences with fan noise, my unit without the dGPU is somewhat okay. Definitely not silent enough to have a call over the built-in speakers + microphone while they’re going at full speed, but also not terribly annoying. The sound profile isn’t too bad and they’re just on the edge below “too loud”. I didn’t bring this up in my review because it’s neither good nor bad, just pretty much the same as I’d expect from an equally spec’d Lenovo or HP machine.
Working under KDE Neon here with mine, with dGPU module, 64GB Ram I have to say I am able to run 8 to 9 hours with the laptop. I don’t do development that much, but when I do, using docker helps a lot keeping the cpu cycles down.
When watching (binch watching) TV shows with my wife, it holds around 9 hours straight on battery. Note that the laptop does not get warm or anything.
It is right that the laptop can get hot when I game, but it is the 16" version which I tend to not put/use on my lap. Hence - the temp is not really an issue for me.
When I want it to be cooled decently, I just raise the fan speed and be done with it.
Impressive range for the battery numbers. Can report that mine with a dGPU consumes pretty consistently 20% of battery per hour under Win 11. Impressed that it could be extended so much, will need to look into tweaking. Shame that I can’t undervolt the 7940HS since the CPU supports it.
Overall, I’m definitely also getting the vibe of a first-gen product from a smaller company from mine. But the repairability and the (so far kept) promise of future support is what’s really important to me. Plus, they improved the keyboard flex issue after LTT review (I found additional supporting material on the cooling system compared to LTT video in mine), so they definitely are listening and working to improve.
Windows is not good for battery life. Never was. Under Linux I can literally disable every service I do not need for maximum battery saving (if required).
But in general, I only start what I need and start with an empty desktop (session management disabled). Of course, I use the latest kernel (6.10.6 currently) available through “mainline” and use the latest AMD drivers and for watching movies, vlc with HW decoding enabled.
I have no words - you read my mind. I agree with every single word of this (except that I actually enjoy the speakers and find no particular problem with them. But I come from ThinkPad… it’s a low bar.)
You are the first person that I found who relates to the rattling. Do you also find that the keyboard just makes the laptop rattle badly or sound like a “spring” when in use and not typing super lightly? I tend to type really “hard” (necessary to reach my customary 120 wpm) and this is something that has been bugging the hell out of me.
I have gotten Support to RMA my keyboard and mid frame first. It was unsuccessful: the rattle is still there, and my new keyboard has a very inconsistent backlight - the middle area vertically is much dimmer, annoyingly so for such an expensive machine. And, as you said, the keyboard is inconsistent. The key to key noise error is really high. Pressing on the “Escape” key in particular makes whatever is down there feel flimsy.
I am considering buying an external keyboard and using that instead for whenever I need to do any long-term usage. For example, when I’m gaming, the keyboard tends to get hot enough to burn my fingers. I am using the base model without the Graphics module as I find the internal GPU more than adequate.
I am not sure if it is the mid frame not being supportive enough, the expansion cards rattling in their slightly oversized slots, the keyboard spacers rattling around or all those things.
My laptop was away in the repair center for a month and the situation was not really improved - but my hinges no longer sound so noisy now.
I’ll follow this thread. I would honestly love if anyone had a fix or mitigation for these problems because they have been driving me insane, and they really ruin the experience of what otherwise feels like a dream Linux machine - the performance is excellent and it works very well on Fedora 40 with the defaults (except a kernel command line pqrameter to disable the AMD Vari-Bright feature that was recently added to the kernel, but the user-space interface to control this parameter is not ready yet, so it requires this temporary work around.
For more info, my laptop is from Batch 11 of the pre order phase.
Do you also find that the keyboard just makes the laptop rattle badly or sound like a “spring” when in use and not typing super lightly?
Not so much like a spring, but the keyboard sound varies between “premium laptop” (fn, super, alt) and “hollow plastic netbook” (esc, del). I’ve had similar experiences when I bought aftermarket “genuine Thinkpad T series” replacement keyboards from AliExpress that ended up being taken from E-series or worse, where not all keys were great and the general fit was a bit off.
I have gotten Support to RMA my keyboard and mid frame first. It was unsuccessful: the rattle is still there, and my new keyboard has a very inconsistent backlight - the middle area vertically is much dimmer, annoyingly so for such an expensive machine.
That sucks to hear. I haven’t noticed anything inconsistent about my backlight.
I am considering buying an external keyboard and using that instead for whenever I need to do any long-term usage.
You should probably do that anyway, especially if you’re using the FW 16 at lot at home/some fixed place. Great mechanical keyboards are quite affordable these days; e.g. the Keychron V/Q-series.
I would honestly love if anyone had a fix or mitigation for these problems because they have been driving me insane, and they really ruin the experience of what otherwise feels like a dream Linux machine
I agree for the most part. If all rattling and finish problems in the top assembly were fixed, there’d still be a lot of minor things I don’t like: The FW16 is slightly too heavy, slightly too square-shaped (especially with the GPU module), slightly too hungry for battery - but I can totally overlook those things in exchange for a long term viable system that I can be quite rough with because I know I can replace what’s broken - something other companies simply don’t offer.
To not make a second post: As Gmanny has pointed out, it’s pretty surprising to see how much time other people get out of the system. When I wrote the review I also didn’t factor in that I need to run a rather aggressive antivirus service, which probably cuts an hour off of the battery life. Also, by now it feels like the battery life got noticeably better after yesterday’s fedora update, for whatever reason.
Just a few minutes ago, I received a mail with a link to order the “Keyboard deflection kit”, which is some sponges to apply to the main board that should mitigate the keyboard flex / rattling. You might want to look at your e-mail and place your request. Fingers crossed!
About the battery life, mine has actually been quite acceptable, though I am running Linux with no anti-malware software of any kind (if we do not consider SELinux).
Fingers crossed we get the rattle fixed. I am not sure if I should inquire Support again about it, but I am not prepared to ship my laptop out and be without it for weeks again. I have things to get done!
I doubt it will ever be in the store. It’s something they already implemented into production some time ago, and are offering for free via a request form, for anyone with an early FW16 that doesn’t have them.
I wonder if they’re including them on bare mobos ordered from the marketplace. I’d assume so, but last I looked (not today) the marketplace photos didn’t show them.
I haven’t gotten that email. I ordered my FW 16 right after the batches ended, so it probably already came with the pads from the kit - which would explain why I don’t have any flex. Unfortunately that also means that I’m stuck with the huge inconsistency between keys.
Oof. Just to clarify: can you also reproduce the fact that the laptop rattles or makes a “spring” noise when you tap on the chassis, click on the touchpad or, sometimes, type? It feels more like a “vibration”, sometimes it’s from everywhere, sometimes it comes from the sides, where the expansion cards are.
Framework getting the ding for poor software tuning is inevitable with Linux I suppose, but it still feels like an unfair ding.
Thanks for sharing your review. A lot of it is subjective, but I think a good amount is good feedback for improvements. Framework is very interested in such things and has made numerous improvements on the 13 line already as evidence of this. I’m sure there will be improvements on the 16 line as well.
The Framework 16 has an amazing cooling solution… but no BIOS fan control to actually take advantage of it.
I’ve measured (with a non-medical laser thermometer) the keyboard hitting 102F while the fans just idle. When I start doing a render the fans will ramp up so I know they’re not broken. But why should the laptop wait that long (thermally) to actually start cooling itself? I have tried third party software to try and make my own fan curves, but it never really works.
I’m running openSUSE tumbleweed (and also Ubuntu for testing), and have fw-fanctrl installed with my own profile “cool” to ramp up the fans earlier. This just works, but I haven’t gotten around to automate the start of the program. The keyboard stays cool to the touch, but the fans are spinning audibly with light load already.
The repo includes a systemd service, so systemctl enable fw-fanctrl --now should work (it should start the service now, and make sure it is started at system startup every time).
Nice catch! I am going to give it a spin as well (though I am trying to see if there is any less intrusive way to install it than to run an install script as root).