FW 12 DIY edition (so Intel), running Ubuntu 20.04.

Battery life is a bit underwhelming, and so are the hinges.

One thing that is annoying is that the trackpad sometimes fails to work, when opening the laptop, but it also seems to relate to having high load and poor wifi connectivity (?)

Are any of the screens touch screens? Cuz if not, that will b my complaint

My issue is a nonstandard size of screen

See lots of complaints about speakers, personally speaking from my experience with my Framework 13 Ryzen 7 this just doesn’t seem to make sense.

I have a few other premium laptops for my various businesses, some costing more and with B&O speakers. None are great. I have used Macbooks too (in the past just want to add), and equally they were poor too, just with a very high price tag and shocking customer service.

I’m keen to see what laptops people think have good speakers. I have never come across any that are exceptionally better than these? If there are any, post below, I could use a device for my kids that has good sound.

I have a 13 inch/11th Gen Intel from them. So far, I like it a lot more than my previous laptop purchases.

I do not use it for gaming and it is often hooked up to a dock with two displays using one USBC/thunderbolt 4 connection. It’s been stable and no complaints with it this way.

The complaints I have, though, are:

• trackpad is a diving-board style for button pushing (I prefer it to be stationary but the sensitivity is great and gestures with 3-4 fingers work great)

• I want a matte/anti glare screen (wasn’t an option when I ordered my device)

• battery life - but it’s never been a problem since it’s mostly plugged in and an older Gen CPU. The newer gen is better with battery life and you can get a more dense battery now than the one I was able to purchase

• case flexes when I pick it up quickly. It causes the trackpad to click and that has clicked on stuff before

The AMD variant is still very unstable. I’ve seen more than a few people speak about repeated bluescreening, in my own case with no discernable cause (no dump files being generated).

When it works, it’s seriously amazing between the performance, battery life and noiseless operation under day to day use. But it is a first gen product. On the chassis and handling side, I’m extremely happy, though I would have preferred a 14" 16:10 display but that one is a preference thing - the 3:2 is still very nice, if with a pretty high latency.

I hope they manage to figure it out and make the platform stable sooner rather than later because I want this to be my only computer, and the only thing stopping it is the growth issues. Wouldn’t have minded if they’d kept it in the oven a while longer to figure it out tbh.

Consider a laptop out of the outlet store, if price is your issue

My main complaint is the fans are loud and they seem to ramp up to full speed quite often.

That being said, I’d rather deal with noisy fans than thermal issues.

Mostly my personal points, but also some I do not personally care about. And only criticisms

• While FW goes further in Linux Support than most manufacturers, I would not say they are making sacrifices to Windows functionality in order to increase Linux compatibility or open-source-ness of the device (I like it that way, users using mainly Linux may not)
• The modularity of the outputs and modularity in general also brings with it negatives. In terms of power consumption, performance, compatibility (additional adapters involved for the outputs. While it should not be a problem, it still makes things more complex and by its nature prevents certain stuff, like the functionality of native HDMI outputs, DP++, power efficient USB-A outputs.) Early problems with power efficiency have been improved. It remains an open question for me how much of the remaining difference versus competitors is simply result of a not very specialized product (can run as desktop for example), the modularity or design experience. For example my device seems to wake up from Modern Standby so much more frequently than other Intel devices I have seen, causing higher sleep power consumption than seems necessary)
• a particular problem of the system design: device does not power up from hibernation if lid is opened (unlike when power is plugged in). Kind of needed when you lift the keyboard for disassembly, but far less convenient on Modern Standby devices that automatically switch from suspend to hibernation dynamically.
• fan grumbles at lowest speeds (you basically hear the motor in a really quiet room) and fan control has an audible step at that speeds that just pisses me off. Staying at higher speeds would be better. Less of a problem the more power efficient the CPU is. Intel CPUs seem to output enough heat in power saving modes and on desktop to necessitate running the fan at least on lowest speeds. So it is rarely completely off.
• The particular way the outputs are modular takes up a lot of space that limits the space the laptop has for other components
• still playing catchup with other manufacturers features: (small points, I would not have expected in early devices or on launch, but that could be available as upgrades)
  • HDR screen
  • auto-brightness of keyboard backlight instead of having it to do manually, auto-timeout so it won’t stay on forever for example when watching a video
  • BIOS supervisor PW does not apply to boot-order changes / boot-menu unlike EVERY other device I have owned. I’d consider this a security issue
  • no option to disable automatic booting of any BootROM behind USB4/TB
  • no ReBar support
• either unwillingness or inability to provide software updates (firmware, BIOS) in any acceptable amount of time. At least for older products. Includes some issues officially announced as security issues that are outstanding for almost a year now. They say they are improving and not silently dropping support for older generations. That improvement can not yet be observed and plans have not been detailed enough for me to trust in that improvement before I see it. What they stated makes it seem like they new they did not have the resources for doing software support for more than 1 device if at all. Who knows if the current plan will actually add enough resources to support all generations still being sold (which are still all of them)
• Remains to be seen, how much of the stated goal of producing longer lasting devices can be achieved, if there is no way for software upgrades over time, when the hardware is technically capable of it, without replacing the entire mainboard, the most expensive part, with a newer version. Their board design shows FW trying to think of a lot of things for future possibilities (non-notebook use on limited power, touchscreen support etc). But I think a longer lasting device can only reach its full potential with ongoing software support including some software feature additions like mentioned above. While I think they have a good record for making revised hardware available, fixing flaws / disadvantages compared to competitors, like the hinges, speakers, more rigid lid for what I think are fair prices, they have not done any of that for the BIOS/software. For example the simply nice-to-have GUI is tied to the 13th gen FW board and newer, requiring an upgrade of the entire board (just an easy example not sth. I care about. I’d much more care about the software points mentioned above). They have stated, that they don’t want to ship software feature upgrades. That, together with the questionable ability to even ship security updates, makes me estimate how long I am willing to stay on one FW device significantly lower than I initially hoped for.

Since upgrading from Tiger Lake to the AMD 7640U, my two biggest gripes (loud fan and short battery life) have been resolved to my satisfaction. That leaves only the more minor issues:

1. Speakers are not great. Generally not an issue since I’m usually on headphones (thank you, FW, for including the 3.5 mm headphone jack!), but when I do use the speakers, they often sound pretty muffled.
2. After two years, I have still not gotten used to using the Function keys in order to page up/page down. A six-key layout for the arrows would have been far superior.
3. Trackpad button click is still unreliable. Yes, you can tap the trackpad for the same effect, but that feels unintuitive to me and I would still greatly prefer physical mouse buttons that I can feel.

I got my AMD 13 two days ago. Using Fedora 39. The most disappointing things for me so far are the touchpad (it’s nowhere near the macbook ones) and the battery life. I would absolutely pay for a higher capacity battery. On the other hand, FW is light and maybe it’s time for me to invest in a powerbank.

I don’t find it that expensive compared to other high end laptop, for similar specs it seems to me Lenovo Thinkpads or Apple products are more expensive.

For me the only problem is that I’ve been used to Lenovo Trackpoint in the middle of keyboard, and going back to a trackpad where you need to move your hand out of the keyboard when you want to use mouse is a big setback. So many non necessary hand an arm movements.

My only complaint is when using the device on my lap or holding it with one hand from the front corners the trackpad likes to “click” due to flex in the chassis. This isn’t the only laptop that does this but it is super annoying.

I did not put this system together. It was a refurb 11gen that was pre assembled.

It’s too nice and I don’t want to put stickers on it.

Consider it an investment, you’ll save money in the long run if you upgrade the hardware, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to repair. Fedora support isn’t that good according to their graph, but windows support is nice from what I’ve experienced so far with it. Maybe one criticism I have for it would be the lack of a touchscreen/stylus option? I used to own a surface and aside from the maddening hardware issues I had with it, I did enjoy stylus and touch support