The framework 13 pro is everything I've dreamed about - so why am I wanting to leave the ecosystem?

Framework Laptop 13
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I’m a bioinformatics consultant and a big fan of Linux. I’ve had the Framework Laptop 13 (13th generation) I5 1340P with 32 GB of DDR4 RAM since 2023, after coming from a system76 lemur pro that had two battery failures and a motherboard failure in two years. For the most part I’ve loved my Framework machine. The concept of the modularity, community, repairability, and upgradability have been unsurpassed. Every time someone asks about it, I show them the swappable ports and the removable bezel and webcam. I’ve swapped out the hard drive a couple times and it’s been a breeze. I have peace of mind that if I drop it or a battery dies or the speakers wear out, I don’t have to buy a whole new machine, and this can be the final laptop I buy - a Theseus’ ship of laptops.

I’ve loved the new products Framework is releasing and I kept hoping for a mainboard that I could upgrade to that would increase my battery life, which is generally around 4 hours of internet browsing in Ubuntu. I’ve also noticed that the fans are very loud on my current machine, especially when I play GeForce Now games or join zoom calls, and that I can’t quite get the monitor resolution right - it’s either too large (where I can only fit a small amount of text on the screen) or much too small (where I have to squint and get within a foot of the monitor to view the smallest text). I’ve tried adjusting scaling and zoom, and for the most part I’ve made do (most of my work is on an external monitor anyway), but whenever I use a different laptop monitor it’s always a relief, so I don’t think it’s my eyes.

When the framework 13 Pro came out, it was everything I’d been wishing for - vastly upgraded battery life (which hopefully means quieter fans) and upgraded monitor resolution (for hopefully easier to read text).

The problem is that in order to take advantage of that improved battery life and monitor resolution, I’d need to change out my mainboard, my RAM, and my monitor. If I want to take advantage of the larger battery of the Pro, I’ll also need to swap out my case and keyboard. If I made the swap, essentially I’d only get to keep my hard drive and charger from my existing machine, and (though I haven’t run the numbers) it looks like if I make all these changes piecemeal as individual component purchases, it would be much cheaper to buy a bundled framework 13 pro. I may try to sell my existing machine and get a framework 13 Pro, but the total overhaul of the framework 13 for the pro sort of defeats the purpose of having a modular, upgradeable machine. The RAM is particularly challenging. I get that my DDR4 memory was unlikely to be compatible with future machines, and that the new LPCAMM2 form factor is faster, but if I purchase this extremely expensive memory, I’ll effectively be isolating myself from compatibility with all other framework machines and almost all other laptops currently on the market.

I’m typing this on a MacBook Neo - at $650 for the high capacity model, it’s markedly cheaper than anything Framework offers. Even with only 8 GB of RAM, it has yet to struggle with any task I’ve asked of it. I can play the games on GEForce Now and attend the meetings that used to turn my framework 13 into a whirring furnace without the system even getting warm. It’s making me re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about processor and RAM specs. It’s completely silent, the battery life feels virtually unlimited, and the monitor is extremely easy for me to see and holds a decent amount of text. I’m still getting used to the Mac/Linux divide, but it’s still Unix, and most of my favorite developer packages are readily available on Pixi/homebrew. The ARM hardware works flawlessly with the Apple software. When such an option exists, it’s hard to justify spending $1,300 or more on a machine that might optimistically achieve only similar performance, especially when I already went through this process relatively recently with my original Framework machine.

I never thought I’d wake up one day and abandon my dearly-loved Linux and Framework ecosystem for Apple, especially right after my dream Framework machine was released, but that’s what seems to be happening, and I’m still processing it.

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If you’re doing zoom through a web browser, are you sure you have hardware accelerated video decoding and encoding working? If you are using chrome you can check by typing “chrome://gpu/” into your address bar. This is what I see on mine:

accelerated
accelerated856×729 120 KB

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I’m doing zoom using the zoom snap. I’ve also tried the zoom debian file, google meet (through the web on firefox) and discord. All of them give me noticeable (and sometimes extremely loud) fan noise. I think it might be something intrinsic about how the processor handles video encoding, but it would be interesting to know if there’s some setting that can alter this globally.

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…it ought to ‘just work, optimally’…not a sequence of ‘is it / have you / did you / check this / try that…’ acrobatics. Part of the point of the post…it’s the ecosystem, the experience…

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I also feel that inner divide..
I was dreaming of a significant enough upgrade, to justify replacing my 1240P board and give it a second life as a home server.

The Board + RAM alone is about 700-800€ for 16GB of RAM (depending on RAM prices).
I dont need the new panel, but the trackpad would be nice. So i need the bottom cover Upgrade kit, which is about 500-600€
Then still my SSD is 6 years old and my battery 5 years.

Additionally i would have all the leftovers, that i cannot do anything with and are hard to resell, so i doubt that i could recoup any money here.

I rather feel like the 13 Pro is competing against the Macbook Air, which i can buy right now for 999€.
Sure, if you want a bigger SSD and more RAM, you can get it price comparable or even get the FW cheaper, but the base model is enough for me.

Also the repairability of Macbooks has changed, since FW has entered the scene.
Batteries are not glued in anymore and you have the Self Service Repair Store.
Yes, the parts are expensive, but given the upfront price difference, you can repair the screen and battery and still be off cheaper, than the 13 Pro (at least for the Air).

Looking at Price / Value, FWs were hard for me to justify 5 years ago, but are borderline impossible to justify now.
You really have to stand behind the mission, the concept, Right to Repair, etc.
Really the only thing keeping me right now is Linux and that i cant stand MacOS.

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I had the similar struggle. Similar to the desktop situation: a few years later from now, the mainboard, CPU, RAM will all need to replaced. DDR5 SODIMM is only used for 2 generations…

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Yeah - when the DDR5 RAM is either soldered in (like on the Desktop) or a brand new format (like on the 13 Pro) and the normal cadence of new DDR RAM generations, it’s hard to move forward with confidence that future Framework systems will be compatible with the highly specialized DDR5 RAM I would need to buy for the 13 Pro.

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The RAM changing is the same problem with all Desktops and Laptops.
New mainboard normally means new RAM.
E.g. DDR4 → DDR5. (when moving from AM4 to AM5 desktop sockets.)
DDR5 5600 → DDR5 6300
or LPCAMM 7000 etc.

I still like the fact that one can take an old screen, keyboard, chassis and put a new mainboard in it.
New features come along, like haptic touchpad and higher density batteries, that this time have pushed it to needing a new chassis to accommodate it.
That change is mainly due to the compromises that are made to make laptops thin and light weight.
I don’t see any benefit in size reduction, but I do like light weight.
If the laptop was, say 2-3cm thicker, it could probably have accommodated the changes without needing a new chassis.
I would like to see a thinker display top cover, so one can replace the display panel with anything on the market, or even add other features to it. There is a wide expanse of nothing on the top of the laptop, one could add IO ports, cooling, etc. there if someone thought about it.

What is wrong with a laptop format like:
Toshiba Portege T3600CT

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It’s interesting that you bring up RAM changing with Desktops, because this reminds me that Desktop computers have been essentially fully modular for a long time, yet hardly anyone ever upgrades them. By the time they get old enough to need upgrades, a new generation of processors usually requires a new motherboard and (often) a new generation of RAM, and generally by that time there are more powerful graphics cards available as well. Slowly upgrading a laptop piece by piece is a great idea in theory, but in practice it may not be realistic, which undercuts the benefit of modular, interoperable components, especially when those components are all sold at premium prices.

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I am right there with you. The pro really does check all the boxes, but my beat up Framework 13 with a new Ryzen AI 5 mainboard just chunks along. I have a preorder out there, and the main thing I struggle with is cost. I understand the why for all the changes, and I agree with them. But when it comes down to it, I’ll take my beat up FW13 to a coffee shop, restaurant, or anywhere because it’s not a huge risk. The FW13 Pro, for $3G I would be afraid. Plus, I’ve been saving 96G of DDR5 for but I still don’t know what I’ll put it in. It is my existential crisis for sure.

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The problem is that in order to take advantage of that improved battery life and monitor resolution, I’d need to change out my mainboard, my RAM, and my monitor. If I want to take advantage of the larger battery of the Pro, I’ll also need to swap out my case and keyboard.

Battery life yes, but monitor no. FW is offering chassis upgrade kits for all previous models of FW 13 laptops and they will be including the full chassis, input cover, keyboard, display, speakers… basically everything you need to transform a previous generation into the new.

The pricing for the upgrades will be steep. I’m speculating, based on pricing of the parts in the store, that the kit will cost over 1100$ CAD. I’ll have lots of FW parts to sell. I have a 12th Gen Intel FW 13, and I had planned to upgrade to the 14th Intel Core model, so I have 64GB of DDR5 sitting in a box. I’m wanting the chassis upgrade, the pricing of LPCAMM2 RAM is way to high (and overpriced) to justify the upgrade for me right now.

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I like the fork, understand the fork, and even appreciate the fork. Fork = 13/Pro… And since I have the non-pro 13, maybe that means I’m not really the target audience. Approaching this as someone new to framework, and choosing a platform to host your mainboard is much easier to go one way or the other. But having all my non-pro 13 parts, and wanting the pro is more problematic.

And panther lake doesn’t help.. It’s cool and I want it too.

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I too like framework and what they stand for but am also conflicted about the switch to mac. For me I was excited when I preordered my framework 16 with the 5070. And while waiting for it I decided to pick up a base model macbook air 15 during the holiday sales. I figured I’d hate it and wouldn’t be able to stand it. But instead it fit something I’ve been wanting out of a laptop for years. Now my framework 16 sits on a shelf barely used and my macbook air gets used daily. Part of me now regrets getting the framework 16 and air and not getting a macbook pro 16 instead.

I think part of my dissolution over the framework 16 is linux support on it has had it fill of issues, Wayland and Nvidia don’t play nice and I spent weeks just trying to get it to boot up reliably. Updates keep breaking this or that making me afraid to update to see what gets broken int he next update. The part that makes this worse for me is I had a laptop before running linux with a Nvidia GPU and haven’t had any issues like that. Also been running linux for over a year on my desktop also with a Nvidia card and haven’t experienced any issues like this. (I’ve had many other smaller annoyances related to Nvidia, Namely video decode acceleration issues, just not working or causing lockups.)

Part of this is on me cause my original plan was to get it without the dedicated GPU and get the dedicated GPU as a solution to gaming in the hotter summer months but instead I decided just stick with the Nvidia solution which has been the root cause of most of the Linux related issues, including one were sometimes the GPU doesn’t goto sleep and chews through battery.

I’ll probably keep my framework 16 and dedicate it to mainly a gaming on the go, or during the hotter months and might cough up the investment to go with a macbook pro as my daily driver notebook. I will say that I threw myself into the deep end of the pool by refusing to install windows on my framework 16 even as a gaming computer. But I will continue to support framework in their mission cause I agree with everything they are trying to do.

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I’m surprised that Framework doesn’t have better linux integration on their framework 16. Part of the appeal of framework for me is their support of linux laptops. Thanks, this is good information to have. For gaming, I’ve had great experiences with GeForce Now, especially on my MacBook Neo. It’s a lot cheaper than buying a new graphics card, and it runs on any operating system. I do love the Framework mission but it sounds like implementation and software support leaves something to be desired.

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More than one GPU on linux is a known pain. if you really want the best dGPU and iGPU integration possible for linux, you have to get system76 (and use PopOS) or one of the overseas linux laptop vendors. And even then it’s not as good as gasp windows. Maybe one day, just not today.

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My Lenovo LoQ I was using before the framework 16 did just fine. Part of the reason I got it was to experiment with Linux on it since it had 2 m.2 slots allowing me to easily dual boot. I was using Tuxedo OS which handled the Nvidia stuff “automatically” and until recently didn’t have an issue. Ironically my troubles with getting Nvidia working correctly on the framework 16 is what gave me the know how to figure out what the problem was. I ended up with a newer kernel than the installed Nvidia driver could support.

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Framework Desktop will probably support LPCAMM2 on the next generation since there are laptops with LPCAMM2 running at 8633MT/s and the Desktop’s RAM speed is “only” 8000 MT/s

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Perhaps… they’ve already stated that LPCAMM2 was investigated for the AI Max+ chips and was found wanting.

Plus, on Mini-ITX motherboards horizontal space is usually at a premium. It’d be interesting to see a comparison over which layout takes up more space, 2 vertical DIMM slots or 1 flat LPCAMM2 module.

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I feel you… although my situation is a little different.

I’m a Mac user… have been for over 20 years. My current laptop is a Macbook Pro 14 M2 Max and it’s a bit of a monster. Battery life for days and reasonable graphics performance.

However, Apple is not the company it once was and the software quality has slipped, dramatically. Sure, there are new features crammed in every release but old ones are left to rot and problems with the OS go reported but unactioned for years on end.

My current device will tell me I need to enter my password before I can use TouchID, so I do. Then I put it to sleep, and on the next wake, it will tell me I have to enter my password before I can use TouchID… … … and let’s not discuss the new OS style, I used to think folks were dumb for complaining about the various changes in Aqua over the years, but this new style is not for me, and my Mac is still on MacOS 15.

Apple is also cramming AI into the OS and giving users little option to avoid it. It’s enabled by default and whilst you can turn it off, the next patch for Apple will likely just enable it again. This I do not like.

Then there is the issue of “it the Apple way, or no way” … when it comes to OS’s, it’s macOS or nothing. Asahi seems to be struggling and only runs on M1 & M2 devices, and even then has limitations. It’s amazing what they’ve been able to do given that Apple hasn’t provided anything for them to go on, but it’s not a daily driver. And when it comes to hardware… well, you’re stuck with it. Yes, you may have spent £3,000 on a laptop and only bought 1TB of storage… but if you now want 2TB, be prepared to spend another £3,500 on a new laptop, or have a USB cord and small block dangling from your device at all times. Steve Jobs would not be happy, I think.

So, whilst I mostly love the Apple hardware I am falling out of love with the OS and have moved to a linux desktop (Fedora 44 KDE spin) for my main needs… and an 11th Gen Intel FW13 (Fedora 44 Workstation) for when I’m on the move. The FW13 is fine… but has all the common complaints of an X86/64 based device… random fan noises, terrible battery life and just about enough GPU to run a desktop environment… I’m hoping that Panther Lake will be the start of fixing these issues. Better battery life hopefully means better thermal performance and the better graphics will certainly help for those infrequent gaming sessions.

In addition, Framework will let me upgrade the entire experience over the years to come. And whilst that might not always be the cheapest option, I don’t have to do it all at once and nor do I have to waste the parts that come out.

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Have you seen any that specifically state that they run at those speeds? I only ask because while I’ve seen some machines that include LPCAMM2 modules that support “up to” 8533MT/s, all I’ve seen that specifically state what speed the RAM actually runs at in the machine, it’s 7467MT/s. So I’m just curious.

Either way, if the modules support speeds that high, then it’s at least feasible that we will eventually see platforms that can take advantage of those speeds. But I don’t think they are out there yet.

I see where you are coming from. I think most people probably end up agreeing with you, for the most part.

For me, it was never about the idea of cheap, money-saving upgrade paths, forever upgrading for less money than buying new. Though that may sometimes work out.

For me, Framework is more about the idea that if anything ever fails on the machine, I don’t have to throw away the whole thing. There is a large list of compatible parts to choose from to keep what I have going. And while it may not be cheap, there is at least the possibility of upgrading. For me, the modularity isn’t so much about being able to cheaply upgrade to whatever future configuration happens, or cheaply repair the machine. It’s about the ability to do it at all. And the ability to do it myself.

Yes, it’s very expensive to fully upgrade a “normal” 13 to a 13 Pro. But the fact that the mainboard is still backward and forward compatible means that if the mainboard in my FW 13 dies in a couple years, there will almost certainly be something I can get to swap it out. Or if the display fails, the latest display is compatible too.

And while it may not be financially practical to upgrade a machine to the latest and greatest, I think there are still benefits to the modularity for someone who buys the latest and greatest every so often. If someone wanted to sell their FW 13 so they can get a 13 Pro, I feel like it’s less risky for someone to purchase an older Framework, because they can get parts if something ends up going wrong with it. Again, maybe not “cheaply,” but at least the machine might not end up chucked a landfill.

I have a Lenovo that isn’t much older than the first Framework 13s that released. The battery outright failed about 3-4 years in, and even though it is technically replaceable, it isn’t available. It’s long discontinued from Lenovo. I struggle to even give away an old laptop that only works while plugged in.

Framework certainly isn’t for everyone. And in most cases, I don’t really see it as an option for saving money, even over the long term. The machines are expensive and, as you say, the parts are too. I see Framework more as a premium option. But the premium cost isn’t necessarily for premium performance. It’s in support of the right to repair and right to own what we buy. And it’s in support of a machine that isn’t full of ads, subscriptions, accounts, and data collection. And it is in support of the of the modularity, even if that modularity doesn’t realistically reduce the cost of ownership and upgrade over time.

But like I said, I don’t think your position is uncommon. Even though I think the push from both companies and consumers to make everything as inexpensive as possible is causing problems in some cases, I certainly can’t fault anyone for going with whatever ultimately make more financial sense. I think cost is one reason why Framework does and will struggle to gain massive popularity.

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