7 ms·

My first-gen Framework 13 with Ubuntu is usable, but has major issues around power. Battery life is very poor compared to ordinary laptops (I get ~3 hours of we

My first-gen Framework 13 with Ubuntu is usable, but has major issues around power. Battery life is very poor compared to ordinary laptops (I get ~3 hours of web browsing and light coding), and compared to M-series Macbooks (which have extraordinary battery life >8 hours) it is abysmal. Suspend/resume often fails in strange ways, and occasionally even power on is problematic (e.g. battery is full but it won't turn on without being plugged into a charger). Repair-ability and running OSS software is an idealistic goal that I share, however in practical terms the need to repair a laptop is very rare. So when it breaks, I'll be well ahead of the curve; when it doesn't, which is most of the time, I'm behind the curve.

linguae 2y ago
I also have a Framework 13, and I agree that Apple’s ARM laptops have amazing performance per watt. The reason I have a Framework 13 instead of an ARM Mac is user-serviceability and cost savings. There is 32GB of RAM in my Framework, and at any time I could choose to upgrade to 64GB whenever necessary. However, because RAM in ARM Macs is integrated into the system and is not a separate user-replaceable component, I must purchase the maximum amount of RAM I could afford upfront, which is prohibitively expensive for me. I also do not like how storage is built-in instead of available as NVMe M.2 modules. I miss the days of my 2006 MacBook and my 2013 Mac Pro, which were both easy to upgrade. It’s this lack of upgradability in recent Macs that led me to switch to PCs despite my preference for macOS over Windows and desktop Linux. With that said, if a company offered me the choice between a PC or a Mac, I’d pick the Mac every time. It’s different when someone else is paying ;).
- MBCook 2y ago
  I’m firmly in team Mac. And I really don’t care about upgradability that much. I’m OK with buying up front. But Apple’s BTO prices are, as everyone knows, totally insane. Combined with pathetic base amounts it really burns people. I know a lot of Mac fans who keep putting off upgrades because it costs so much to get a decent config.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulmd 2y ago
    There are some decent sales on B+H and Microcenter on older higher-spec units. B+H had a 16” MBP M1 Max 10/32 (upper bin) with 4TB/64GB for $3.3k (then $3k, lol jebaited) this time last year. Microcenter has M1 Max 14” 64GB/1TB (yeahhh 1tb but it’s ok) for $1800 right now, refurbished tho. And stuff does go on sale in the refurb store too over time, and “factory refurbished” woot are also AppleCare eligible, factory refurb (which the microcenter don’t appear to be?) may also be the same at other vendors so just a thing to keep an eye on. Usually it’s in the About, and you can jump to a system report by holding down option when clicking the apple menu and it’ll be an option. TIL and I’m passing it on. Apple: you can (not) discover AppleCare is more worth it on a loaded out newer laptop imo. If you have a $3k laptop you are committed to getting it fixed for a while. It maths out that if you break a screen you’re break even. Whatever. I’ll probably lose the bet but things like tile and stone will fuck up a screen if it gets any velocity at all, hard surface impacts suck. I bought a nice laptop because I want to carry it around outside etc and still be able to do whatever I want off the plug. And M1 Max is perfectly fine at that, really the popularity of the M1 has massively eroded most of the M2 and M3’s thunder. “More perf more power” was only a narrative that mattered (throttle to whatever you want, and efficiency goes up anyway) because the price gradient from M1 has always been insurmountable. (original German, machine auto translation English at the top with the flag) https://www.notebookcheck.com/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-X-Elite-in-der-Analyse-Effizienter-als-AMD-Intel-Apple-bleibt-aber-klar-vorne.847341.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.com/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-X-Elite-in... M4 Max is the first time I’m interested, primarily because of SVE and true neural accelerator APIs not through metal. And a lot of cumulative gains too, of course. AV1 encode and decode, way better perf and much better graphics, etc. I’ll definitely wait at least another gen most likely (get M4 Max on firesale?) but there really is starting to be a more substantial difference than people realize. Honestly the air 15” is also a very compelling form factor if they give you a second pixel pipe in the m4 (does it? I thought I read it did). Especially if they get it to 32gb on the top sku… fine. Even 24gb is fine for what it is and those M2 Air 15” 24GB/1TB SKUs are down to $1700 or something in the refurb store. 14/16" MBP 32GB/1TB M1 Max are also perpetually cheap, I've seen them down below $1400 iirc. Standard/popular work laptop. It’s been nice having the M1 Max and doing inference on the gpu, dolphin-mixtral etc are super useful and actually helpful in on tons of first-pass summarization of a niche etc. I would like more, I hope AMD lets the gpu allocate unlimited memory on Strix halo. Half the time it's plugged in as a pseudo workstation, doing some AI shit and tinkering and generally just being a beefcake with crazy memory b/w, triple thunderbolt, etc, half the time it's out on the (stone) patio or a table out in the lawn sipping power, with a nice bright screen (the fingerprints tho...) while the dogs play (and one of them is on a tieout, so he knocks things over, etc). And whether or not it's a gimmick ($350 for the 3-years and I break even if I have a screen break? i'm ok with this) it's given me peace of mind to just carry it around and use it. I've totally been able to spend way more time out with the dogs with a nice laptop again. It's been a huge QOL change to get a portable workstation slash do it all thin-n-light with great build quality, a well-supported unix ecosystem and pytorch ecosystem, a performant GPU with a good library and broad application support, super great efficiency, high-end AI/ML model capability, a nice screen, a reasonable keyboard, tons of thunderbolt... the MBA was nice but something bigger is nice outside, and it sold me on the expensive loaded out laptop actually because it was such a good user experience just as a unix user. I've used linux plenty, I've used windows (mostly for gaming now), I've used freebsd, part of the ick people feel is just because they aren't used to bsdutils. Yes, they're archaic and different etc. They're also a cohesive ecosystem of their own, this largely isn't an apple thing. And apple is actually ironically really good about letting you have command-line utils to set file associations, bless apps (ie grant security console privilege toggles), etc, and applescript/shortcuts is always the weird fallback interface. (Apple has had a long history of writing all their stuff as Intents, that's a hypercard thing, if not before right? And applescript/shortcuts just lets you push the buttons of the intents just like siri. You can actually make a ton of shortcuts which un-annoyify ios, in particular. "Airdrop on" right there on my home screen. Living in the 21st century.)
OJFord 2y ago
> My first-gen Framework 13 with Ubuntu [...] (I get ~3 hours of web browsing and light coding) Mine is significantly better than that, I don't mind saying it doesn't last as long as my (I think M3 Max) MBP, but it's not that bad. I use Arch rather than Ubuntu, and I think have 'tlp' or something installed as generally recommended (for any laptop), but haven't otherwise done anything special. I haven't even updated the firmware/BIOS, which I think is supposed to offer a battery life improvement.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  I use arch on my framework 13” with sway and no real special software for battery or special bios setting. I’d be very lucky to get 4 hours with light web browsing. Typically I get 2 hours since I do some compiling and/or video conferencing. Pretty appalling.
lolinder 2y ago
I have the AMD Framework 13 running Debian/KDE and get substantially better battery life than what you're describing but it definitely still doesn't compare to an M-series Macbook. That said, it's worth noting that battery life struggles are common across all Linux laptops, not specific to Framework. I've run Ubuntu on laptops from several brands and they all have weird suspend/resume issues, high battery usage, and so on. (I just installed `tlp` for the first time at the recommendation of another reply to you [0], so we'll see if that makes a difference.) I'd be curious to hear from someone who runs a Framework with Windows (if such a person exists) to see what the power story is like there. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745832
- DreamFlasher 2y ago
  I had a Framework 13 (Intel, 11th gen) running Windows, the battery lasted 3.5h – streaming a movie (reproducible). The other major issue was the fan constantly running on max, I didn't have a laptop fan that loud for 15 years. Before having several loops with customer support, I tried ever forum post, all options, settings, tricks etc. Then I end it in for repair, the final summary: Everything works as expected. So I returned it. I tried another time with Framework 13 (Intel, 12th gen) and that showed exactly the same behaviour, so I again returned it :( I want to love Framework, for me I clearly see a huge value in repairability: I'm having a Lenovo Ideapad for 5 years now, there was some dirt under the keys, so I tried (by documentation) to remove the key cap and destroyed it by doing so. Then I wanted to replace the keyboard, and by doing so I destroyed the connector to the keypad. I'm clearly not a hardware guy, but I've been repairing my devices (PC, phone) for decades now, and I never struggled as much as I did with the Ideapad. I plan to give Framework 13 (Intel, Ultra) another shot, because they finally have the 61Wh battery in the first CPU tier. But I fear it won't make a difference as Framework remains ignorant about their broken power management (horrible battery, fan noise, heating up).
majewsky 2y ago
> battery is full but it won't turn on without being plugged into a charger This is a known issue with specifically the first-gen model (i.e. Intel 11th Gen mainboard). The rechargable coin-cell RTC battery is only charged from the USB-C charger, not from the internal LiPo battery. When the coin cell degrades, it cannot hold a charge for long anymore, so you need to connect the notebook to external power to turn it on even if the battery is full. Framework has acknowledged the issue and provides a replacement part free of charge that you can solder onto the main power rail of the notebook. Since I have no experience with soldering, I had a friend assist me with the soldering part, and now the issue is gone for me. I can't paste the link right now because my workplace's firewall blocks the frame.work website for whatever reason, but search on the community forum for "RTC Battery Replacement" and it will give you the thread with instructions for how to get the replacement part.
luyu_wu 2y ago
First gen Framework (11th gen) here. It's different your experience is from mine. I get typically 8-10 hours (more than enough for a full school day) on my laptop, although I have done numerous power optimizations.
- simpaticoder 2y ago
  If you'd be willing to share those optimizations, I (and many others, I would guess) would be deeply grateful.
  - luyu_wu 2y ago
    Intense TLP optimizations do most of the work! There's a lot of threads regarding optimization on the community forum too! Otherwise: - Keep all expansion cards as USB-C - Do what powertop tells you to do (watchdogs, autosuspend) - Run a lightweight WM/DE (Hyprland without blur and shadows in my case) - Limit electron apps, anything but electron apps. - Use light mode (dark mode, from my experience, causes me to increase the backlight far higher than on light mode, something unfavourable on IPS panels)

linguae 2y ago

I also have a Framework 13, and I agree that Apple’s ARM laptops have amazing performance per watt. The reason I have a Framework 13 instead of an ARM Mac is user-serviceability and cost savings. There is 32GB of RAM in my Framework, and at any time I could choose to upgrade to 64GB whenever necessary. However, because RAM in ARM Macs is integrated into the system and is not a separate user-replaceable component, I must purchase the maximum amount of RAM I could afford upfront, which is prohibitively expensive for me. I also do not like how storage is built-in instead of available as NVMe M.2 modules. I miss the days of my 2006 MacBook and my 2013 Mac Pro, which were both easy to upgrade. It’s this lack of upgradability in recent Macs that led me to switch to PCs despite my preference for macOS over Windows and desktop Linux. With that said, if a company offered me the choice between a PC or a Mac, I’d pick the Mac every time. It’s different when someone else is paying ;).

MBCook 2y ago
I’m firmly in team Mac. And I really don’t care about upgradability that much. I’m OK with buying up front. But Apple’s BTO prices are, as everyone knows, totally insane. Combined with pathetic base amounts it really burns people. I know a lot of Mac fans who keep putting off upgrades because it costs so much to get a decent config.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- paulmd 2y ago
  There are some decent sales on B+H and Microcenter on older higher-spec units. B+H had a 16” MBP M1 Max 10/32 (upper bin) with 4TB/64GB for $3.3k (then $3k, lol jebaited) this time last year. Microcenter has M1 Max 14” 64GB/1TB (yeahhh 1tb but it’s ok) for $1800 right now, refurbished tho. And stuff does go on sale in the refurb store too over time, and “factory refurbished” woot are also AppleCare eligible, factory refurb (which the microcenter don’t appear to be?) may also be the same at other vendors so just a thing to keep an eye on. Usually it’s in the About, and you can jump to a system report by holding down option when clicking the apple menu and it’ll be an option. TIL and I’m passing it on. Apple: you can (not) discover AppleCare is more worth it on a loaded out newer laptop imo. If you have a $3k laptop you are committed to getting it fixed for a while. It maths out that if you break a screen you’re break even. Whatever. I’ll probably lose the bet but things like tile and stone will fuck up a screen if it gets any velocity at all, hard surface impacts suck. I bought a nice laptop because I want to carry it around outside etc and still be able to do whatever I want off the plug. And M1 Max is perfectly fine at that, really the popularity of the M1 has massively eroded most of the M2 and M3’s thunder. “More perf more power” was only a narrative that mattered (throttle to whatever you want, and efficiency goes up anyway) because the price gradient from M1 has always been insurmountable. (original German, machine auto translation English at the top with the flag) https://www.notebookcheck.com/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-X-Elite-in-der-Analyse-Effizienter-als-AMD-Intel-Apple-bleibt-aber-klar-vorne.847341.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.com/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-X-Elite-in... M4 Max is the first time I’m interested, primarily because of SVE and true neural accelerator APIs not through metal. And a lot of cumulative gains too, of course. AV1 encode and decode, way better perf and much better graphics, etc. I’ll definitely wait at least another gen most likely (get M4 Max on firesale?) but there really is starting to be a more substantial difference than people realize. Honestly the air 15” is also a very compelling form factor if they give you a second pixel pipe in the m4 (does it? I thought I read it did). Especially if they get it to 32gb on the top sku… fine. Even 24gb is fine for what it is and those M2 Air 15” 24GB/1TB SKUs are down to $1700 or something in the refurb store. 14/16" MBP 32GB/1TB M1 Max are also perpetually cheap, I've seen them down below $1400 iirc. Standard/popular work laptop. It’s been nice having the M1 Max and doing inference on the gpu, dolphin-mixtral etc are super useful and actually helpful in on tons of first-pass summarization of a niche etc. I would like more, I hope AMD lets the gpu allocate unlimited memory on Strix halo. Half the time it's plugged in as a pseudo workstation, doing some AI shit and tinkering and generally just being a beefcake with crazy memory b/w, triple thunderbolt, etc, half the time it's out on the (stone) patio or a table out in the lawn sipping power, with a nice bright screen (the fingerprints tho...) while the dogs play (and one of them is on a tieout, so he knocks things over, etc). And whether or not it's a gimmick ($350 for the 3-years and I break even if I have a screen break? i'm ok with this) it's given me peace of mind to just carry it around and use it. I've totally been able to spend way more time out with the dogs with a nice laptop again. It's been a huge QOL change to get a portable workstation slash do it all thin-n-light with great build quality, a well-supported unix ecosystem and pytorch ecosystem, a performant GPU with a good library and broad application support, super great efficiency, high-end AI/ML model capability, a nice screen, a reasonable keyboard, tons of thunderbolt... the MBA was nice but something bigger is nice outside, and it sold me on the expensive loaded out laptop actually because it was such a good user experience just as a unix user. I've used linux plenty, I've used windows (mostly for gaming now), I've used freebsd, part of the ick people feel is just because they aren't used to bsdutils. Yes, they're archaic and different etc. They're also a cohesive ecosystem of their own, this largely isn't an apple thing. And apple is actually ironically really good about letting you have command-line utils to set file associations, bless apps (ie grant security console privilege toggles), etc, and applescript/shortcuts is always the weird fallback interface. (Apple has had a long history of writing all their stuff as Intents, that's a hypercard thing, if not before right? And applescript/shortcuts just lets you push the buttons of the intents just like siri. You can actually make a ton of shortcuts which un-annoyify ios, in particular. "Airdrop on" right there on my home screen. Living in the 21st century.)

OJFord 2y ago

> My first-gen Framework 13 with Ubuntu [...] (I get ~3 hours of web browsing and light coding) Mine is significantly better than that, I don't mind saying it doesn't last as long as my (I think M3 Max) MBP, but it's not that bad. I use Arch rather than Ubuntu, and I think have 'tlp' or something installed as generally recommended (for any laptop), but haven't otherwise done anything special. I haven't even updated the firmware/BIOS, which I think is supposed to offer a battery life improvement.

commandersaki 2y ago
I use arch on my framework 13” with sway and no real special software for battery or special bios setting. I’d be very lucky to get 4 hours with light web browsing. Typically I get 2 hours since I do some compiling and/or video conferencing. Pretty appalling.

lolinder 2y ago

I have the AMD Framework 13 running Debian/KDE and get substantially better battery life than what you're describing but it definitely still doesn't compare to an M-series Macbook. That said, it's worth noting that battery life struggles are common across all Linux laptops, not specific to Framework. I've run Ubuntu on laptops from several brands and they all have weird suspend/resume issues, high battery usage, and so on. (I just installed `tlp` for the first time at the recommendation of another reply to you [0], so we'll see if that makes a difference.) I'd be curious to hear from someone who runs a Framework with Windows (if such a person exists) to see what the power story is like there. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745832

DreamFlasher 2y ago
I had a Framework 13 (Intel, 11th gen) running Windows, the battery lasted 3.5h – streaming a movie (reproducible). The other major issue was the fan constantly running on max, I didn't have a laptop fan that loud for 15 years. Before having several loops with customer support, I tried ever forum post, all options, settings, tricks etc. Then I end it in for repair, the final summary: Everything works as expected. So I returned it. I tried another time with Framework 13 (Intel, 12th gen) and that showed exactly the same behaviour, so I again returned it :( I want to love Framework, for me I clearly see a huge value in repairability: I'm having a Lenovo Ideapad for 5 years now, there was some dirt under the keys, so I tried (by documentation) to remove the key cap and destroyed it by doing so. Then I wanted to replace the keyboard, and by doing so I destroyed the connector to the keypad. I'm clearly not a hardware guy, but I've been repairing my devices (PC, phone) for decades now, and I never struggled as much as I did with the Ideapad. I plan to give Framework 13 (Intel, Ultra) another shot, because they finally have the 61Wh battery in the first CPU tier. But I fear it won't make a difference as Framework remains ignorant about their broken power management (horrible battery, fan noise, heating up).

majewsky 2y ago

> battery is full but it won't turn on without being plugged into a charger This is a known issue with specifically the first-gen model (i.e. Intel 11th Gen mainboard). The rechargable coin-cell RTC battery is only charged from the USB-C charger, not from the internal LiPo battery. When the coin cell degrades, it cannot hold a charge for long anymore, so you need to connect the notebook to external power to turn it on even if the battery is full. Framework has acknowledged the issue and provides a replacement part free of charge that you can solder onto the main power rail of the notebook. Since I have no experience with soldering, I had a friend assist me with the soldering part, and now the issue is gone for me. I can't paste the link right now because my workplace's firewall blocks the frame.work website for whatever reason, but search on the community forum for "RTC Battery Replacement" and it will give you the thread with instructions for how to get the replacement part.

luyu_wu 2y ago

First gen Framework (11th gen) here. It's different your experience is from mine. I get typically 8-10 hours (more than enough for a full school day) on my laptop, although I have done numerous power optimizations.

simpaticoder 2y ago
If you'd be willing to share those optimizations, I (and many others, I would guess) would be deeply grateful.
- luyu_wu 2y ago
  Intense TLP optimizations do most of the work! There's a lot of threads regarding optimization on the community forum too! Otherwise: - Keep all expansion cards as USB-C - Do what powertop tells you to do (watchdogs, autosuspend) - Run a lightweight WM/DE (Hyprland without blur and shadows in my case) - Limit electron apps, anything but electron apps. - Use light mode (dark mode, from my experience, causes me to increase the backlight far higher than on light mode, something unfavourable on IPS panels)