Watch the Framework 12 and Desktop announcement video. In it they released a few things for the Framework 16 and reiterate that they are fully committed to it. Framework just doesn’t talk about things until they are ready. It is a very wise position to have and it makes a lot of sense.
I personally am not worried that the Framework 16 will be discontinued. If I liked large laptops or wanted a mobile desktop replacement I would buy one today without reservation.
It’s impossible to know, it’s true that there are many rumors that it has been abandoned.
I agree. While I think it is not perfect, nothing is, and there is certainly demand for a 16 inch laptop. I .. have seen equal amounts of Sixteen and Thirteen in my school. I know 3 people that have it already. And I know .. 3? 4? people that have the Thirteen.
I’ll go watch the 12 video.
Yes, but there’s nothing new. They could have fixed known bugs since launch, incorporated a single-piece trackpad, or added colored USB ports or software to control the fans or TDP.
It’s also true that they fixed bugs like the keyboard and thermal paste, which was a success.
Ohh yes, rumors. Always a go-to for good information. Better than listening to Nrp’s comments on it.
Bios updates have… not been FW’s strongest area so far. So anything to do with that, is an indication of nothing. And the same for things such as fan control utilities.
Nothing new, if we ignore their work on bringing us this, frame.work/products/one-key-module. Always good to spend time & effort on new parts for a product line you plan to discontinue. Put up a page where people can register their interest & get notified when it’s available.
Not at all.
But I would recommend reading some reviews, from decent non-click-bait sources. Recommending one at this time or not would be highly dependent on what the person asking values in a laptop, planned usage, etc. It won’t be for everyone, as with most things. Some people do have vaild complaints, but others don’t see those same things as issues at all for them.
Some of the general complaints, and doom & gloom fears of it being discontinued even, I’m sure come from people hoping they would have seen a new version of the mainboard and / or new version of the GPU module. Unfortunately I understand AMD did not put out a suitable CPU or GPU to upgrade to from the current FWL16 ones. One newer CPU was a downgrade in available PCIe lanes & would require FW to cut features.
It would be nice if they still put in the effort to somehow refresh the machine. Maybe with better firmware. Maybe with alternative screen. Maybe with a updated stiffened chassis.
I dont know. My aging Windows install is growing on me a bit.
This is the impression the public (and current customers) logically come to based on the actions (or lack thereof) Framework is showing towards the 16. Statements by the CEO mean nothing without any actions behind it. I have also seen companies act this exact way toward a product right before they decide to discontinue it which is not encouraging.
I do love my 16, but I fear it will become just like any other non-repairable laptop, a one-time buy with stunted after-purchase updates and eventual loss of support.
There are too many issues with it that Framework is being radio-silent on. I have my suspicions on why, and none of them are good.
Unfortunately, when a company is this silent about something, the negative and worst assumptions are what prevail because there are near 0 positive reasons to be so silent.
I think that Framework generally is pretty guarded about future plans. I expect the 16" to be get upgrades and to be supported for a long time. Right now there hasn’t been much in the way of CPU or GPU that would be worth pursuing. We did get the keyboard deflection kit, switch from liquid metal to PTM, and the dual nvme expansion. While that may not be a lot, it is more than nothing.
That is not an excuse to leave all your customers in the dark for current products they paid money for, and it looks really bad despite what they say.
I hope you are right. But before “upgrades”, I really want them to fix all the issues that have been a problem from launch; like waking up in bags, 240w power causing performance issues, usb weirdness (resetting and degrading in certain conditions, seems to be caused by the EC), etc. All of these issues should be fixable with firmware updates. It’s been 7 months since any update has been released. That’s an eternity for computers.
That’s fair. They are getting better, but firmware is still not a strength.
You know, it’s fair to get that impression & have the fear.
I may not agree that it’s most likely, but I’d be lying if I haven’t experienced the fear at times.
I certainly can’t agree there is no reason to not give what many want, and which feels like the only thing that will satisfy quite a few people, a timeline for a future major update. Such as a new gen mainboard or GPU module. But that’s something you often just can not do. Doing it has literally destroyed companies. One so famously it created a term for it, wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect. Who here would buy the current model now, if they knew an update was coming in 6 months? And Framework has repeatedly said that they will not announce plans until they feel they are far enough along with them, to hopefully be past serious delays. They have followed this for FWL13 updates, they’ve followed it for everything, save for the relatively minor full-size SD expansion card where they wanted to do a video series on the process. So, yes they are silent on a timeline or other types of info people want, but that’s exactly what they’ve always said to expect.
But regardless it has to be fair to have the fear, because, one doesn’t care about the why or the details. One just wants to know that something, without a doubt, is coming. And ideally some timeline to plan on.
While I agree with this explanation regarding hardware updates and refreshes, that’s not my concern. I think I remember Sega did a similar thing and tanked a product.
It seems we are talking about two different things. My issue is mostly the lack of fixes for the current hardware (software updates). This is not related to the Osborne effect. In fact, it’s the lack of “software updates” to the existing hardware that I feel is hurting them. When people ask about the FW16, my response is more of a “I love it, but be aware you need to power it all the way off before putting it in a bag or it will come wake up and cook, you can’t use a 240w charger, or some other chargers or it will reduce performance and flag the cpu as overtemp until powered off, oh, and don’t ever power-cycle it too fast or it will completely freak out.”
They are either farming all their firmware development out to places that have no clue what they are doing, or have not hired enough knowledgeable developers to handle the job themselves.
I am pretty happy with the processing power my 16 currently has and am not really looking for a main board upgrade just yet (maybe a gpu upgrade would be nice, though). Side enhancements such as additional input modules, RGB keyboards for more languages (my specific hope would be an RGB keyboard for Linux), would go a long way to increasing value for this platform without causing any “Osborne effect”. I mean, they had an e-ink module in dev before the laptop was even released that was in videos online that hasn’t even been so much as mentioned since. A community member even made an RGB led matrix module that Framework could have easily started producing because all the design work was already completed…but instead nothing.
I think I’m starting to ramble, but it’s just so many things seemed to all halt once the 16 actually came out. Look at all the github repos framework put up for it, stagnated for a year. Additional modules in development seemingly disappeared, etc. I just don’t get it other than Framework decided to stop all dev and improvement on the 16 to move on to other projects.
My thinking is that Framework CEO said it in the next gen event - they took on making Desktop unexpectedly even for themselves because it was an opportunity they wanted to take (32:00 in this video). Since Framework is a small company, they for sure had to do some hard resource reallocation then to make Desktop happen, and it seems to me that Laptop 16 is the one which got the most deprioritized for that.
Any company that isn’t guarded about future plans is just spreading a lot of vapourware to make themselves look big. And then when the actual item arrives it doesn’t have the expected features.
Brings to mind the production release of the Jaguar XJ220 car. When first shown at a motor show it was introduced with a V8 engine and guaranteed to do 220mph, hence the model name. When the actual production cars started shipping about 3 years later (and IIRC it was late shipping) it came with a 6 cylinder engine, and would just reach 220mph in still air on a straight motorway. Many of the pre-orders were cancelled because people weren’t getting what they had been promised.
I’m having a little trouble understanding where the video card specs are. Can someone please explain this to me?
Hello Alex,
Here’s some info on the AMD site about the FW 16 with the RX 7700S graphics card:
https://www.amd.com/en/gaming/laptops/advantage-premium/framework-16.html#specs
You can find benchmarking/spec info for the RX 7700S card here:
The Framework marketplace purchase listing is here:
Hi Conor,
When I’m building the laptop, I don’t see an option for choosing video card, that is why I was confused. So there are no options and I’m going to have to use the AMD 7700S GPU. Is it married to the motherboard? Can I change the video card if I wish to do so?
It’s a separate board that should Framework create an upgraded board, could be replaced without replacing the entire laptop. You can buy the Framework 16 without the optional dGPU.
Please don’t take this as hostile or anything, I’m just genuinely confused but have you looked at the product page or any of the marketing materials for this laptop at all? It doesn’t seem like you know the first thing about this laptop and I think everyone would prefer you understand what you are buying after all.
I was putzing around with the build-your-own and I was not seeing an option to choose the video card which I found confusing. I saw that you can get a separate attachment, which is currently out of stock, but I assumed all laptops came with a video card, hence my confusion. I’m not very knowledgeable, but I know the specs are quite nice for the price. I was just confused that there was no option for the internal video card, hence my question. Hope that clears it up.