My relation with Framework 13 is complicated. The delivery wasn’t as smooth as I hoped, and I had to wait for a replacement display cable before being able to fully use the laptop.

The keyboard is perfect and I love typing on it. On the other hand, trackpad is meh - I guess it works, but you can press it only in the bottom, and it requires considerable force. Touch-clicking is the way to go. Just bloody copy Apple’s trackpad already!

The fan noise is horrible: no high pitched noise, but one fan simply can’t deal with AI 9 HX 370 heat output: it feels like too much air going through too small a hole; what’s worse the grille outlet is placed straight in front of the display, thus obstructed. Two fans needed, and a proper grill hole output unobstructed by the display.

Otherwise, the performance is great - 96 GB of RAM, 4 TB of SSD and AI 9 HX 370 provide enough power for everything, including AAA gaming on mid settings. Awesome!

Display is great: high DPI (so 2x scaling - perfect on Linux), 120Hz refresh rate. However, I hate the 3:2 aspect ratio. The games hate it and always try to go 16:10 or 16:9; many tools expect 16:10 and require a bit of resizing to get it right, e.g. LazyVim’s explorer on a big-font terminal, or Intellij IDEA, or Thunderbird’s default mail+calendar layout just feels too crammed. Next notebook: definitely 16:9 or 16:10.

The repairability: awesome! The premium feel of the laptop, even though it’s extremely repairable: just perfect. However, the Tuxedo machines are way cheaper, also support Linux, and have 16:10 display and two fans.

The Ports

I love that all USB-C ports are fully-spec’d: power-delivery, USB-C 4, no compromises. Compare that to Tuxedo which only has two USB-C ports, and only the rear one is USB-C 4 capable of driving 5K display. That is just ridiculous Tuxedo.

I also love the configurability of Framework ports, but there are serious downsides. For example USB-A frequently doesn’t work since Linux puts that USB-C to sleep or something, and USB-A card can’t handle wake-up … or something like that, I can’t be bothered with the details. You need to unplug the USB-A connector and plug it back in - WTF? This is just not how things should work on a premium laptop!

Comparison with Apple MacBook Pro 14”

Tricky. Apple went way down with prices recently, and you can get a MacBook Pro 14” M5 Pro 18 core 64GB RAM 2TB SSD for 4099 EUR, while Framework 13” 64GB RAM 2TB SSD costs 3200 EUR (for comparison, Tuxedo costs 2750 EUR). The M5 is just faster than AI 9 HX 370 and way more energy efficient, meaning that the fans don’t spin that hard; and even if they do, they’re way quieter. True you can’t play games on Macs, but I’m sure that Steam/FEX is coming to Apple at some point, and then things will get very interesting.

The touchpad is a night-and-day difference. Framework’s touchpad is just worse than Apple’s, period. The battery life is just better on Apple since x86 is simply worse than ARM.

Too bad I just hate MacOS window manager and it’s a non-negotiable show-stopper for me. Which sucks since I love Notes, Reminders, the iMessage and lots of other things Apple just seamlessly puts into all of their devices. I love other Apple products, and I love the MacBook Pro hardware (it’s just perfect), I just hate MacOS Window Manager.

Verdict

Framework is bit of a hit-and-miss - it got many things right, but too many things are just wrong for the price. Sorry Framework: but next time I’ll probably go with Tuxedo.