Hello everyone,
I’m no longer up to date when it comes to hardware and similar topics. For my work, I’d like to get a convertible. Unfortunately, I need to use Word, Excel, and OneDrive, so I have to install Windows.
I really like the concept of Framework, but purely in terms of performance, other companies seem to offer (significantly) more for the money.Now to my questions:
While watching some videos, I heard mentions of quality issues (for example, the display coming loose in one corner), as well as other parts that weren’t well finished.
What are your experiences with that?
Is the i3 sufficient for working with Office applications (including large files)? I hate waiting times and short interruptions. My current laptop is extremely overpowered in terms of performance.
No problems with that, but there are a few people here who have the frame cracking around the screws (mine doesn’t do at, at least for now). Framework supposedly has fixed this in prodcution.
The biggest downside I have with the Framework 12 is the color fidelity of the screen, most reds looks orangey and it doesn’t support all sRGB colors (properly). So doing graphics design isn’t recommended on that laptop.
The Framework 12 is about as good as a 3 year old office PC. It should definitely suffice for working with large office files, as long as you give it enough RAM. In general usage like office work, web browsing and so on, there’s not really a noticable difference compared to faster laptops or my desktop gaming PC. It’s definitely slower though during CPU intensive tasks like compiling applications in software development and it does only run very basic or older games.
Other people are seemingly much more unlucky than me when it comes to the fw12. Mine has been sturdy and super reliable basically the entire time I’ve had it. No cracking or anything.
I put 48GB RAM in mine (before that much cost an arm and a leg…) and it’s great.
I have two Framework 12s. Both of them have suffered from the cracked bottom plastic case (didn’t affect usage at all). One was replaced, the other I waited until the proper fix was implemented I will probably submit a warranty ticket soon.
Otherwise, both have been very reliable, including the one I have been using pretty much every day for months.
The i3 is certainly fast enough for office applications, including larger files. Just make sure you get a large enough SSD and enough RAM, and you should be good.
Having said all that, there are certainly others on here who have experienced more issues. It seems like Framework either does have a slightly higher rate of defects/build quality issues, or maybe it just seems that way because I frequent these forums, and that’s where people with problems are likely to congregate looking for answers or just to vent. Maybe if I hung out on Dell/Lenovo/Apple forums I’d see lots of people talking about their defects/issues.
Personally, I wouldn’t be too concerned about ordering a Framework based on quality. They do have a warranty and a fairly responsive support team (though there have been some frustrations with them at times as well. Nobody is perfect). But any computer can have issues. Ultimately it will come down to how likely you suspect you are to have issues, how disruptive it would be to you if there was an issue, and how well you expect the company to support the product if you do. So far, I’ve had good luck with Framework. But there are others on here who have seemingly had far more than their fair share of issues.
I’ll add my two cents for office. I am on Fedora and just use the microsoft web apps that I need for work, which works well for me, except for OneNote’s search function.
Which is the reason I’ll try to use that through winboat.
For the other office apps, I have not found anything that missing features. (I’ve only been using it for a month though and depending what kind of tasks you need to do, your mileage may vary).
Wine has evolved very well the last years, I’d say. So I would also say using Windows-Programs on Linux has become much better. Even such programs as winboat (haven’t tested by myself) help the user setting things up.
Okay… I never tried installing Windows apps on Linux – didn’t know that works.
About three to five years ago, I last tried Linux on a second partition. I couldn’t get the printer to work, and even a friend of mine (a passionate Linux user) couldn’t fix it either, so I dropped the project. Now that there are kids, my time is very limited… not sure I want to spend it that way
Since I don’t need to start using the convertible right away, because I already have a working laptop, I can try a small evening project…
I’ve got a different printer now — maybe this one’s a bit less picky
If you have a printer more or less modern good printer it should run without issues. (Most) modern printers can be driverless. So have luck with it. Using the printer over network could be the easiest way.
Using office in the browser should work regardless of the distro you use. It’s just a browser-thing.
Running Windows/Office inside a virtual machine should also run on all distros without issues. There are different approaches to run VMs, but this should be no issue (virt-manager, boxes, ….)
Running office using wine can vary a bit as different distros can use different versions. If you use PlayOnLinux or any other method, theyv all use wine in the end. So I would just use directly, but that’s just my way to go. You can try one of those UIs for wine.
Just to give you and idea how well windows run on Linux, I switched my windows totally off and am playing games just on Linux now (using cachyos and steam - but other distros can do this as well)
those modern i3’s are way more than what you will need for regular office work, and some people even do some basic gaming on it. Specially with a lot of RAM you might get a lot of stuff done, what you might find limiting might be if you do video edition or any kind of 3d rendering or stuff. but for basic office work, that will be a breeze. the biggest issue on Frameworks are the low battery life, other than that, some people have had a super tiny hair think cracking on some framework 12. but they are super repairable and framework has best in class service support and they listen to their users.
