4 ms·

I'll chime in and say that I love my FW13. It's a great machine. I got the DIY kit and had my 7yo put it together. It was straightforward with a little help fro

I'll chime in and say that I love my FW13. It's a great machine. I got the DIY kit and had my 7yo put it together. It was straightforward with a little help from dad (even installing Ubuntu!). Now we fight over who gets to use it.

nrp 3y ago
It's awesome to hear that. A big part of creating Framework was the urge to prevent a world where kids could no longer tinker with their parents' computers.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  That's wonderful to hear. I attribute my innate love of computers to my father making a mess of the kitchen table while working on the family PC.
- thenobsta 3y ago
  Love it. I'm excited to upgrade the mainboard and to put the old board in a new shell or the cooler master case. We'll see what the kiddo wants to do. Maybe she'll become a gamer and we'll get a 16. Anyway, you've got my total support and $. I get that we're a niche market though. It would be great to see my non-techie friends sporting the Framework Gear -- I think they'd love the pre-built machine, but the messaging steers them to thinking it's only for DIY-ers. E.g. -- My sister would love the FW13 because she doesn't have special performance needs and cares about sustainability, but she got very intimidated buying an MBA, so guiding her through buying a Framework will be some work on my end (...messaging that would land for her would be that Framework solves all your basic problems (browsing, video-chatting, and netflix) and when you need more power you can upgrade for only the cost of the components).
- ornornor 3y ago
  Any chance you’ll ship to Switzerland soon? Our only options are to ship it to Germany or France, go pick it up, pay import fees and taxes on top of the country’s 20% VAT, and then be denied warranty because delivering to a pick up address voids the warranty. It’s quite frustrating :/
  - grudg3 3y ago
    Tagging onto this, I still am unable to buy it in NZ, after expressing interest 2 years ago.
dheera 3y ago
I love my FW13 too. I just wish it had more options for components. I can of course pick my own SSD and RAM configuration but that's true of every Lenovo laptop. I wish I could get a 4K screen, an eInk screen, a touchscreen, a Dvorak keyboard, a OLED keyboard, an IMU/GPS/barometer expansion module, a pico projector expansion module, a software-defined-radio expansion module, a larger aperture webcam module, an IR webcam module, a depth camera webcam module, an Arduino expansion module, an IR emitter expansion module that controls TVs, etc etc etc. But nobody seems interested in making this stuff. I guess the community that uses Framework laptops isn't really capable of that level of hardware engineering (me included) and the companies in China doing hardware haven't caught onto making stuff for Framework.
- nrp 3y ago
  We've seen Microcontroller, SDR, and IR Expansion Cards from the community! We'd definitely love to see some of the even more complex ones though, and expect that as the community continues to mature and grow, some will make it through: https://community.frame.work/c/developer-program/85 https://community.frame.work/c/developer-program/85
  - dheera 3y ago
    Yes, I've seen those though unfortunately I'm not a hardware engineer and would have a hard time reproducing them. Even if I could figure out how to get a PCB made from a KiCAD file I wouldn't be able to do the surface-mount soldering without botching everything. I'd love to be able to just pay for them and buy them and then get rolling with software :)
    - iguessthislldo 3y ago
      I just got my AMD Framework 13, which I'm mostly happy with, but I'm in the same boat. It's great that's it's possible to attach these devices to the laptop, but the true nature of this seems to be that you have to make these things because there isn't a real market for them beyond what Framework is selling. I did come up with something I would want enough that I'm willing to try to make it though. Taking inspiration from some other modules like it, I'm currently looking into adding this microcontroller with a transparent case: https://github.com/01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB https://github.com/01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB If I'm happy with it, I was going to try to have it show battery status like some other laptops have. This might be possible by wiring up another microcontroller to the SMBus on the battery. I'm still researching that part though.
nextos 3y ago
How are the thermals and fan noise?
- Asmod4n 3y ago
  According to the reviews i've seen its about 20 degrees cooler than other laptops with the same spec, making it way more quiter. The battery time is also several hours longer than compareable laptops of the same size.
  - nextos 3y ago
    And fan noise at idle / web browsing?
    - Asmod4n 3y ago
      the fans turn on later than laptops of other brands do, so probably silent. but when they turn on they are a bit louder at first, but goes down rather quickly.

nrp 3y ago

It's awesome to hear that. A big part of creating Framework was the urge to prevent a world where kids could no longer tinker with their parents' computers.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
That's wonderful to hear. I attribute my innate love of computers to my father making a mess of the kitchen table while working on the family PC.
thenobsta 3y ago
Love it. I'm excited to upgrade the mainboard and to put the old board in a new shell or the cooler master case. We'll see what the kiddo wants to do. Maybe she'll become a gamer and we'll get a 16. Anyway, you've got my total support and $. I get that we're a niche market though. It would be great to see my non-techie friends sporting the Framework Gear -- I think they'd love the pre-built machine, but the messaging steers them to thinking it's only for DIY-ers. E.g. -- My sister would love the FW13 because she doesn't have special performance needs and cares about sustainability, but she got very intimidated buying an MBA, so guiding her through buying a Framework will be some work on my end (...messaging that would land for her would be that Framework solves all your basic problems (browsing, video-chatting, and netflix) and when you need more power you can upgrade for only the cost of the components).
ornornor 3y ago
Any chance you’ll ship to Switzerland soon? Our only options are to ship it to Germany or France, go pick it up, pay import fees and taxes on top of the country’s 20% VAT, and then be denied warranty because delivering to a pick up address voids the warranty. It’s quite frustrating :/
- grudg3 3y ago
  Tagging onto this, I still am unable to buy it in NZ, after expressing interest 2 years ago.

dheera 3y ago

I love my FW13 too. I just wish it had more options for components. I can of course pick my own SSD and RAM configuration but that's true of every Lenovo laptop. I wish I could get a 4K screen, an eInk screen, a touchscreen, a Dvorak keyboard, a OLED keyboard, an IMU/GPS/barometer expansion module, a pico projector expansion module, a software-defined-radio expansion module, a larger aperture webcam module, an IR webcam module, a depth camera webcam module, an Arduino expansion module, an IR emitter expansion module that controls TVs, etc etc etc. But nobody seems interested in making this stuff. I guess the community that uses Framework laptops isn't really capable of that level of hardware engineering (me included) and the companies in China doing hardware haven't caught onto making stuff for Framework.

nrp 3y ago
We've seen Microcontroller, SDR, and IR Expansion Cards from the community! We'd definitely love to see some of the even more complex ones though, and expect that as the community continues to mature and grow, some will make it through: https://community.frame.work/c/developer-program/85 https://community.frame.work/c/developer-program/85
- dheera 3y ago
  Yes, I've seen those though unfortunately I'm not a hardware engineer and would have a hard time reproducing them. Even if I could figure out how to get a PCB made from a KiCAD file I wouldn't be able to do the surface-mount soldering without botching everything. I'd love to be able to just pay for them and buy them and then get rolling with software :)
  - iguessthislldo 3y ago
    I just got my AMD Framework 13, which I'm mostly happy with, but I'm in the same boat. It's great that's it's possible to attach these devices to the laptop, but the true nature of this seems to be that you have to make these things because there isn't a real market for them beyond what Framework is selling. I did come up with something I would want enough that I'm willing to try to make it though. Taking inspiration from some other modules like it, I'm currently looking into adding this microcontroller with a transparent case: https://github.com/01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB https://github.com/01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB If I'm happy with it, I was going to try to have it show battery status like some other laptops have. This might be possible by wiring up another microcontroller to the SMBus on the battery. I'm still researching that part though.

nextos 3y ago

How are the thermals and fan noise?

Asmod4n 3y ago
According to the reviews i've seen its about 20 degrees cooler than other laptops with the same spec, making it way more quiter. The battery time is also several hours longer than compareable laptops of the same size.
- nextos 3y ago
  And fan noise at idle / web browsing?
  - Asmod4n 3y ago
    the fans turn on later than laptops of other brands do, so probably silent. but when they turn on they are a bit louder at first, but goes down rather quickly.