I just upgraded RAM(4 -> 12 GB) and HDD to SSD of a 8 years old laptop and it became a lot more responsive. Laptops now a days are not upgradable and companies claim they are doing so to build lighter laptops but framework is proving all of them wrong
> and companies claim they are doing so to build lighter laptops
A framework 13" is 15.9mm thick and weighs 2.9 lbs. A macbook air M1 is 16.1mm thick and weights 2.8 lbs. So it's pretty darn close.
I'm sure that thinner and lighter laptops exist, but yeah, the framework is pretty thin. And at a certain point, it stops mattering. Being thinner wouldn't really provide much utility at this point.
The fact is that repairability is just not profitable for companies like Apple or Dell. They would rather you replace your entire computer when your screen cracks. But I very much hope that enough people do care about repairability to keep Framework afloat (and profitable). As an owner, I was astonished how easy it is to take this thing apart and replace things; I would guess that most of my non-technical friends can probably replace a monitor or a touchpad on one of these laptops with very little difficulty.
I’ve got a framework 13, and am in the “I wish I just bought the MacBook Air” camp.
The battery life is terrible, the speakers are terrible, the thermals are terrible. It may be thin and light, but the different levels of R&D really show.
FWIW, I'm a recent owner of a Framework Laptop 13, 13th gen 1370p. I am extremely happy with it. w/regards to battery life, I'm doing ~4.5watts idling/text-editing, screen on, wifi on. That is more efficient that I got out of my 5850u I had before this. I get about 9ish hours of battery life. You do need to run things like thermald, tlp and set the lower tdp setting in the bios (max battery setting lowers the tdp afaik). Fan barely turns on. I could probably take it further with ectool tweaks. Edit: to add, powertop is your friend! measure. Anything above 6watts usually means something is doing something (this ball-park 6watts comes from experience, last 3ish devices - anything lower than that whilst doing things == great. I do about 8ish watts when using VA-API to play video for example, which I find very reasonable + similar to my previous 5850u).
It is currently - tried a couple of distros (arch, Ubuntu) with different combinations of the recommended (and other) tweaks. Windows seems to sip battery compared to both.
It’s scale, too, isn’t it? At Apple scale you get better materials, better engineering at every level, and better testing processes—for the same or less money.
I admire Framework for achieving what they’ve done, modest though the success is in absolute terms. That said, they’re also probably still burning venture funding. Hardware disruption is hard.
The tradeoff is that the Framework's battery life is garbage. I had laptops a decade ago with 2x the battery life. I'm lucky to get 3 hours of battery doing web browsing, and standby/hibernate on the Intel processor in it is so bad that it'll fully discharge in less than 12 hours doing literally nothing.
I really want to like it, but my Framework is literally a worse user experience than my old 2016 Macbook Air and it's probably 3x the price at this point. Playing even a lightweight game makes the fans ramp to a frustratingly loud level and I essentially have to keep it plugged in at all times.
It's also hard to express how oddly problematic having a 4x3 display in 2023 is. Almost literally nothing expects that.
Yeah, I'm with you on the battery life. Though I don't understand where you get the 12-hour figure for a full discharge while in suspend. In that time period I lose about 20%. (If you're running Linux, try changing from 's2idle' to 'deep' sleep; not sure if it's possible to change this on Windows.)
The thermals are indeed terrible. My 12th-gen has this issue where it will sometimes overheat, and the firmware will lock all CPU cores at 400MHz (yes, MHz) for anywhere between 1 and 20 minutes, even though temperatures drop down to reasonable levels within seconds. Support has been completely unhelpful, and Framework doesn't even seem to be acknowledging the problem (which has been reported by quite a few people on their community forum).
The display is actually 3:2, which is just bonkers. At least 4:3 would be somewhat reasonable (if very mid-00s), but who has ever had a 3:2 display for anything? I kinda get why they decided against a widescreen display: the mainboard needs to be 'taller' to accommodate the RAM and storage slots and the spacing for the expansion ports, and a 16:9 or 16:10 screen would mean a 'shorter' chassis, which would lead us to a much smaller battery. But man, the screen is just weird.
The Framework 13's screen is not 4:3, it's 3:2 (2256x1504), just like a Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (and others). 3:2 is widescreen-ier than 4:3. I had a Surface from work and found no issues with using a 3:2 aspect ratio, so I'd be baffled if the user experience with the Framework differs. Most (all? I kinda stopped caring) iPads, incidentally, are 4:3.
