I’m Robert J. Sawyer, a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science-fiction writer who lives near Toronto; my website is https://sfwriter.com.
I’ve been using portable computers since 1983 when I acquired an Osborne 1 running CP/M, back then the lightest portable in the world at just 24 pounds!
Until I got my Framework 13 (AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD), my portables and laptops had always been secondary systems, but the Framework (usually docked with two external monitors) is now my primary computer.
I still write with WordStar for DOS, for reasons I explain in this essay — and the Framework 13 appeals to me because of the 3:2 aspect ratio of the screen, which is great for wordprocessing; I also very much appreciate that the screen has a matte finish, rather than a glossy one.
(I’m using Windows 11 Pro on my Framework, and run WordStar and other MS-DOS applications under DOSBox-X.)
Hi! I’m Mathilde, a french girl living in Belgium. I’m an agronomist. I’m not very much of a computer expert. As I was looking for my next computer, trying to find something a bit eco-friendly, something equivalent to the Fairphone but for computers, i came across Framework. I’ve spent hours reading reviews and posts of the community, to try understand if it’s for me, what configuration to choose etc. It’s hard for me to follow as english is not my native langage and even more computer-langage… I’m pretty sure i’m convinced that the Framework 16 is the one for me, even if the ethical concept is not as thorough as I would have liked, i like that it’s modular, evolutive and fixable. I have some questions before making my order, so i’m going to posts them in a another thread i suppose. See you soon
Hi y’all! I’m J. Arath Fuentes, I’m mexican and live right in the border. I am 1 year away from college where I’ll pursue a physics major. I just bought a factory seconds laptop but I am yet to get it in my hands, I’m so excited! Asides from physics, I’m a huge computer nerd and I love all the tinkering and things that are waiting for me, I think I’ll use it heavily for programming, schoolwork and CAD in Fusion360 (I’ll be dual-booting Windows 10 and Artix Linux with a tiling window manager, any tips will be appreciated). At some point, I plan to update it to an AMD mainboard. I chose framework because I was fed up with my Lenovo Ideapad; it’s made of some plastic and much of it is broken right now. I replaced the keyboard myself but it obviously isn’t placed as perfectly as it should, works for now though…
Hey, y’all. I recently got a shiny new Framework 16, rather than getting an MBP. I do cross platform dev, so I’m no stranger to PC, but I’m using this opportunity to leave the walled garden and learn the secret, third option.
Hey I am Jesenko, a long time linux user and software developer living in Denmark. I’ve followed the Framework project for some years and bought a FW13 with an 7640u the day shipments opened to Denmark upgrading from my now very used T480.
The computer is very nice and I really, really enjoy the 3:2 aspect ratio freeing me from a decade plus of 16:9 hell.
Being a tinkerer at heart I found the repairability aspect to be very, very appealing. It reminds me of the IBM ThinkPad era, where basically every part could be bought and replaced and they even went to the trouble of writing the torque spec for all screws in the manual.
At work we have bought Lenovo for ages and have had a lot of issues with their later SKUs so we just received our initial shipment of 10 Framework laptops (4x 13" and 6x 16") to replace some older Lenovo 14".
Hi there, my name is Jakub and I am a software developer from Poland.
I am planning on buying a FW13 laptop but once latest AMD CPUs are available hoping for extended battery life on linux.
While waiting for an announcement of new MB a silly idea came to my mind. I have no experience in designing HW so this can be really dumb, but here it is anyway.
How about designing a new iteration of FW motherboard to consist of two parts: the motherboard itself, and a “daughterboard” that fits into MB like a puzzle piece?
On that DB you place CPU with some clever heat dissipation interface on one side (and possibly a discrete GPU), and on the other side you could put RAM (possibly LPCAMM2 or soldered) and an SSD interface. This way you can have all three components being single digit milimeters apart from one another.
All other stuff stays on MB, and when it comes to upgrade you only replace DB, leaving everything else in place.
Maybe with this design a laptop could fit a larger battery, say up to 80Wh?
Hi all, I am a software engineer from the UK. I have been eyeing up Framework laptops since the 11th gen Intel was released, but my old clunky laptop just wasn’t quite falling apart enough for me to justify an upgrade. After lurking on this forum, following Framework’s social media accounts, and generally teasing myself window shopping on the DIY-laptop-builder-store-page for what feels like forever, I have finally placed an order for a new laptop. I cannot wait for it to arrive!
Hi, I’m Amy. I’m a firmware engineer from the US. I received a FW16 as part of the Framework/NixOS partnership, and I love it so far! The modularity and repairability of it is nice, but it’s also a really nice laptop in its own right. It’s replacing a 9-year-old ultrabook, and I can’t believe how much faster laptops have gotten since then.
I’ll be lurking around the Linux boards, especially topics related to NixOS. I’ve been using Linux for a very long time, and NixOS personally and professionally for a few years now.
That works really nicely for lower-power, lower-bandwidth, lower-complexity applications. The Raspberry Pi Compute Module family and lots of other ARM system-on-modules work that way. They’re designed so that a system designer can build a custom board around them and plug in as much compute power as they need.
I don’t think it really scales up to the kind of performance that we’d expect from a laptop. I’d be worried about adding a connector between mother- and daughterboard since it would impact USB and PCIe signal integrity. I think they’d also have to put the power electronics, chipset, and other supporting devices on the daughterboard. At that point, the daughterboard would be almost the entire motherboard as it exists today.
Hey!
I’m a software developer in the US. I heard about FW only a few months ago from a friend.
I just got the AMD 7840U version FW13 a couple weeks ago. My wife and I had a first-gen surface book with performance base that died a couple months ago (might be slate battery, but haven’t tried to dismantle it yet). My older, backup laptop also starting having HW problems last month, so it was time to get something new.
When choosing a new laptop for myself, I would usually go for a Thinkpad. However I haven’t liked the direction they’ve gone recently.
I researched FW a bit, and liked the mission. I’m fully on board with “right to repair”, and am thankful the EU has been able to push that, so the US gets dragged along.
Aside from a few nitpicks (underside vent, mixed-height arrow keys, MediaTek wifi, and the size of the expansion modules), I absolutely love my FW. The benefits outweigh the issues for me.
I’m definitely recommending it to everyone I know (ahead of Thinkpad I usually recommend).
Hi,
I’m a freshman college student in Physics at the ENS Lyon, in France, I also work in software engineering and AI/ML research, I’m a big Linux enthusiast and free software advocate.
I’ve wanted to buy a framework laptop since the launch of the company, due to it’s commitment to open-source, the quality of the product and because I like do repair and build things myself !
I just ordered a FW13 with an AMD 7000s series yesterday. I cannot wait to install Arch and tinker with it !
I’ve seen some of the community projects, expansion cards and stuff, and it looks amazing. I hope I’ll be able to contribute !
