Intel 12th Gen Frame Work laptop Consumer Reviews

Received 31st August 2022
Updated 15th September

Received my DIY 1240p after 3 monthes of wait :wink: . using ubuntu mate 22
Slaped in the Samsung 980 and everything worked.
I had to unactivate secure boot to be able to boot kernel 5.18 (or 5.19)

Impressions compared to my plastic thinkpad edge 590:

CONS :

  • The screen reflectivity is VERY bad : it is very mirror like (not matte), especially if you use low backlite setting like I do. Inevitabely you need to increase the back light level to compensate even in a dark environement if you have a light behind. I need also to orientat the screen to not see my self sometimes. I am definitely not a lover of those mirror screens. I cannot get use to it spending all the time moving the screen to see something. A review comparing it to a macbook show it is even poorer quality than mac :frowning:

  • WIFI : needs improvement in stability.
    Had issues on a sketchy wifi at coworking and ended up using my phone s tethering … another guy next to me on a Macbook had no issue.
    Another day I couldn t view a video on the internet for 30 min and had to reset the computer for it to resume.
    The Wifi is even worth than on my E590 and way worse than a Macbook. I hope this comes from the linux kernel and not the hardware itself.

  • Brightness buttons don t work OOB

  • CTRL + tarckpad 2 fingers slide up or down doesn t activate the zoom in chrome

PROS :

  • “Feels premium” like a mac or Thinkpad T

  • Stability : after using it 2 weeks it feels as good as the old thinkpad E590 under linux. It solide and Its my daily driver for work, I don t feel like my laptop will fail on me in the middle of a meeting with 10 persons ! Only issue arround for me is kernel 5.18 needing a patch for OBS studio (v4l2loopback/0.12.5).

  • 13,5" with 3:2 : I was afraid it was too small coming from a 15"; after a day I can say it is (after scaling the screen) very usable as the height is the same as on 15".

  • The hinge works perfect , no wobble at all.

  • The frame itself is very sturdy feeiling; expect the screen that could be a little more compared to my E590

  • Keyboard feeling as good as thinkpad. I was afraid of the up down arrows, but it workes perfectely

  • Trackpad is better than E590

  • Fan cannot be heard on basic web surfing, on gaming it higher but acceptable (deactivated turboboost and ecores)

  • HIDPI on ubuntu mate is wether 100% = too small OR 200% = way too big => solution hidpi X2 + xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --scale 1.4x1.4

  • Sound much better than on thinkpad edge 590. But not as powerfull as a friends macbook pro 15" 2018. This is a game changer since I can now really listen to music without starting my sound box. I can watch films without head sets !

  • can do fn lock to change behaviour of top row keys

  • Powerfull and snappy beast with many cores. But I ended up deactivating most of the Ecores since it is not yet optimized to be usefull in the linux kernel. Why would you need efficient cores to consum more power ? (loosing 1Hour work with 1éth gen)

  • The module thing is actually more interesting than I though: if you have your énd screen on the right, place the HDMI on the right !


  • Played for 2 hours the game metal gear solide V in 1280X800 it is more than 30FPS in medium. The fan kick s in at a reasonable volume but cannot keep the laptop on my lap, it s hot :wink:
    CPU with 8 Ecore deactivated from BIOS, is arround 30% , still lot of room there

  • Battery drain on suspend is comparable to E590 no complain (like 11th gen had).
    Battery unplugged is better than my old computer something like 5-6 hours. Would have been nicer to have a 9 hours to be able to do a full day work
    1 hour video = 15%. So 6hours video playback.

  • SSD samsung 980 1TO (was 1600 Mo/s on 2018 E590) the spec of the SSD are 3500 mo /s which is reached here.

  • Brightness keys don t work OOB but can be fixed. I note that I use brightness a lot because it is mirror like screen, so it needs to be much brighter to not see myself in a mirror : [SOLVED-GUIDE] 12th gen not sending XF86MonBrightnessUp / Down - #28 by Iann_C
    Ready to work :

  • Wifi with good connexion to the router + fibre:


    Encoding 2 VP9 videos at the same time doesn t sloww donw the computer that much, it is still quite responsive even at 100% on the Pcores only :smiley:

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