Eh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
And I say that as a Thinkpad user (T series). Lenovo has just been riding the “Thinkpad” reputation built by IBM, while letting actual current-day quality and reliability slowly go to hell. Manufacturing defects that they won’t acknowledge, deny warranty claims on, but that Lenovo techs are informed about. I have a model with one such major defect, but luckily it didn’t hit me before I learned about it and could take precautions against it.
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Think that depends on the regional repair partner. So far, experience in Toronto and Hong Kong has been solid in my experience between the years of 2002 and 2018. Though I can’t say how they’ve been in recent years as I didn’t t have a need for repair to begin with in the past 5 years.
A single matte screen replacement is CAD 233 on the FL13.
To be fair, I haven’t seen many reviews on the P14s Gen 4 AMD, there’s this though:
Wish there wasn’t a BIOS bug on the FL13 AMD… would be nice to compare some benchmarks from the same reviewer. I have a feeling the FL13 AMD is the faster unit between the two (base on TDP).
I concur. The only reason I’m moving away from my current 7yo ThinkPad (i7-6500U) is because of the massive drop in quality and poor repairability. Since new, the screen would develop yellow blobs around the bezel from heat be that internal (and fan exhaust) or external (e.g. sun). Not a massive deal breaker, but annoying for a new device. I didn’t want to return it so as not to generate waste unnecessarily for an otherwise working screen.
Since then, the trackpad has been exhibiting weird glitches, random cursor jumps, and unresponsiveness for the last few years. Replaced it - no luck, so probably a mainboard issue. The hinges are so loose now (and can’t be tightened more) that when I pick up the laptop the screen flips 145deg back. You can’t replace them unless you cannibalise another one from the likes of “parts only” on ebay, which would be worth it if I could also make use of the other parts somehow.
The chassis is also cracked here and there. Admittedly, I’ve dropped it a couple of times, but I do look well after my tech overall. The small cracks I have are all pressure cracks from carrying it in a rucksack, often with a lot of other items. Shows you how durable that “magnesium” chassis was in the first place…
Yes, it’s anecdotal evidence. But annoying nonetheless. This is what made me support what FW stand for and opt for a FW laptop instead of another ThinkPad.
But… I will miss the 3 buttons above the trackpad, the trackpoint, and the keyboard. The TP keyboard, albeit dropped a bit in quality too, is still one of ThinkPad’s best quality of life components out there. The shape of the key caps is unbeatable.
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The t/x *60 to *90 series have been rather disappointing. I’ve skipped those. The W and now P series have been decent. I got an X13 Gen 2 (AMD 5850u) grey aluminium recently, and the physical build quality is solid. But yeah, depends on the series and generation you get. Never get any R, E, L series.
I’m the rare OCD type…I don’t drop laptops. Not once in 20 years. Though I did throw one into drywall (Matebook X Pro…complete shite).
Update: That reminds me…the panel bounce / hinge is still going to be an issue with this FL13 AMD revision. Think I have my answer.
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Accidents happen
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I expect gaming (especially when using the iGPU) to be such a legitimate workload. Sure, the Framework Laptop 13 is an ultrabook, but its CPU is being used in gaming handhelds.
The G.Skill lists the same lantency as the Kingston, not slower:
F5-5600S4040A32GX2-R2
Ripjaws DDR5 SO-DIMM
Ripjaws DDR5 SO-DIMM
DDR5-5600 CL40-40-40 1.10V
64GB (2x32GB)
Interesting. The laptop I’ve been using for years and that will be replaced by the Framework is a Matebook D 14 with a Ryzen 2500U. It’s been rock solid other than its specs being a little lackluster.
Fair enough. But also highly dependent on the title, it’s difficult to predict. It also depends if there are any other bottlenecks encountered in the system for a given title. Bear in mind such handhelds would, ideally, be optimised for gaming likely at an OS level too to squeeze the most out of the hardware.
But the difference between CL40 and CL46, all else being the same, IMHO is unlikely to make a tangible difference in experience. Maybe if the clock were higher too.
In any case, I’m not saying faster with lower latency would not be a generally better option - of course. Only that expectations should be reasonable. If anyone happens to have both kits available, ideally from the same manufacturer, it would be interesting to see just how much of a gain, if any, this would provide.
If I’m not mistaken the G.Skill kit is an XMP kit which means it’ll probably run at the standard JEDEC spec in Framework. See the small print:
“*Enable the XMP profile in the BIOS to reach up to the rated overclock speed of this memory kit. Maximum memory speed and system stability depends on the capability of the motherboard & CPU.”
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SPD Speed (Default)
5600 MT/s
SPD Latency (Default)
40-40-40-89
Fair enough… I always find kits with XMP profiles a bit dubious as they generally defer to the highest rated speeds and have a bunch of legalese-sounding language to the effect of “if you aren’t using XMP it’ll run at whatever your hardware supports”. Non-standard speeds have been a mixed bag on Framework and wouldn’t be surprised if they’re doing something similar to Kingston’s PnP under the hood.
Best of luck to anyone testing it.
The media Phoronix couldn’t review Linux on Framework Laptop 13 AMD due to a BIOS issue on the article that is one of the list on the Reviews, AMD Framework-13 Ryzen 7 7840U - "So much better than the Intel version" - #2 by junaruga .
Now Phoronix provided a new long review article with 6 pages for Framework Laptop AMD. And the review looks great.
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