Processor Choice and Its Implications
Several users express concerns about Framework's choice of processors, particularly regarding power efficiency and generational relevance.
- Outdated processors: "I think it's a shame they went with 2 year old 13th gen Intel processors for these." (ndiddy)
- Lunar Lake Advantages: ndiddy highlights the benefits of Lunar Lake: "The reason why I brought it up was that Lunar Lake was specifically designed to make an x86 offering that has comparable battery life with chips from Qualcomm and Apple...for light office tasks (the type of use case this laptop is intended for) you get around 17 hours of battery life vs the previous generation's 10 hours".
- Efficiency improvements: "It's not just a TSMC vs. Intel thing, Lunar Lake gets 7 more hours of battery life than Meteor Lake when doing the same 'light office tasks' benchmark." (ndiddy)
- Questionable benefit: "Apparently expecting them to use something mildly recent is too much to ask for and it's supposed to be a cheapshit student laptop aimed at schools or whatever. Wouldn't be as bad if it weren't Intel's worst CPU gen in recent memory, FW probably got a bargain box deal on them." (moffkalast)
- Counterpoint: "Thermals and energy consumption are almost always improving between generations. It's hard for me to think of 13th generation as old. Maybe I'm getting old!" (bevr1337)
Soldered RAM vs. Upgradability
The discussion touches on the debate surrounding soldered RAM, its impact on upgradability, and whether it aligns with Framework's core values.
- Trade-offs are reasonable: "There are good reasons to solder-in RAM. Yes it's a tradeoff, but it's reasonable. I don't expect FW to revert technical decisions that are not under their control. Mostly, I just don't want to be buying whole new laptop because my keyboard had a defect, or I cracked my screen. If the compute module comes with a soldered RAM, it's perfectly fine with me." (dpc_01234)
- Module-based upgradability as a compromise: "I'm fine with buying and replacing a new CPU + RAM module as a unit, and I would buy such a module. The fact that there are modules with external memory is already enough good faith commitment to repairability." (dpc_01234)
- Marketing conflict: "For their marketing it is. There is a very specific reason the desktop exists. On-premise AI workloads. You can't get the bus width on socketed ram that you do soldered ram at the current moment. 1 product is an exception, 2 would be a break from their replaceable component marketing." (jabart)
- RAM being on-package as a trend: "Here's there's no choice to be made other than not using the chips. And unfortunately (although there are some benefits), it's probably not going to be just a few generations but a trend for high end processors going forward." (katmannthree)
- Acceptable trade-off: "It is actually one of the few cases where I don't actually really care about independent upgradability. In my experience I find that I pretty much always upgrade my CPU and my RAM in tandem." (joshfee)
- RAM limitations: "A laptop stuck at four gigs of ram these days isn't going to be great for much web browsing, but is also basically stuck at four gigs." (fragmede)
- Brand Damage: "Selling a laptop with soldered ram might literally kill the company at this stage. Their entire brand and market is based on repairability." (9283409232)
AMD WiFi Issues and General Reliability
Some users experienced or heard of issues with WiFi on the AMD Framework models, while others reported no problems. General reliability and freezing issues were also mentioned.
- Wifi as dealbreaker: "AMD option seemed to be accompanied by broken wifi...Just provide a single modern option that just works. I don't want to troubleshoot device drivers in my spare time." (bgorman)
- Replaceable component: "It's also a plain old M.2 WiFi/BT module. So if you really hate it, swap it out." (NewJazz)
- No issues seen: "I've got the original AMD F13 (and run NixOS) and I have no issues." (miloignis)
- Driver Issue: "A family member replaced theirs with an Intel chip to fix an issue; turns out reception was just bad and not the wifi chip." (ben-schaaf)
- Positive experience: "I use the Framework 16 AMD with the Mediatek MT7922 WiFi 6E wireless chip using the mt7921e driver and it works great" (preisschild)
- Out of Box: "Wifi worked out of the box for me on FW13 both the AMD 7840U and the HX 370 mainboards, in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and 25.04." (pbadeer2)
- Complexity of modular design: "I suspect it's actually quite difficult to build an entirely modular laptop to work with several operating systems while supporting the latest components, and be void of any driver issues." (unclad5968)
- Freezing issues with AMD+Ubuntu setup: "Using Framework for past year - every day I have to reboot because it freezes with 20+ Firefox tabs (Ubuntu 22.04, AMD). Tried all options (disable vGPU etc) but no luck." (chintan)
- Linux Experience: "Older laptops, especially all-Intel ones, tend to be way more reliable on Linux from my experience." (FirmwareBurner)
Framework's Market Position and Purpose
The comments ponder Framework's intended market, its pricing, and whether it's fulfilling its goal of promoting sustainable and repairable devices.
- Niche product: "It's going to remain a niche token product for everyone but connoisseurs to ignore with that kind of a specs-to-cost imbalance." (dartharva)
- Specific segment of the market: "I don't see anything wrong with that Framework is going after a specific but lucrative segment of the market" (9283409232)
- Defeats intended purpose: "It's just that it defeats their intended purpose of pushing a paradigm shift to high-sustainability devices." (dartharva)
- Affordable price point: "In the socketed days, you could get a five year old laptop, replace the existing RAM with the biggest sticks you cloud get your hands on, and get a few more years of life out of the machine." (fragmede)
- Soldered RAM vs upgrability: "You can't get the bus width on socketed ram that you do soldered ram at the current moment. 1 product is an exception, 2 would be a break from their replaceable component marketing." (jabart)
Browser/RAM Woes
Several comments veer into a discussion of Firefox's resource usage, with some attributing performance issues to the browser rather than the hardware.
- RAM insuffiency:"Unfortunately the 8gb of soldered on ram is becoming woefully insufficient with how bloated the modern web has gotten." (wing-_-nuts)
- Firefox specific issue: "People make fun of Chrome being a RAM hog but I'm having more issues with FF than I ever did with Chrome. For some reason on reddit specifically FF will randomly freeze for a few seconds, my cursor will stop rendering on top of it (like it's going behind the window) and it won't accept inputs." (rtkwe)
- Firefox memory hog: "Also FF will regularly take multiple gigs for random tabs like Youtube if I leave them open." (rtkwe)