Long-time owners, what are your impressions on the build quality and feel?

Framework Laptop 16
61

Big up on the transparency part.

Keep in mind my bias: I got unlucky with RMAs and stuff. I have a bent keyboard that makes weird noises, a chassis that flexes more than I’d like, uneven CPU thermals and frequent screen flickering and graphical artifacts.

Put that away - my experience as a pre order customer was that the transparency that bad been great throughout the wait before the pre-orders got shipped quickly disappeared when crap hit the proverbial fan.
I still remember one event in particular: the first round of press reviews was out - and they were middling, to say an understatement. Some rushed order cancellations ensued, the community didn’t really like it - I think that is about the time where, resding the room, I felt the hype mostly die out. There was still the wait for the batches but… the temperature has been adjusted.
Framework’s response was to send out and E-mail and a blog post where some good things said in middling reviews had been cherry-picked to try and make the point the reviews were great. People reacted exactly as you would expect. Framework only then worked on probably their last transparent piece of communication for this laptop, an apology and a plan to fix the keyboard mushiness.

I feel like it’s been quiet since, and the silence on the thermal situation in particular is deafening. Someone posted the link from the forum over to the subreddit and a ton of people have started catching on.

I am also feeling like the RMA procedures have gotten more laborious since the return window has been over. Replacing my initial DOA device was nice and sweet - 3 emails, new laptop. Boom boom go. Future inquiries have gotten much more laborious, the demands more prying. On one of them the final outcome - even after sending the device in - was “the issue you are claiming exists does not exist”, and this new one on the graphical artifacts is proving to be a very laborious amount of work that is definitely taking me a ton of time. And what’s most worrying: the artifacts are random, I cannot just take a photo of them. Will this issue get brushed off as “it’s in your head” too? I certainly hope not, because I am having all of the obvious signals of a dying hardware component, and if this RMA ticket goes as the last (more cosmetic) went, then I will be forced to accept the loss of €2000 and get something else. Wouldn’t even make sense to cover the cost of a new board myself, between the QA and fitment issues I had, and the fact that Ryzen 7040 has become such a consolidated platform that the pride difference between a new mainboard and a new laptop with comparable specs is… actually not a lot.

It’s in the transparency, yes. A major reason why I stayed in the pre order phase for an year was that the company was refreshingly transparent and open. Now, according to my own experience, it is starting to approximate the experience I had with Lenovo and Dell. Fingers crossed though: hopefully the heavy-duty troubleshooting that I have to do now will be enough to either identify a software cause or process my RMA this time.

I have too read on the new position. For a change, that’s an incredibly good signal and a concrete move that leaves me very hopeful.

2 Likes
62

^ Framework is looking for a Firmware Software Engineer. Says “flexible work hours and locations” but not sure what that entails. Unfortunately I don’t have much expectations in sw engineering.

At my work my team comprise of members all over the world.

1 Like
63

I don’t think the frequency of BIOS update is a big metric. There has been multiple incidents (from Dell and Lenovo alike) of screwing something up in a BIOS update only to later correct it. The T470S my friend has now gone to 300MHz (rather than 1.7GHz or whatever) as soon as you unplug, because a borked power thing. I don’t know when it was recently fixed, but at some point. And my Dell 3511 also had a BIOS incident or two (some storage thing).
Timely security patch is nice, but it’s also nice knowing that my BIOS update won’t cause part of my system to not work.

I do think they could have added a lot more BIOS options. Compared to Dell’s, it’s missing quite a few “nice to haves”.

hm. Does it have built-in system tests?
… ooh no it doesn’t. But it has blink code?
I don’t think these are “hard” issues. Lack of TDP or whatever complain is in theory a BIOS update away. We should focus on the hardware, as the thread is.

64

Hello! I haven’t been on the forum in a while but I was curious to visit and see what the community has been up to and this thread caught my attention. For reference, I am a batch 1 FW16 user (7840HS, no dGPU). I personally have been overall very happy with my laptop besides 3 major personal annoyances.

  1. The lid. It has been a topic discussed since the very beginning (regarding its flimsiness) and it really didn’t bother me much at the start. However, the more and more I used it, the more it became a point of dissatisfaction for me. To be clear, it hasn’t and doesn’t feel like it could break from just opening and closing but it definitely is not nearly solid enough. The center of the lid is especially a problem as simply pressing on it, I can see the lid bending down.

  2. Another topic discussed since the beginning and is more of a cosmetic thing but the tolerance of the touchpad spacers has been pretty annoying. It hasn’t caused any functional problems but it is almost always very noticeable seams/misalignment.

  3. This last one is in my opinion the most important and that is software problems. I am running windows 11 and overall, I haven’t had any major issues. However, there are 3 main issues that happen at least once a week.

    • Firstly, my palm pressing in the wrong spot (which seems to be relatively random) on the touchpad module could cause it to “disconnect” and the quickest way of fixing it is to just completely remove the touchpad and connecting it again. Takes about 2 sec but is definitely intrusive to my workflow.
    • Second, I am not sure if this is a FW16 specific issue or just a windows 11 issue but sometimes, connecting/disconnecting the charger (especially when the lid is closed) would cause the computer to severely lag to the point that even just moving the mouse is causing the laptop to lag severely and overheat. The only solution I have found to this problem thus far is to just restart the laptop which is relatively quick thanks to NVME but is again intrusive to my workflow.
    • Lastly, I am again unsure if this is a FW16 specific driver issue or just a windows 11 issue but I frequently have problems with my earbuds (WF-1000XM5). I will get this issue where the earbuds will randomly just stop responding to volume adjustment. They connect fine and I can hear audio but the volume is stuck at the same level and adjusting the windows volume does not change anything. The reason I think it may be a driver issue is because 1) adjusting the actual app/website volume works but changing the windows volume does not. 2) blutooth sometimes disappears altogether from device manager even though the earbuds are connected and I can hear the audio (except for the previously mentioned bug/issue). Again, the only way i have found of fixing this is to just restart the laptop completely.

Sorry for the long post but I haven been here in a while and wanted to share some stuff. I have not had the time to reach out to customer service (personally I would prefer just restarting the laptop and just move on rather than wait going back and forth trying to troubleshoot). if anyone has experienced similar issues I would love your input. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

TLDR: overall great laptop except for some cosmetic/minor hardware quality issues and some software/driver issues.

4 Likes
65

“Nice to haves” do add up, it becomes a ‘value’ consideration if you ‘use’ any of those nice to haves.

2 Likes
66

BIOS update? 3.0.3 is out for a while now. You can get it from msinfo or just go to bios.

67

msinfo says my bios is…
INSYDE Corp 3.04 9/07/2024.
Is this different, and later, than version 3.0.3 (and isn’t that meant to be 3.03)?
I thought I downloaded and installed an updated version BIOS 3.04 from somewhere on the Framework website.
Cheers

68

I have the 3.0.4 too:

 • System Firmware
(fwupdmgr:20001): FuMain-DEBUG: 12:18:26.386: current version is 0.0.3.4: 0.0.3.4=same, 0.0.3.3=older
69

interesting. Mine is 3.03 still, I ordered like Oct 12th.
They don’t have a 3.04 release yet, I don’t think.

70

I think you have to enable the “beta” branche to see it in fwupdmgr.

71

this could be why he is having issues.
I don’t even know they have a firmware update manager. This is kind of cool.

72

I think my FW16 is no better or worse since going to BIOS ver 3.04, I was having issues before the BIOS update (although I’m not a Tech to be able to test system performance and bugs, just an ordinary Windblows user)…
Running the iGPU only, no expansion bought with my laptop.
Cheers

73

Thanks for your input! I haven’t hard your Bluetooth issues on Linux, and the lag after changing power state is transient, it usually goes away. Software wise, these issues honestly seem to be par for course for an AMD laptop. After 3 AMD laptops, the overall impression I got about them is that you put up with shoddy and unrefined software in exchange for the performance you get. It’s usually “Intel for the software, AMD for the hardware”. Oh all my Ryzen 7’s 5800H, 6850U and 7840HS (this one) I have encountered a lot of weirdness that Intel systems just lack. The experience has been similar with a lot of people in my friend group: across Ryzen’s 5825U (ThinkPad E14), 5700U (Yoga something), 7840U (EliteBook 845), has mostly been similar. My laptop is the one that has given the most issues (graphical artifacts and display flickering), but I am invretigating this with support and it might just be a rare single-unit thing, rather than a widespread issues. But yeah… in the same group, people who have Intel-based laptops have never had a single software problem. They get really hot and drain the battery faster, though. It’s a trade-off. I would say that for a personal use laptop it makes sense to take the “AMD compromise” for better overall performance and efficiency, it won’t be a critical machine and you will generally enjoy it more. But if my employer tasked me with choosing a work laptop for myself on a budget, I would go for Intel.

I share your concerns on the lid. It doesn’t bother me that much, but I hope it won’t break.

74

I am leaving an update and a finding for posterity: while having to disassemble my mid plate various times for an unrelated Support troubleshooting step, I have accidentally found out that, if your keyboard looks as bent as mine did and if it just sounds “wrong” and inconsistent, the way you install your mid plate makes a serious difference in the feel you are going to get.

Especially, you don’t want to be doing these two errors:

  1. Do not press down on the mid plate while you are screwing it in, this bends it down!
  2. Although the screw is capable of going much further down before being overtightened, you must stop as soon as you begin feeling a little bit of resistance and the screw is seated in enough not to damage a module you will install, it does not have to protrude up.

Knock on wood: it didn’t completely solve my build quality woes, but it offered a remarkable improvement in the “solidity” feel and sounds made by the keyboard and touchpad. Some keys still sound inconsistent, like 6,7 and some of the F keys in that area because they are at the edge of the mid plate with nothing applying resistance from below so they’re just left hanging, but it’s made everything much more robust and enjoyable. I recommend doing this if you stumbled across this thread looking for solutions

1 Like
75

In case this is somehow caused by poor contact, I can endorse WD-40 contact cleaner. Helped me get my AirPods charging more consistently after a while as the contacts in the case got covered with stuff.

76

What I don’t understand is…

If they know that there are errors in the quality control of the equipment, for example, defective parts, casing that loses color and scratches easily, electrical sounds and other defects…

Why don’t they stop production and correct them? What’s the point of selling a laptop with those defects?. Unless those defects have already been corrected, but we do not know this due to the lack of communication from the framework team.

Another scary thing is the lack of communication, very little transparency as well as the number of requests from unattended users without forgetting the large number of support complaints.

All of this seems like a flight forward and it should not be like that.

They must be sincere, talk openly about the problems of the laptop, its plans and the real situation of the press.

But here we have many users exposing the defects of the latop 16 and I don’t see framework correcting them for future units beyond the keyboard.

This is a disaster.

77

Batch 1 user here. My device looks and feels like the day I got it. No complaints here.

1 Like
78

Same. Works as expected.

2 Likes
79

Just came across this…sounds familiar. The world of manufacturing is pretty cutthroat (time-stamped to 11:02):

80

Just gonna chime in here. Batch 9 I think. Ran in tandem with my Framework 13 until the wifi and hibernate issues got sorted, and now it is the machine I use exclusively.

Build quality is pretty good, with the following exceptions:

  • those panels alongside the touchpad just do not line up, and it looks even worse when you offset the touchpad so the two panels are next to each other

  • the power brick constantly disconnects. This is due to the USB-C connection on the transformer being, I dunno, too tight or too loose or something. Shifting the laptop slightly can plug it, which caused quite a bit of lost work for me until I set it to hibernate when the battery went under 5%.

  • occasional video card lockups, generally when you least expect it (browsing the web without video, opening a GUI application, etc), This is pretty common with Linux video card drivers so it’s probably AMD’s fault.

Everything else seems pretty good. I run Debian and it all just kinda works. No scratches or dings or anything, but I don’t drop it that much.