7 ms·

How good are these? They are pretty highly priced (1600-2000 USD), comparable to a mac laptop. I would expect the quality to be on mac level if i would pay this

How good are these? They are pretty highly priced (1600-2000 USD), comparable to a mac laptop. I would expect the quality to be on mac level if i would pay this price for a laptop.

palad1n 2y ago
Yeah, I decked one out to what I would want and it came to over $3K.
- simfree 2y ago
  The DIY edition is much more reasonable, starting at $799 for a Framework 13 AMD. Buying RAM elsewbere for half the cost and bringing your SSD from your prior system can allow you stay below $1000.
- authorfly 2y ago
  Buy the RAM and SSD separately to save ~$300 - $1k
lucideer 2y ago
As someone who went through two of the touchbar macbook pros up until recently getting a M2, "on a mac level" is a pretty tricky metric these days. Apple were charging crazy prices for garbage quality machines for years. A friend has a frame.work & I've trialed it a fair bit - combining his review with my hands on experiences I'd say it's not quite as nice as the new Ms nor up to the level of the old pre-2018 macbooks but it is very close, & certainly far better build quality than what Apple were churning out in those intervening years.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  The last few generations of intel macs weren't great indeed. The 2018 model I had had the flaky keyboard that ultimately destroyed the laptop when a loose key inserted itself in between the screen and the keyboard. Still angry about that. But I must say the M1 mac book pro (14", 16GB) is one of the nicest laptops I've ever had. The second best would be a 2011 era mac book pr 15" that I used for several years (pre-retina). I'd be interested in a decent linux laptop but so far everything I look at has compromises on quality, screen/resolution, trackpads, etc. These framework laptop come close. Especially now that they finally have decent screens that aren't the industry standard 1080p garbage. Not quite upto Apple's standards (colors, contrast, dynamic range, etc.). But it's nice enough. It does seems a bit bulky for my taste. But I could probably live with it. I'd use it for gaming and Steam mainly. I have a shitty old laptop I use for that currently but I hate the screen, keyboard, trackpad, and the anemic performance.
sofixa 2y ago
> I would expect the quality to be on mac level if i would pay this price for a laptop I'm not sure if the quality is "on the mac level" (I've heard conflicting things, like I have for Macs), but the repairability and upgradeability are a million times better. That means that you can buy the 8GB RAM version, and upgrade later if needed; you don't have to shell out 500euros more just to not have a useless device in a year or two.
- nunobrito 2y ago
  Yes, that is really good here. You can buy new replacement covers, so basically renewing the part of the laptop that start to age due to heavy usage. The module expansion is looking good too.
- askonomm 2y ago
  I heard that upgrading the framework laptop would end up costing about the same as just buying a new regular midrange laptop entirely, at which point I'm not really sure if I'd care about the upgradeability. Update: updating the main board (e.g CPU) would cost anywhere from 500 to 1000 EUR (https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards). I'd much rather stay with a desktop PC where all the parts are also upgradeable, but much, much cheaper to the point that it actually makes sense.
  - michaljanocko 2y ago
    I bought mine as part of one of the first two batches. When the 12th gen Intel came out I upgraded for about 40% of the price I'd pay for a similarly specced laptop in my country.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Why upgrade the mainboard? You only need this for CPU socket changes. You need to upgrade RAM/SSD/CPU much more frequently than the mainboard.
    - askonomm 2y ago
simcop2387 2y ago
The moment you want to upgrade it, or have a broken part out of warranty it's infinitely better. You can not only get actual parts for it there are repair guides endorsed by the manufacturer.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
"Mac level" quality isn't all it's cracked up to be, to be fair. They're great for "premium feel" and all. But in terms of durabilty and repairability they leave a lot to be desired.
- michaelmior 2y ago
  I'm curious why you say they leave a lot to be desired in terms of repairability. I don't have one, but my understanding is that you can get a replacement for pretty much any part directly from the manufacturer along with a guide to do the repair yourself. I don't know of any other brand on the market that does that.
apoptos1s 2y ago
I bought the new framework 13 with a ryzen config (forgot which chip it was, i think i went for the 6 core one) with 16gb ram @5600Mtransfers/sec and 1tb wd black ssd with the cache thing, no OS. I also got 2 usb a, 2 usb c, and 1 hdmi ext. card. paid around 1300eur netto, and i found the build quality to be on par with my old macbook 13. Matte display is also nice, though the brightness settings are not as 'wide' as the macbook's. The fan rarely ever ramps up, the keyboard is very comfortable compared to a 1st gen butterfy keyboard, and you can set the battery charge limit in the bios settings (e.g. limit charging to 60 %) I am really happy with it.
- VadimPR 2y ago
  What is the benefit of limiting battery charging?
  - imp0cat 2y ago
    Longer battery service life. See previous discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751414
  - feb 2y ago
    Fully charging the battery can cause it to age more quickly and lose capacity. Limiting charge level helps to protect it, especially when it's always connected to a power supply and don't need the battery that much.
    - xxs 2y ago
      if the li-ion is kept < 4.25v that should be no issue. I don't know why overcharging is even considered a thing (100% should be 4.22v or so for a standard li-ion cells). You can keep all tool batteries at around 4.2v (fully charged), and nothing happens - they don't degrade. What actually kill batteries is overcharging (which has to be done on purpose in the electronics) and heat, having internals over 60C is where the real issue is. I think phones are the 1st ones that started overcharging just to ensure lower life expectancy of the device... and of course much better autonomy during the 1st impressions.
haunter 2y ago
Doesn’t even come close. Especially the trackpad, the built in speakers, and the fans. Mind you M* Macbook Airs doesn’t even have fans and Framework will start spinning the fans sooner or later. They are nice laptops but not in the category of a Macbook or a Thinkpad X1 Carbon
codeflo 2y ago
I was in the market for a decent Linux laptop, but after having seen one in person, I'm less convinced. Note: I'm talking about the 13" one. The battery life using Linux isn't good, the screen is isn't that good, the touch pad is okay, but not great, the layout of the arrow keys is ridiculous. I don't get how something can market itself as an enthusiast laptop and come with arrow keys like these. And I agree that for this price, you should expect best-in-class components. But the killer for me was seeing the modular port concept in action. It's the kind of thing that sounds great on paper, but in practice doesn't really work. It just wastes space that could be used for a larger battery, while limiting the number of ports that the laptop can fit at any one time. It's not a Linux laptop, but just for comparison, a Macbook Pro has way more ports, and all of them are usable at once. I'm sure things will improve, but basically my impression is that the Framework concept doesn't seem that well thought out yet. And the upgradability guarantee might lock them into their unfinished ideas for a lot longer than other manufacturers would be. I really hope they can solve these issues, because what they're trying to do is fantastic, but it’s not for me just yet.
- N-Krause 2y ago
  You're saying you're in the market for a Linux laptop and compare it to a macbook. I don't see the fair comparison to be honest. Sure there is Ashai and you could install Linux on an Intel MacBook, but for those setups you don't have company that has explicitly support for Linux. As for your other points, those are fair even though subjective. I really do like the modular ports, especially because they expose the possibility to build your own modules (or buy community made modules) for the laptop because everything is open source.
  - codeflo 2y ago
    I don't see why I shouldn't compare them. Besides economies of scale, there's no inherent reason why a company couldn't build a Macbook-quality laptop that runs Linux.
- sirwitti 2y ago
  In your opinion, what's the problem with the port concept of the frame.work?
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
You will not get mac level finish or integration, nor battery life. But you will get a lot of ram and disk for this price, a robust and fast laptop. And something you can repair. If you are a mac person, there is no substitute for the mac, by definition. If you don't care about mac, then the framework is a good machine. I rocked dell for a long time, I switched to framework, and so far, it's been great. The keyboard is comfy, the touchpad is good (for a non mac), the mate screen is productive and I enjoy its format. The specs have not let me down perf wise, the extension system is fantastic, and the value proposition of being able to be repaired is unmatched. I assembled it, and you can see they care a lot. Dual boot windows + linux on it is quick and easy. Support is perfect, including sleep, wifi, fingerprint reader, webcam, etc. The mechanical off switch for the mic and cam is a plus. The battery life sucks, and I can hear the fans more than I want. It's not as stylish as other notebooks. That's it. Mostly, I forgot about the machine in a week and it's transparent to me: it's plugged on a USB dongle that powers it, hook me to ethernet and extends the screen. I used it on the go twice, nothing special to report. It just works and I get things done. Which is probably what a lot of people want.
- dustincoates 2y ago
  I'll co-sign everything you said, other than to say that if you care about the webcam or the sound, this isn't the laptop for you. I'd still recommend it highly despite those failings, though, as the configuration and the longevity is more than worth it. Plus, who knows, they might come out with a webcam or sound upgrade kit one day.
  - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
    True, I forgot to mention it because I almost never use them. Laptop cams and mics are never up to my standard, even on mac, and since I remote work 90% of the time, I always travel with a full mic stand and external cam. This is too important for good communication for me. But indeed, it's not on the higher end for sound and image quality. It's not the worse either. Just meh.
    - 2y ago
N-Krause 2y ago
I own a MBP M1 13' and a Framework 16 with GPU. Build quality, battery life, sound and display are better on the macbook. But! The Framework has a very good build quality compared to every other laptop maker. All other aspects are good to decent. I'd say thats about 80% of the price. The other 20% are for: - Not having a solid piece of metal and plastic that only a specialist can repair. - A company that values you as a customer and seriously wants to help you with your problems. - Investment in a future where there are real alternatives to all the other non-repairable crap thats out there.
izacus 2y ago
Honestly, if you need to compare it to a Mac, you're in the wrong crowd and in the wrong market. This very emphatically isn't a device for you.
- phplovesong 2y ago
  Perhaps, but when the asking price is on the same levels as a mac book pro, i think its fair to compare it against one. Personally i have been using macs since 2012 (windows and ubuntu before that), and can not go back to anything else yet because of the insane quality of the mac hardware. My favourite ones are the 2012 MBP, and then later (what im still using) is the M1 from 2021. For me it boils down to (in order of importance): 1) Keyboard 2) Trackpad 3) Screen 4) Battery life 5) Performance And overall OSX is just a good, solid OS. It never crashes, its fast and is UNIX-y enough for me. My dream setup is a macbook with an 100% linux compatible OS. Something like Asahi Linux. Maybe in 10 years.... one can dream.
  - izacus 2y ago
    I honestly don't understand why did you feel the need to write this advertisement post for your Mac. I like mine, but I still don't get where some of you get this deep wish to write ad copies. No, it's not "fair" to come here and bloviate about your Mac in a topic about Framework laptops built for a different crowd. We get enough ads all across the web, keep them off HN at least.
mebassett 2y ago
I bought a framework laptop (13in, intel, 13th gen) at the end of 2023 and have had nothing but problems with it. Mostly stability issues. It freezes entirely without warning after about 3-5min of use, regardless of whether I'm booting into a linux kernel or windows machine, from the ssd or the usb. very unhappy that I spent money on it. support has been unhelpful. the idea of a DIY laptop that I could upgrade, et cetera, was something I could really get behind. but in practice it just feels like a waste of time and money. The machine does have to actually work.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  So run Memtest86+ If it fails, replace one DIMM at a time and retest until it passes; as soon as it passes, the DIMM you just replaced was bad. If it passes, replace the motherboard, ideally under warranty.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

How good are these? They are pretty highly priced (1600-2000 USD), comparable to a mac laptop. I would expect the quality to be on mac level if i would pay this price for a laptop.

palad1n 2y ago

Yeah, I decked one out to what I would want and it came to over $3K.

simfree 2y ago
The DIY edition is much more reasonable, starting at $799 for a Framework 13 AMD. Buying RAM elsewbere for half the cost and bringing your SSD from your prior system can allow you stay below $1000.
authorfly 2y ago
Buy the RAM and SSD separately to save ~$300 - $1k

lucideer 2y ago

As someone who went through two of the touchbar macbook pros up until recently getting a M2, "on a mac level" is a pretty tricky metric these days. Apple were charging crazy prices for garbage quality machines for years. A friend has a frame.work & I've trialed it a fair bit - combining his review with my hands on experiences I'd say it's not quite as nice as the new Ms nor up to the level of the old pre-2018 macbooks but it is very close, & certainly far better build quality than what Apple were churning out in those intervening years.

jillesvangurp 2y ago
The last few generations of intel macs weren't great indeed. The 2018 model I had had the flaky keyboard that ultimately destroyed the laptop when a loose key inserted itself in between the screen and the keyboard. Still angry about that. But I must say the M1 mac book pro (14", 16GB) is one of the nicest laptops I've ever had. The second best would be a 2011 era mac book pr 15" that I used for several years (pre-retina). I'd be interested in a decent linux laptop but so far everything I look at has compromises on quality, screen/resolution, trackpads, etc. These framework laptop come close. Especially now that they finally have decent screens that aren't the industry standard 1080p garbage. Not quite upto Apple's standards (colors, contrast, dynamic range, etc.). But it's nice enough. It does seems a bit bulky for my taste. But I could probably live with it. I'd use it for gaming and Steam mainly. I have a shitty old laptop I use for that currently but I hate the screen, keyboard, trackpad, and the anemic performance.

sofixa 2y ago

> I would expect the quality to be on mac level if i would pay this price for a laptop I'm not sure if the quality is "on the mac level" (I've heard conflicting things, like I have for Macs), but the repairability and upgradeability are a million times better. That means that you can buy the 8GB RAM version, and upgrade later if needed; you don't have to shell out 500euros more just to not have a useless device in a year or two.

nunobrito 2y ago
Yes, that is really good here. You can buy new replacement covers, so basically renewing the part of the laptop that start to age due to heavy usage. The module expansion is looking good too.
askonomm 2y ago
I heard that upgrading the framework laptop would end up costing about the same as just buying a new regular midrange laptop entirely, at which point I'm not really sure if I'd care about the upgradeability. Update: updating the main board (e.g CPU) would cost anywhere from 500 to 1000 EUR (https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards). I'd much rather stay with a desktop PC where all the parts are also upgradeable, but much, much cheaper to the point that it actually makes sense.
- michaljanocko 2y ago
  I bought mine as part of one of the first two batches. When the 12th gen Intel came out I upgraded for about 40% of the price I'd pay for a similarly specced laptop in my country.
- sofixa 2y ago
  Why upgrade the mainboard? You only need this for CPU socket changes. You need to upgrade RAM/SSD/CPU much more frequently than the mainboard.
  - askonomm 2y ago

simcop2387 2y ago

The moment you want to upgrade it, or have a broken part out of warranty it's infinitely better. You can not only get actual parts for it there are repair guides endorsed by the manufacturer.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago

"Mac level" quality isn't all it's cracked up to be, to be fair. They're great for "premium feel" and all. But in terms of durabilty and repairability they leave a lot to be desired.

michaelmior 2y ago
I'm curious why you say they leave a lot to be desired in terms of repairability. I don't have one, but my understanding is that you can get a replacement for pretty much any part directly from the manufacturer along with a guide to do the repair yourself. I don't know of any other brand on the market that does that.

apoptos1s 2y ago

I bought the new framework 13 with a ryzen config (forgot which chip it was, i think i went for the 6 core one) with 16gb ram @5600Mtransfers/sec and 1tb wd black ssd with the cache thing, no OS. I also got 2 usb a, 2 usb c, and 1 hdmi ext. card. paid around 1300eur netto, and i found the build quality to be on par with my old macbook 13. Matte display is also nice, though the brightness settings are not as 'wide' as the macbook's. The fan rarely ever ramps up, the keyboard is very comfortable compared to a 1st gen butterfy keyboard, and you can set the battery charge limit in the bios settings (e.g. limit charging to 60 %) I am really happy with it.

VadimPR 2y ago
What is the benefit of limiting battery charging?
- imp0cat 2y ago
  Longer battery service life. See previous discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751414
- feb 2y ago
  Fully charging the battery can cause it to age more quickly and lose capacity. Limiting charge level helps to protect it, especially when it's always connected to a power supply and don't need the battery that much.
  - xxs 2y ago
    if the li-ion is kept < 4.25v that should be no issue. I don't know why overcharging is even considered a thing (100% should be 4.22v or so for a standard li-ion cells). You can keep all tool batteries at around 4.2v (fully charged), and nothing happens - they don't degrade. What actually kill batteries is overcharging (which has to be done on purpose in the electronics) and heat, having internals over 60C is where the real issue is. I think phones are the 1st ones that started overcharging just to ensure lower life expectancy of the device... and of course much better autonomy during the 1st impressions.

haunter 2y ago

Doesn’t even come close. Especially the trackpad, the built in speakers, and the fans. Mind you M* Macbook Airs doesn’t even have fans and Framework will start spinning the fans sooner or later. They are nice laptops but not in the category of a Macbook or a Thinkpad X1 Carbon

codeflo 2y ago

I was in the market for a decent Linux laptop, but after having seen one in person, I'm less convinced. Note: I'm talking about the 13" one. The battery life using Linux isn't good, the screen is isn't that good, the touch pad is okay, but not great, the layout of the arrow keys is ridiculous. I don't get how something can market itself as an enthusiast laptop and come with arrow keys like these. And I agree that for this price, you should expect best-in-class components. But the killer for me was seeing the modular port concept in action. It's the kind of thing that sounds great on paper, but in practice doesn't really work. It just wastes space that could be used for a larger battery, while limiting the number of ports that the laptop can fit at any one time. It's not a Linux laptop, but just for comparison, a Macbook Pro has way more ports, and all of them are usable at once. I'm sure things will improve, but basically my impression is that the Framework concept doesn't seem that well thought out yet. And the upgradability guarantee might lock them into their unfinished ideas for a lot longer than other manufacturers would be. I really hope they can solve these issues, because what they're trying to do is fantastic, but it’s not for me just yet.

N-Krause 2y ago
You're saying you're in the market for a Linux laptop and compare it to a macbook. I don't see the fair comparison to be honest. Sure there is Ashai and you could install Linux on an Intel MacBook, but for those setups you don't have company that has explicitly support for Linux. As for your other points, those are fair even though subjective. I really do like the modular ports, especially because they expose the possibility to build your own modules (or buy community made modules) for the laptop because everything is open source.
- codeflo 2y ago
  I don't see why I shouldn't compare them. Besides economies of scale, there's no inherent reason why a company couldn't build a Macbook-quality laptop that runs Linux.
sirwitti 2y ago
In your opinion, what's the problem with the port concept of the frame.work?

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

You will not get mac level finish or integration, nor battery life. But you will get a lot of ram and disk for this price, a robust and fast laptop. And something you can repair. If you are a mac person, there is no substitute for the mac, by definition. If you don't care about mac, then the framework is a good machine. I rocked dell for a long time, I switched to framework, and so far, it's been great. The keyboard is comfy, the touchpad is good (for a non mac), the mate screen is productive and I enjoy its format. The specs have not let me down perf wise, the extension system is fantastic, and the value proposition of being able to be repaired is unmatched. I assembled it, and you can see they care a lot. Dual boot windows + linux on it is quick and easy. Support is perfect, including sleep, wifi, fingerprint reader, webcam, etc. The mechanical off switch for the mic and cam is a plus. The battery life sucks, and I can hear the fans more than I want. It's not as stylish as other notebooks. That's it. Mostly, I forgot about the machine in a week and it's transparent to me: it's plugged on a USB dongle that powers it, hook me to ethernet and extends the screen. I used it on the go twice, nothing special to report. It just works and I get things done. Which is probably what a lot of people want.

dustincoates 2y ago
I'll co-sign everything you said, other than to say that if you care about the webcam or the sound, this isn't the laptop for you. I'd still recommend it highly despite those failings, though, as the configuration and the longevity is more than worth it. Plus, who knows, they might come out with a webcam or sound upgrade kit one day.
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  True, I forgot to mention it because I almost never use them. Laptop cams and mics are never up to my standard, even on mac, and since I remote work 90% of the time, I always travel with a full mic stand and external cam. This is too important for good communication for me. But indeed, it's not on the higher end for sound and image quality. It's not the worse either. Just meh.
  - 2y ago

N-Krause 2y ago

I own a MBP M1 13' and a Framework 16 with GPU. Build quality, battery life, sound and display are better on the macbook. But! The Framework has a very good build quality compared to every other laptop maker. All other aspects are good to decent. I'd say thats about 80% of the price. The other 20% are for: - Not having a solid piece of metal and plastic that only a specialist can repair. - A company that values you as a customer and seriously wants to help you with your problems. - Investment in a future where there are real alternatives to all the other non-repairable crap thats out there.

izacus 2y ago

Honestly, if you need to compare it to a Mac, you're in the wrong crowd and in the wrong market. This very emphatically isn't a device for you.

phplovesong 2y ago
Perhaps, but when the asking price is on the same levels as a mac book pro, i think its fair to compare it against one. Personally i have been using macs since 2012 (windows and ubuntu before that), and can not go back to anything else yet because of the insane quality of the mac hardware. My favourite ones are the 2012 MBP, and then later (what im still using) is the M1 from 2021. For me it boils down to (in order of importance): 1) Keyboard 2) Trackpad 3) Screen 4) Battery life 5) Performance And overall OSX is just a good, solid OS. It never crashes, its fast and is UNIX-y enough for me. My dream setup is a macbook with an 100% linux compatible OS. Something like Asahi Linux. Maybe in 10 years.... one can dream.
- izacus 2y ago
  I honestly don't understand why did you feel the need to write this advertisement post for your Mac. I like mine, but I still don't get where some of you get this deep wish to write ad copies. No, it's not "fair" to come here and bloviate about your Mac in a topic about Framework laptops built for a different crowd. We get enough ads all across the web, keep them off HN at least.

mebassett 2y ago

I bought a framework laptop (13in, intel, 13th gen) at the end of 2023 and have had nothing but problems with it. Mostly stability issues. It freezes entirely without warning after about 3-5min of use, regardless of whether I'm booting into a linux kernel or windows machine, from the ssd or the usb. very unhappy that I spent money on it. support has been unhelpful. the idea of a DIY laptop that I could upgrade, et cetera, was something I could really get behind. but in practice it just feels like a waste of time and money. The machine does have to actually work.

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
So run Memtest86+ If it fails, replace one DIMM at a time and retest until it passes; as soon as it passes, the DIMM you just replaced was bad. If it passes, replace the motherboard, ideally under warranty.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]