Framework Laptop AMD

> Their laptops don’t feel as premium, imo Agreed. I've been using a Framework 13 AMD since they came out (almost two years?) and it's an excellent machine, but some of the hardware just isn't as good. The display, trackpad, and build quality aren't as good. That said, there's still not a single machine on the market that I'd rather use. I actually own and control my laptop hardware, and while I'd get better battery life on a MacBook, I like that this machine is _actually_ mine.

How do you mean? If you're talking not stable as in it's rolling release, then yes that's true although it isn't unique to Guix. But if you mean leaves your system vulnerable to breakages, large unwanted changes, system entropy, or inconsistencies, then surely Guix (and Nix) are more stable than virtually every other distro (and maybe even MacOS or Windows)? I'm also not sure I would say Guix is particularly unpolished compared to other distros. The project is 10 years old at this point, has a very active (albeit not huge) community, and has some of the clearest/most extensive documentation I've read for a distro. Perhaps 5-ish years ago it had some rough edges, but I'd say now they're quite comparable to other mainstream distros. As someone who has been using Guix as my primary OS for the past ~2 years on a <5 year old laptop (with a proprietary wifi card) for programming, media, web stuff, and light games, I'd say it's a great experience. Not that the learning curve is not large or that community resources couldn't be better, but if you're already using GNU/Linux I don't think it will feel any less stable/polished.

I am quite happy with my AMD 13 laptop. It replaced my Thinkpad T530 after its ~10 years of service. So far, nearly one year after buying it, everything works well. Ubuntu, Docker containers, clion+pycharm, sometimes Blender and other apps. Plus several tabs on Firefox. Camera and audio are better than my old thinkpad, so i have nothing to complain about yet. There were issues like configuring Linux (extra monitor, logitech mouse, tablet, some software) but I found everything on Framework forums or googling a bit.

Framework 13 (AMD). It’s not even a question. I’ve had mine for a year and it’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned.

I ordered my AMD one late in 2023 and love it. It's not perfect as battery life compared to the Apple Silicon MacBooks is simply not a competition, but everywhere else it's close enough for me. Being able to upgrade the screen already was a huge "yes, thank you" as instead of needing to buy an entirely new machines for a particular upgrade I was able to quite simply swap in the new part, which is what I'm used to on the desktop hardware side of things. It's awesome! The community and Linux support is also very cool and I'm excited about a possible RISC-V board to pop in and the overall tinkering possibilities. That said, if you just need a personal computer, it's hard to recommend in the most general sense I think. But for businesses I can see it being a no-brainer.

I have experimented with a Thinkpad T14s and Framework 13 AMD during the past year. Running Linux. I think the Framework is a much more solid machine. The quality of the hardware feels higher to me and I like the screen ratio more. The keyboard feels even better than my Macbook Air M2's. I would recommend it for Linux use at least. I don't know about Windows. If something closer to the hardware quality of Macbooks came along, I'd switch immediately, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing. Of course, I don't have the resources to try everything out there.

One more person chiming in to say that I'm really happy with my 13" AMD Framework laptop. It wakes from sleep and reconnects wifi before I'm done opening the lid, I can charge it from either side, the screen is beautiful, it's nice and lightweight, the performance and battery life are good enough that I don't think about it. On the down side, the touchpad is a notable downgrade from the macbook I use for work, and the speakers are down-ish-firing and fairly weak. Also, twice in the ~1.5 months I've had it, it has completely frozen for about 30 seconds (even the mouse cursor didn't respond) before hitting a windows bluescreen and then rebooting. No idea what's causing that, but there is some suggestion on the forum that it's the AMD graphics drivers. However, I also have a GPD Win Mini with a similar APU and it's never once frozen like that on me. I'm probably going to switch it to Ubuntu in the near future, so that might sidestep the freezing issue, although I expect it to eventually be sorted out either way. But, again, overall I'm very happy with it.

You mean just suspend as in 'sleep'? Like closing the lid on a macbook. I am doing that with the regular framework 13 (same amd though) multiple times a day.

I never used a Mac for my personal machine, but I've always used them as my work machines. I purchased the first generation of the Framework 13 AMD laptops And it's been my personal machine ever since. It's a damn fine machine and I love having full control over the components in my machine without some OEM nonsense for repairs that manufacturers like Dell try to pull (wouldn't accept non-OEM batteries for me in the past). The battery life is the biggest negative compared to a MacBook, but that seems to be better now (though I doubt it, or anyone, can compete with the power/performance that Apple is putting out now). The issue with my advice to you though is that I prefer Linux. And I would be running Linux at work if I could. Mac OS is fine, but I do prefer Linux as my main operating system. If I didn't specifically want to run Linux, though, I would probably be using a MacBook, despite their lack of repairability. All that said, I really love my framework and I don't intend on buying another machine any time soon, especially because I can upgrade my Framework 5 years from now (hopefully).

I don't understand the logic for downvotes. We vote with our wallets. When I could not update the Ram on my personal Dell machine I asked for a Frame.work in my new job. As my Intel based FW at work had thermal throttling problems, for my next personal purchase I got an AMD one. As Ubuntu had shady practices, I installed Fedora, as Gnome forced UX choices I did not want, I used KDE. As I wanted my machine to be even more stable I use an immutable spin. The machine I'm using now represents my choices and matches what matters to me, and works closer to perfectly than all my machines in the past And yes, I have worked with macs, and no, the UX and the entire tyranny in the Apple ecosystem was not something I could live with And yes, this machine is fast, predictable, a joy to work with and is a tool I control, not a tool to control me. If something happens to it, I can order the part with the same price that goes into a new machine, and keep using my laptop

I bought the first AMD FrameWork 13 at launch. It just works and I’d buy it again. To me their the software story is compelling. To use the wording of the article, I like that I can be a weirdo running Linux on a laptop and not be a fringe use case. I had no interest in either of their supported distros but their support forums had the necessary hints needed to get a different distro up and running (plugging in newer firmware from the Linux kernel git). I like that they’ve given some support to the FreeBSD community and I’d like to run that on a future FrameWork.

My brother has a 16, and it’s been good for him. It is big and chunky, more so with the GPU module; only a few paragraphs into the blog post I felt the author was trying to fit a big square peg in a round hole, and then blaming the square peg for being big and square. That is to say, it’s a big, heavy, expensive laptop. My brother works shifts in a remote location and from what I can tell, the 16 is great for that: you wouldn’t bring a desktop, but once the laptop comes out of the bag, it’s going to stay set up on the desk for the duration of the hitch. He tried leaving the GPU module at home, and found the AMD APU quite capable (he plays Tarkov and BF6, among others). I support Framework’s vision and ethos and am willing to pay a premium for them. My sister uses my 11th gen Intel FW13 for school and is happy with it (only she wishes it was better for gaming), and the AMD 13 I bought was a massive upgrade in gaming capability and speed – I’m able to play Arc Raiders with my brother, one of the few online shooters who’s anti-cheat works on Linux. Another big plus is that FWs play very well with Linux. The Wayland window manager Niri is amazing – so smooth and fast, now with alt-tab in the latest release. And I see there’s Dank Material Shell (1), which bundles things like a bar, launcher, and control center that one normally has to assemble piece by piece in WMs like Niri and Sway (which I used before). 1: https://github.com/AvengeMedia/DankMaterialShell

I have done real work, using a computer 10+ hours a day on every ecosystem, Windows, Linux, Mac. I've used each for ~10 years a piece. My most recent laptop died and it really showed me what I appreciate in a laptop, performance, build quality, lightweight, good battery, low noise, good ergonomics. I was sick of the recent overheating generation of pc laptops that don't last more than a couple years under my usage. As a result I decided to try to switch back to a macbook after a decade hiatus. The hardware is good but the software is absolute garbage. Trialing it for a week the amount of bullshit that is MacOS was enough, and Asahi wasn't there yet either. Instead I decided to get an AMD framework laptop. Best decision ever. I have a laptop that's got great quality, can be upgraded without paying a $5k tax, can replace the keyboard for $100 instead of $700, it works with me rather than against me and my wallet.

My personal machine is a Framework 13 AMD (first gen of AMD for them) and my work machine is a MB Pro M4. The Mac Book just keeps battery _forever_ while suspended, where as I've found the Framework (running Ubuntu 24) loses about 1% an hour while suspended. 1% per hour is acceptable for me, but the Mac Book's power to performance ration is just insane. I can't blame Framework, of course. Upstart laptop manufacturer that is open about repair vs tech giant who's spent years optimizing hardware and batteries. All that said, I'm optimistic for better batteries, better suspend software/hardware support, and more efficient mobile processors outside of the Apple ecosystem in the coming years. The M-series Apple processors are definitely kicking others in the industry into gear.

Despite OP's complaints (which are valid) I run Fedora on my Framework 13 (AMD) and I get 5 hours of work (10 ish Firefox tabs, multiple VS Code instances, terminals and Slack) without issue. It's not 8-12, and the fans do kick up. The track pad is fine but not as nice as the one on the MacBook. But I prefer to run Linux so the tradeoff is worth it to me.

I’ve had an AMD Framework 13 since around its launch. I still love it and much prefer the Linux experience and its customizability over my M2 MacBook Pro. I also love that all the people who worked on it have their names literally on my mainboard—you’re supporting a small business trying to make the industry better, instead of a megacorp doing everything in their power to prevent easy repairs. The battery life is good enough that I never worry/think about it. The keyboard is fantastic. The trackpad is meh, not terrible but not MacBook great—use a mouse or vim :)

My AMD Framework 13 running Fedora (an officially supported option: https://frame.work/linux ) also gets around that amount of battery life. And can run games surprisingly well. Macs don't throttle when you unplug it. All AMD laptops do. Even when plugged in, AMD laptops are quite a bit slower than Macs. When unplugged, it's not even close.

> thermal, fan noise issues Anecdotal, obviously, but disabling Turbo-Core [0] on my AMD Framework 13 stopped all of my fan noise and heat complaints, with no noticeable performance impacts. It went from being so loud that my wife on the other side of the room would ask if my computer was okay to quieter than my ThinkPad, and from noticeably hot to just slightly warm. Kind of ridiculous that it takes messing with an obscure system file to resolve it, but not any more ridiculous than issues I've had with other brands. [0] It's `echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost` or something like that, and `echo 1` to turn it back on when you want that extra performance.

I love my Framework AMD 13. Coming from an old Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 3 I got used after a few years. Excellent form factor and oh so repairable. I’ve been very satisfied with the purchase. I’m really rooting for Framework over the next decade to really establish themselves and hopefully affect some change in laptop repairability. And hell, even if they don’t, hopefully they’ll be around so I can continue to be a customer.

Point is, they need a link saying there is an option available, even if it's not the new new new (which is in pre order). I just bought an AMD 13", and had the same "wtf, that's silly" thought about the site. Also, Ubuntu 24.04? Lts works great. Suspend eats some battery, but can't be more than 1% an hour. If I suspend it overnight, it's not the end of the world. I have it hooked to some Amazon USB4 dock, with wireless dongles for keyboard and mice, and 2 1080p displays. One horizonal, one vertical. Those work as expected, and all scaling between them works and makes sense. It did take a few moments to get it all to align up but once it did it's worked great. New bios update mangled my battery charge limit behavior in weird ways. Prior to mid month update, it worked great! Sometimes now it works, sometimes it's at 100%. Since the battery can be replaced in no time, I've honestly not fret it much. The speakers are not great but I found some customized eq settings for an app. (Easy .. something) That made them sound 80% better, immediately). Battery life, I dunno. I'm one of those people who kills all their batteries by panicking at 56%. If light duty, 6 hours no problem, maybe 8? I love it. A bit of coin but I'm hoping they stay around so when things break , they can be replaced. Tired of forced updates and controlled subscribe behaviors. A laptop one can replace broken pieces themselves and an OS that thus far lets you use the damn computer.

Ubuntu 24.10 - works just fine. I lose about 1% battery per hour while suspended. I’ve made no Os config changes. It just works like most Linux experiences I’ve had the last few years with not bleeding edge hardware. Battery life while using is super variable by task, so it’s hard to give a data point. The battery life is _fine_ for me, but nowhere near an M series MacBook in my experience

Hi Nirav! I don't have a question but I just wanted to say I'm a superfan of Framework. I love my AMD 13! I'm as cynical as it gets when it comes to tech companies, but Framework is the only one that seems to be on track to actually make the world a better place. Please keep doing what you're doing, stick to the mission, and I'll be a customer for life. Also please make a smartphone so I can finally be on an all-Framework stack! :)

I know the Mac hardware is pretty trick, but man, I do most of my dev on Linux and have a Framework Laptop (AMD) running Ubuntu; it's just really nice for dev stuff to work the same way it does on our production environment... Also, the frequency and size and time to install MacOS updates - like these computers are blazingly fast from the cpus to the SSDs - after an update has downloaded, what could it possibly be doing that takes 30+ minutes to install? I've never had to wait for an apt-get upgrade that long.