I've been using a framework since the first edition they've released and it worked great. Theyve only gotten better since.
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Yes, of course. Check for a refurb on sale though from the official store. No sense in paying full price for a 2 year old reference.
I bought one last summer and the only problems I've had were some display issues which were solved by adding kernel parameters to disable all of the amdgpu power management (which as far as I can tell doesn't even increase power usage noticeably). Other than that it has been basically perfect and way better than any other laptop I've had. I wish it had real suspend, but that's just not possible on modern CPUs so that's not Framework's fault
I've seen an S3 option in Smokeless_UMAF, so maybe you can enable real suspend, but I haven't tried on my Framework 13 AMD.
Have had one for about three weeks no (13" and), and it's fabulous. Habent had any issues. Running fedora 41. I love it.
Describes my experience exactly! I'm liking Fedora
I got mine last January and it's been pretty much flawless on Arch with KDE and Wayland. No regrets whatsoever. Battery life is probably the only weakness, but I also push my stuff hard. Overall, I'm super satisfied with the choice.
The comments didn't seem bad to me. Some people were complaining about an HP laptop's power efficiency, but the framework's is fine. Also, the intel ones have noisier fans, but the amd is perfectly quiet in daily use. I have two real complaints with mine: while the power draw is low in use, it uses idle sleep, so it doesn't last that long asleep (longer than awake, so a few days to a week). You can of course power it off for longer term stuff, and boot times aren't bad so that really isn't a huge issue for me. The other one was a bit of a pain until I found the solution. All of the integrated amd GPUs from that gen have a problem on linux where they randomly get buggy and the whole ui drops to like 2 fps. It is resolved with a kernel parameter (sounds complicated but takes 5 min and a reboot. I will edit this with the steps when I get to my laptop). The frameworks generally improve over time. I wouldn't get a 16 yet, but my brother and I both got 13 amds several months ago and are very happy with them.
Edit: Nearly forgot, it came with an "AMD" (mediatek) wifi card. I replaced it with an ax210 as soon as I got it and would recommend you do the same. Amd requires laptop manufacturers to put the amd card in but it kinda sucks IMO.
I have loved my AMD framework . 3:2 aspect ratio took awhile to get used to but I love it now. Only thing I need to figure out getting the USB c ports to work but everything else has worked flawlessly
What are your issues with usb-c ports? I've got one on each side (so I can charge from either side), and I haven't taken them out or moved them since installation, and they've worked flawlessly... Are the modules themselves bad?
I currently own a Framework 13... and... after daily driving it for a year, I decided I don't like it.
The deal beaker for me is the high dpi display. Linux just isn't 100% compatible with hpi displays. I'm tired of my apps either having blurry fonts or tiny text. Ironic because hi dpi displays are supposed to look better.
With Framework, you'll be pushed into using Fedora (it doesn't solve all the scaling issues) or pushed to stop using apps you like because they're using older GTK (some times there are no alternatives). You'll also have to dive into debugging scaling issues.
I just switched back to my Dell XPS 13 9310 FHD and it was a breath of fresh air having everything just work. Any distro, any apps, no scaling debugging, text is readable and crisp, app UI elements look properly sized.
I only ever switched out the modular ports once, but honestly it would have been better to buy a dongle instead because that would work on any computer.
Oh, and I tried the higher resolution screen. It didn't fix the scaling issues.
Oh, and, I actually had a display fail on me! After like 8 months, half the display went black. Thankfully, they were nice enough to send me a free replacement, but it definitely left me feeling like the Framework isn't that sturdy or durable.
The shell also dents easily. I dropped a small music player from desk height onto the top lid and it left a small dent. (I have like 3 dents on the lid.)
Repairability is the one feature that the Framework beats everyone else on, but to me the cons outweigh the pros.
I too am considering a framework 13, and am wondering the same. Hopefully someone will give some insight.
Don't think you'd regret it. I can't speak for that one in particular, but I'm still running one of the DIY Kickstarter versions. Will probably replace it with another Framework (or maybe even just upgrade the components if I can).
I've been cheering for Framework more or less since they first started shipping machines. I'm on MacOS and only use Linux on NUC-style machines and VMs, but if I was ever gonna buy a non-Mac laptop, I'd go to them.
Does anyone have experience running the 13 with linux and an eGPU by any chance?
I can confirm the Intel version of the Framework 13 works amazingly with an eGPU (Fedora). 11th gen was my daily driver until I upgraded to a Framework 16 😎
For people with experience with any mobile 12th gen intel and the framework 13 AMD, can you quantify what you think the upgrade is worth or would it be better to wait for a refresh to the "ai" series if that ever happens.
I look at the price for board/ram/wifi upgrade and struggle to justify even though I expect the amd cpu to be cooler/quieter and have much better iGPU. I know it should easily outperform the steam deck in raw performance so with some scaling it should be reasonable for some light casual gaming but I don't have any experience with amd outside of desktop cpus and dedicated graphics. Every time I consider an upgrade it makes more sense to buy desktop upgrades and cope with the intel system for a few more years. I don't have a good use for the intel mainboard as it doesn't have much expansion, multiple ssd, pcie etc.
I've had one for a few months now and it works really well. The only issue that I've had was that I expected Linux to run well on it, but it seems like AMDs Linux support has been overstated, and gnome would crash entirely when browsing certain websites like Tumblr, I assume because of some poorly supported video format. Everything runs fine on windows and it's been a solid laptop so far. Obviously it's not going to be the best for gaming, but the integrated graphics will handle lighter workloads fine and I'm hoping that it'll save me money in the long run from the much cheaper cost of repairing vs having to buy a new laptop after 5 years.
What distro has given you trouble on gnome? I've had mine a couple weeks and it's been pretty solid on fedora (gnome)
I've mostly tried Fedora 40, I gave it another quick go after 41 with no improvement. Given that most other people haven't experienced it, and I've only had this issue with Tumblr specifically and no other website, I'm guessing that it must be an uncommon codec.
Huh, yeah.. I'm running fedora, whatever the latest is. Maybe my smoothest Linux experience yet. I don't use Tumblr but I think that codebase is probably ancient and also doesn't it do an infinite scroll? That could be part of the problem, that's a hard thing to perfect. Curious -- were you using chromium or Firefox? For me it's Firefox all the way. Seems to work great so far
I was using Firefox. I don't expect Tumblr to be well coded, but at most it should be able to freeze a single browser tab, if a tab can crash the entire desktop then that's a greater issue. I haven't had issues with tumblrs infinite scroll on other desktop situations, and while the crash happens at random I've had it happen within 30 seconds of opening a site if there's a video first thing. The dmesg logs indicate that the GPU driver gets upset about something and resets itself at the time of the crash.
Trying the Firefox flatpak, or not installing the nonfree drivers didn't make any change for me.
When looking at past reports of the crash I've seen some people report that things are fine on chrome but I'm not willing to make the change to see if that helps haha. It's not a massive deal but it bugs me that I have to remember what websites to ignore and I want an expensive laptop to be a stress free experience so I'll stick with windows and maybe give Linux another try every year or so to see if they can tempt me over yet.
You could also try using KDE Plasma instead of Gnome, which survives GPU resets.
Yeah you're right that a website shouldn't be able to cause that issue. I'm wondering if it's a hardware issue. I'll try to reproduce this later on and will report back. You said you have the current amd chip, framework 13 right?