I'm incredibly torn between the Framework Laptop 12 and 13

[Sencha]

Hi people, lovely to be here! This is going to be a loooong post so I apologize beforehand.

I’ve been looking for a small, lightweight laptop to use as my personal take it anywhere machine and I’ve ended up getting very stuck between the Framework Laptop 12 and 13. I can honestly see very good reasons for getting either one, so I’m mostly looking for experiences from people who actually own and use them, rather than a simple “which one is better?” answer.

I already have a Lenovo Legion 5 (2020) which will remain my main desktop machine until I eventually get a new dedicated desktop PC in the coming years, Framework isn’t a replacement but more of an entirely different machine. I’m looking for something I can take with me several times a week, use on the couch, at a café, while travelling, etc.

My typical use would be browsing and media, light coding tasks, using it as a study pad (I actively learn new languages, so I note stuff down a lot a lot), general note-taking, writing, general personal computing. I’m not planning to do serious development workloads on it for now. No huge Docker setups, local LLMs, heavy VMs, etc. My projects are currently as small as niche Web 2.0 type of work. With that I don’t know what I’ll be doing in 3-5 years, so having some headroom is still a nice thought on the side. I travel a lot too, I practice martial arts and have tournaments, seminars etc around the country pretty often, so mobility is of course a big big bonus.

I’m mostly attracted to FW12 because the form factor really appeals to me. It’s small and easy to carry, has 360° hinge, has touchscreen has, stylus support, has, tablet mode AND THE COLOR OPTIONS. They’re so pretty. I don’t just like the idea of the stylus in theory but also I can see myself using it for handwriting, PDF annotations, handwritten notes, doodling/drawing and occasional touch interaction. That being said I still use physical books for most of my language studying and I prefer Anki cards, but I guess I can adjust my habits.

My biggest concern with the 12 is the display. I’ve heard that the 13’s display is significantly better in terms of colour and overall quality. I don’t do professional colour work, but I do like making little web projects and I wonder whether I’d eventually wish I had the better screen.

I’ve also seen Framework mention that they are thinking about future improvements to things like the display and speakers. Since the display is a replaceable module, I’m wondering whether there is a realistic possibility of upgrading it in the future, rather than being stuck with the current panel for the entire life of the laptop.

The 13 however feels like the more conventional small but serious laptop, so much that I’ve already noticed in my own decision-making that if my Legion wasn’t available for a week I’d rather have the 13 on its own rather than 12. For 2-3 hours of coding without an external monitor, I’d also pick the 13.

And for general couch use, I’m on the fence entirely.

But then I look at the 12 and think “Why am I buying another conventional laptop when I could have this tiny convertible colorful cool thing that does something completely different?”

Then we get to the most ouchy part for me. Longevity and support. This is probably the thing I’m most unsure about and kind of puts me on the fence in the first place.

If I buy the 12, will I regret it in a few years because Framework’s development and support focus moves increasingly toward the 13/13 Pro? The fact that the 12 just received the Gen 3 refresh is super reassuring but at the same time, the 13/13 Pro seems to get a lot more attention in the community, and I’m wondering how people see the long-term future of the 12 platform.

Price isn’t really a deciding factor for me. I’m looking for is a laptop I can keep for around five years (and hopefully more because Framework gives me hope in that department) and genuinely enjoy carrying around and using.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually lived with either machine for a while, especially if you initially had the same dilemma.

[BigT]

Welcome to the community!

I used the FW 13 as my “daily use” machine for a couple years after it came out. I have been using the FW 12 as my daily use machine since it released. So I have quite a bit of use on both.

Keep in mind, all of this experience is with the i5-1334u version, not the Core Series 3 version that is releasing soon.

Here are some thoughts from using both.

Performance:

The difference is noticeable. My FW 13 has the Ryzen 7 7840u. For general use, the Framework 12 is more than fast enough. But the FW 13 simply is noticeably faster. Depending on what I’m doing, it might mean that a program opening up is a tiny bit less instant or smooth (noticeable, but not really affecting my use in any way), to having to wait much longer for a video to transcode in Handbrake. But the amount of times I’m doing anything that takes meaningfully longer is really small, so the performance difference doesn’t really bother me.

Heat:

The Framework 12 gets noticeably warm on the bottom more often than the FW 13, but since it’s plastic, it isn’t bothersome very often. And I LOVE that the fan intake and exhaust are both on the back of the FW 12. I can lay it on my lap, or whatever surface and not worry that I’m blocking the vents, like I did on the FW 13 which has the fan intake vent on the bottom.

I’m hoping the heat will be reduced a bit during normal, everyday stuff with thew new Core Series 3 processors, but we’ll see.

Display:

The display on the FW 13 is higher resolution and the color is definitely better. Noticeably better. You don’t have to have an artist’s or color grader’s eye to notice the deficiency of the FW 12 display. I do hope they eventually release a better display for the 12. But, for normal, daily use, even watching videos and such, it’s totally fine for me. Reds seem to be the worst, looking more orange than red. So if there is something on screen that I know is supposed to be red, I might notice that it looks orange. That kind of thing makes colors overall a bit…off. However, I did calibrate my display and it helped a bit. FW12 poor screen colour accuracy - #23 by BigT But it couldn’t create reds that the display cannot produce. So it’s still not great. But like I said, I’ve used it every day for web browsing, email, media consumption (videos, podcasts, music, etc.), some very light photo editing, some casual drawing, word processing, video and audio injest from cameras and audio gear, etc. Virtually daily use since they first released. The display isn’t great, and it’s definitely a step down from the 13’s display (the original or the 2.8K version). But it gets reasonbly bright for what it is, the contrast is decent, and it gets me by.

Ergos:

The Framework 12 wins for me in a lot of ways, and it’s why it became my daily use machine. The softer, rounder top is slightly more comfortable to type on, though I do slightly prefer the feel of the FW 13’s keyboard. The FW 12 also has the aforementioned rear intake and exhaust vents, so that’s convenient in use for me. It also has the option to flip into tablet mode, and while the chassis cracking problem is annoying, I’m less worried about scratching or denting the case when travelling, using it out in the garage, etc., than I was with the Framework 13. Yes, the case cracking issue is a shame. But I showed that when subject to a bit of “hard use,” it holds up quite well. Framework 12 Durability Testing!

Battery Life:

I actually got a bit better battery life out of the Framework 13. The Framework 13 Pro supposedly has even better battery life. The new Core Series 3 chips in the upcoming boards for the Framework 12 should improve battery life, but maybe not to the extent of the 13 Pro. I appreciate long battery life, but in all reality, I’m never too far from some kind of ability to charge, so it isn’t a huge concern for me.

Ultimately, for me and my use case, the Framework 12 wins as a daily use machine. The ability to use a stylus, the slightly more rough and tumble chassis with rear heat intake/exhaust, the 2-in-1 design, all together just make it something that makes sense for me to grab whenever I need to look something up, swap some files between various storage media, do a bit of writing, listen to/watch something, etc.

As for your use cases, I can’t say. Hopefully my thoughts help you pick what will work best for you. Cheers!

[wolfie]

I’ve used a 1st gen FW13 but that was so long ago that it’s not really comparable to what you are comparing right now. Got a FW12 13th Gen i3 when it came out. Like it so much that I’m currently waiting for my pre-ordered 2nd gen Series 3 Core 5.

I use a FW desktop as my daily driver, so my laptop is mostly for travel. Developer by trade and the FW12 is holding up great. Really looking forward to the Series 3. Hoping for better battery life (while the 1st Gen FW12 is already great in that regards) with idle & watching videos and maybe a bit better performance when needed.

Since any AI work is against server infrastructure / APIs anyway and not computed locally there are not really any demanding tasks in my everyday web 2.0 development. Handles all pretty well. If you plan on doing a lot of Android simulator work or running heavy VMs a more powerful FW13 wins for sure. But most dev work is not that demanding really.

I had to choose too and went with my heart. Even ordered FW12 gen2 again instead of the FW13 pro. My thinking is that I like the overall package of the FW12 better and if performance ever becomes a bottleneck I have no doubt a used FW12 is pretty easy to sell second hand.

Main gripe is the missing backlit keyboard - which sadly only exists for US users at this point in time. Nicer screen would be nice, but I can live without it. If it was my only machine I might have gone with a FW13 though.

Dimensions and weight surprisingly are pretty similar too between FW12 and FW13. If noticable slimmer or lighter that might have tipped the scale too for me. But currently I see almost no difference.

Edit: would not worry about longevity in a timespan of 5 years for both of them. FW13 seems sturdier and might give you the edge there. But I expect good availability of replacement parts if the worst case happens for both of them for at least 5 years..

[dude_online]

Framework can make an upgrade for the display, but not for the form factor, and, in the case of the 12, they released a video a month or two ago saying they are working on a better display for the 12.

If you’re after the 2-in-1 form factor, get the 12, if you’re after a portable dev workstation, get the 13 (Pro).

[Squiggler]

I have a FW 13 Pro, it is very good. It is lightweight compared to my old Dell XPS 15.

I was tempted by the FW 12, I have to admit. In the end I felt that I use a laptop remotely (without external monitors) so often that a 13" screen was going to be enough of a challenge, and so a 12" might have needed too much psychological adjustment. It has been a few weeks though, and I think I had worried too much - I have already adjusted.

I think the form factor of the 12 is brilliant. I like sketching on my ancient Lenovo sketchpad, but I don’t do it enough to have swung to the 12. So if you actually will do some sketching then the 12 would be great. I don’t think the colour reproduction issues would bother me at all, but everyone has to do their own guesswork on that.

Docker is very lightweight, and the lower CPU power of the 12 would probably not be an issue. I think I made the right choice in the Pro because I run my desktop environment in a VM, and then from there I use Docker, and that configuration might be a bit more sluggish on the 12, especially noting the single-channel RAM. In other words, it depends on what you’re using Docker for, and if it is making web apps and chatting to a robot, the 12 will be perfectly usable.

The one area where I advise caution is in the warranty. We get a bit of insight into modes of product failure in this forum, but the reader can’t tell if it is 0.1% of machines in the wild or 10%. At some point I would like to see FW open source their failure data, but I appreciate that worries about commercial sensitivity are difficult corporate cultures to undo. Given there is much the consumer doesn’t know here, I would say that a two year warranty is the absolute bare minimum, and even that is insufficient. I would absolutely have purchased a four or five year warranty if the price was right, but FW have not ever commented as to whether they might do that for consumers (I think they already do for business).

So if you are in a locale that only gets one year of warranty, there may be value in going for the 12, and maybe even under-specifying the RAM. If it fails in 13 months, you want to have spent £1,500 not £2,500.

[David_Choi]

Framework said the new chip in 12 improves WiFi browsing life by 57%, 70% in Netflix playback and achieves 7 day standby. The Absolute increase isn’t as lot as the 13 Pro, only because it uses the same display and battery. And for 12 they are using 150 nits to test versus 250 nits on 13 Pro.

Still that’s a really good improvement. 7 day standby on a 50WHr is better than 7.6 day for 74WHr on the 13 Pro, despite latter needing rare and expensive LPCAMM2.

[Martin_Zinsler]

I totally agree! I started my Framework experience with a FW 13 but soon became fascinated by the FW 12 concept. I own one now for a year or so and it became my daily companion. “I’m in love with my c…” (Queen) is the motto. I plan to add a FW 16 to the party maybe next year when I retire. However, before I do that I will enhance my FW 12 with the new fingerprint sensor and a backlight keyboard. Cheers, Martin from Vienna, Austria

[rko]

Have the 12 for about a year now too. Absolutely love it, using it daily for media consumption, surfing, network tinkering, in house streaming. Played a lot of hours of streamed games on it and the display colors did not bother me at all, even though it is clearly noticable. What I love is having it flipped open 180°, to like one straight board and then balance that on my lap while I lay on the couch. Perfect screen hight to watch videos!

I’m not convinced by the battery performance, but the new chips adress this issue. I stay on the first gen chip for the moment though, hoping for AMD and/or ARM options in the future.

For me the fans kick in too early. I use it in eco mode constantly for keeping the fans down and the battery time up. Works for me very well.

Overall it would feel too limiting as a main computer in terms of performance. But it’s a perfect companion to carry everywhere and connect to everything. (Just make sure you are not too far away from power supply)

[Buttercup]

I like 12 cuz it flip.

[pkunk]

From the OP descriptions and resources, a desktop or another more powerful laptop will always be in the picture.

So if true portability and flexibility is desired the Framework Laptop 12 seems the better fit.

All of Frameworks products are getting better over time.

[Jamison_R]

I currently own a Framework 12 with the i3 processor, and I feel like I’m in the exact same boat as you because I want to upgrade.

My thinking is that rather than ordering a new Core 3 mainboard, I’m just going to order a new Framework 12 and transfer my drive and RAM. That way, I’ll have spare parts or a whole other laptop if I need it. It’s totally worth it! However, before the Core processor came out, my plan was to get a Framework 13 Pro. I still plan on eventually fixing that by just owning both.

If the new upgrade to the 12 is awesome, think we could do things cheaper with it plus a stylus?

Can definitely get more power out of the 13 though.

[Patrick_Chamberlain]

Interesting idea - except that the 2nd gen keyboard is US only, so that rules it out for me .

[Jamison_R]

It would be cool to see more parts available. I haven’t gotten into how open source Framework’s hardware is? I know to some extent it is, but more support there is always awesome.

My factors did include a budget, so if I were going all out, I’d get the 13 Pro. A three-tone keyboard with a matching bezel and extensions is nice, but under that hood, look out!

I’m hoping the Core 3 will keep me content for a while—oh wait, that’s right, I was going to go with the Core 5 this time so I can get the fingerprint reader, which isn’t available with the 3. Plus, I’m going to get the Sage version, then I figured I could mix and match case parts with the gray one that I have. I don’t want to go on and on about my 12s though.

Scratch-that: looks like I could buy the fingerprint reader separately and install it with the Core 3 for longer battery and budget.