[aunty_helen]

This is a point that people should remember if they're thinking about purchasing a framework. This is still very much beta hardware.

The battery drain is annoying, it's around 30-50% per night depending on what addon cards you have. I've got a setup that puts it close to 40% per night so the laptop has to live on charger over night if I want to use it the next day.

However, the thing that's really stopping me from using my laptop (it has sat in my office for the last 3 weeks with its lid closed) is the touchpad. https://community.frame.work/t/subpar-touchpad/3962 External mouse only.

The mac-book killer was very much hyperbole from paid reviewers.

Edit: Also, the I'll throw in the speakers being absolute garbage as well. Think 1 step above 90s pc speaker. And the sound device has a constant background static when using headphones which clicks on when there's sound and then 2 seconds after any sound being played clicks off.

[omdv]

Anecdotal, so obviously YMMV.

On battery - I am using "sleep then hibernate", which typically means 4-6% of battery drain overnight which happens while it is in first ~2hrs of sleep mode. Of course it means you now spend 30sec booting up, but I can live with that.

On touchpad - weird, my experience is opposite. I'd say this is the closest to Macbook experience I had, no issues whatsoever.

Speakers are a bit quiet, agreed, no static or anything, we occasionally use it to watch Netflix with my wife, while away from TV, interchangeably with her Macbook and definitely wouldn't call it garbage.

So, all in all I am in "quite happy" camp. Yes, not Macbook killer, but for me it is close enough and without any major inconveniences, but with all OSS benefits and presumably infinite upgradeability. I use Arch btw :)

[kkielhofner]

Sleep then hibernate was a game changer. Pretty convoluted to setup (PopOS in my case) and still kind of a pain (takes longer to resume than I'd like) but definitely an improvement.

I have other issues with it (USB-C DP alt-mode, fan noise) but I've already ranted about those on HN.

[worthless-trash]

Has anyone done investigation into which components are still 'alive' during the sleep ?

This can be done with an infrared camera, should be able to see which components remain hot after a long period of 'sleep', or a voltmeter for the more electrically inclined.

My bet is that its some kind of bus that isnt powering down and continually waking up the devices on it.

[sudders]

The sleep then hibernate sounds promising. But is it something you need to configure yourself?

[omdv]

On Linux? Yes.

Changing the mode is just a matter of changing one line in one file. But getting hibernate to actually work is a bit of hassle, especially if you have any kind of encryption or non-standard file system. This said - I managed to get mine working on encrypted Btrfs.

[hutzlibu]

At some point I tried to have dual boot with windows and encryption and hibernate working. No fun and no success.

[andi999]

What linux distro do you use? I always encountered the problem that after doing some work to get things going everything had to be redone after the next upgrade. Do you expect to have this issue?

[omdv]

I don't think upgrades change this configuration. I use Arch, which is a rolling release distro, so maybe this is a factor, but I didn't have any issues with upgrades, apart from one time when Framework released FW upgrade few months ago, which overwrote the boot record (took 15min to fix/recover), but that is a different story...

[netizen-936824]

Genuine question here. I run gentoo on an NVMe drive and I have zero reason to use sleep or hibernate as my machine gets to the DE in under 30s.

What use cases are there that absolutely requires these features when boot times are so short?

[charcircuit]

Sleep and hibernate are about persisting state and not about boot time. I don't want to spend time reopening everything and setting everything up when I come back to my computer. I just want to continue where I left off.

[netizen-936824]

The way I have things set up, my browser opens all my last tabs and I have things set to start the browser and a few other programs at boot.

What programs are you using in such a fashion that simply having the program autostart at boot is not feasible?

[kalleboo]

My code is stopped inside the debugger when I've finally reproduced a bug. My wife calls for dinner. I close my laptop and stick it in a safe place where a kid won't spill something sticky on it. After dinner I open up the laptop and the debugger is right there in the same spot, I don't have to spend another 30 minutes trying to reproduce the bug.

[cottager2]

I actually find it a bit surprising that you aren’t aware of a difference. Have you used a MacBook recently? If no, I highly suggest you try it. Once you’re used to instant startups, waiting for a boot is just frustrating.

[vladvasiliu]

This.

I have an old 2013 MBP that wakes up from sleep quicker than I can open the lid.

This is one of the niceties I've lost when I moved to a PC last year (the others can mostly be attributed to cheap "enterprise" hardware).

My current laptop takes longer to wake from sleep while also sucking the battery dry. Talk about lose-lose.

[Dylan16807]

Debugging has already been mentioned. I run lots of programs that take several hours too, be that copying files or transcoding or processing some data. Right now I have something running that won't be done for two days.

And when I have 20 programs open, even if it only takes 15-30 seconds per program to get them going again that's a bunch of time I didn't need to waste. And even the programs I have that autostart still require prodding to get them into the right state.

[netizen-936824]

I also have programs that can take weeks to run, but I just leave my computer on and running in those cases. I have never trusted sleep or hibernate to properly handle those situations and I don't want to lose data. Not to mention, if I'm pausing it while its running it will take even longer to finish.

Debugging I can understand, as that's a bit of a different beast than a program that can run unattended.

[na85]

>What programs are you using in such a fashion that simply having the program autostart at boot is not feasible?

Developing an application in Lisp and there's all kinds of state in the REPL right now. Gotta pick kid up from preschool, just close the lid and it'll be exactly as I left it when I come home.

Have a document open in an ad-hoc fashion (i.e. it's some PDF for work, not something on my autostart list) and I get interrupted. Close lid. Document is still there when I open it again, and what's more it's open to the exact spot I stopped reading.

[netizen-936824]

I guess I also don't understand the "closing the lid to leave" behavior as well. My laptop is integrated into a desktop setup with external monitors and it only gets closed when I actually take it out of the house. Otherwise screen locking and letting the monitors go sleep is fine with me

[charcircuit]

>What programs are you using in such a fashion that simply having the program autostart at boot is not feasible?

As a simple example open documents in libreoffice. I don't want to automatically start LO every time I turn on computer. If I have documents open I want to be able to return to the same place when I came back.

[vladvasiliu]

Some Linux DEs have a "reopen windows at login" setting. I remember KDE used to have this some 10 years ago, while still on version 3. So if LO is open when you shut down, it'll bring it back up. Otherwise, it won't.

I don't know if it's able to handle reopening the last document, and even less if it can take you back to the position where you left off. This is probably application-dependent.

However, like others here, I would much rather have a functioning sleep that allows the computer to both wake up fast and not drain the battery. I don't really care for it to check my mail while it's in my backpack without any kind of network access, or whatever it is it does instead of sleeping.

[sowbug]

The task I want to do is quick, and I don't want to spend 30 seconds waiting to start something that might finish in less time than that.

A bunch of browser tabs are open, and I don't feel like recovering them at relaunch.

I have my app windows set up exactly the way I like them, down to the pixel.

I'm used to my phone, TV, microwave, wristwatch, stereo, and car not needing to boot up.

[raffraffraff]

Window tiling has killed off my need to worry about app window position.

I used to have a nasty habit of opening a text editor during the day and taking random notes during phone calls or as I worked. Several forced restarts (administrative, accidental or hardware related) forced me to start using those sticky-note apps. I've moved to Joplin now (very structured, supports markdown, syncs to dropbox periodically, is multiplatform)

The browser thing resonates though. It's not just which websites are open, but what state they're in (ie: logged in, midway through filling out a long form or survey). In a pinch I'll just 'kill -9 firefox' so after the reboot it automatically restores tabs and windows, but it's still messy. Sites that require authentication will just bounce you to the login page and may not "remember" where you were trying to get to. Maybe we need hibernate for browsers.

[Dylan16807]

I thought browsers preserved session cookies when configured to open previous tabs on launch.

I don't think I've ever noticed a logout from restarting a browser.

[netizen-936824]

Same here, as long as firefox is set up for it then everything is restores (don't think there's a solution for half-filled forms though)

[netizen-936824]

I also use window tiling, everything goes where I want it to be and quickly. I almost never have to putz with placement unless I'm doing something new.

[netizen-936824]

Why even turn the computer off? Is there a reason to not leave it plugged in and just let the monitors fall asleep?

I could understand if you're away from a plug and/or on the move though.

Also if cars have computers, don't they cold boot when you turn the car on? Phones and smart watches never truly "turn off" their screen goes into sleep mode which is fast to turn on

[TranquilMarmot]

I'm also curious why people are so keen on needing a device to be powered on and ready to go within a second or two.

On my Framework (running Windows) I have it set up to hibernate when the lid closes to preserve battery. It takes about 10 seconds to get back into the desktop when I open the lid again. It's not like I'm opening/closing the lid dozens of times a day; I open it, work for a few hours, then close it. It's not like a phone where I power it on for a few seconds every hour or so to check notifications.

[cottager2]

> I'm also curious why people are so keen on needing a device to be powered on and ready to go within a second or two.

Because it’s way more convenient. Next time you go to open your front door, take out your phone, start a timer for 30s, and then put the key in the door once the timer expires. Once you’re used to something being near-instant, there is no going back. Waiting is frustrating.

[NavinF]

Not judging, but this thread goes to show how differently people use computers and what they’re willing to tolerate.

Personally I haven’t used hibernate in over a decade and my machines typically run 6 months until I have to reboot for updates. If I had to wait ~10 seconds every time I wanted to google something, I wouldn’t use my PC nearly as often as I do today. Maybe that’s why mobile is dominant in so many categories like web search.

[TranquilMarmot]

Yeah, but it's not like every time you want to search the web you're opening up your laptop, going to a browser, doing the search, and then closing the laptop, right?

You're right that this is why I use my phone to do quick searches so often- it's on and searching within seconds. Even faster to use my voice to search instead of typing.

[netizen-936824]

The thing is, your phone never goes to "sleep" or powers off in those situations. The screen is off, that's all

[dheera]

I also do have the battery drain issue running 21.10.

I'm generally otherwise super happy with it though. The speakers don't bother me much, they're good enough for calls, and if I'm actually trying to listen to music I'll just use actual bluetooth speakers or headphones.

I'm most happy about the fact that they put an actually decent screen and key switches. Many other laptops that run Linux have shitty 1080p screens and shitty keyboards.

And the fact that I was able to shove in 2TB of SSD and 64GB of RAM all bought at market pricing, not at Lenovo or Apple pricing.

[aunty_helen]

Some big points there, I can't even get the 64gb Macbook because they decided not to bring more than 32 into my country. So being able to get whatever I want from amazon at market rates is amazing (and probably the biggest feature of this laptop)

There is an issue with ram timings not being supported that affects the more flashy ram chips. I was lucky enough that it didn't affect the 32gb module I bought but it could've been a return (they need to update the supported ram timings in the bios but haven't)

I really like the keyboard, although I would prefer the layout was more macbooky (the function key kills me but I've swapped it with the ctrl) and the screen I'm pretty happy with. The 100% / 200% scaling thats supported in fedora though is awkward. 100 is a bit squinty 200 is waay to big.

I like the laptop but have struggled to use it. I'm starting to wonder if my touchpad is actually defective.

[dheera]

Yeah personally I've settled with 100% with larger fonts. I probably spend 90% of my time in web browser + coding + terminal combined and they all handle arbitrary fractional scaling well from within the app.

And then maybe 5% of the time in graphics editing for which it doesn't matter.

For other locally run apps, scaling at 125% or 150% would be perfect but I think it's just a matter of time before Linux supports it properly without eating CPU.

[freedomben]

If you can use wayland on your distro, it can do that fractional scaling. I think I settled on like 140%

[dheera]

Oh yeah I am on Wayland. (X didn't work well for me at all, choppy mouse motions.) Fractional scaling works, just seems to consume more CPU than 100% or 200% though.

[freedomben]

I love the 64 GB of RAM. With Chrome and Firefox both running with mountains of tabs, I still don't run out of memory! Chrome performance starts tanking for other reasons before I get close to hitting swap. Take that web developers!

[qudat]

Running arch with wayland and sway on a framework. Setting up sleep-then-hibernate via systemd works beautifully. I only lose a few % overnight.

That’s the thing with running Linux as a desktop, you’ve gotta tweak it to get it just right.

Battery life is a non issue for me on the framework. The speakers on the other hand is a brutal downgrade.

More thoughts here comparing a 2018 mbp: https://erock.io/2021/11/01/framework-vs-mbp.html

[freedomben]

> That’s the thing with running Linux as a desktop, you’ve gotta tweak it to get it just right.

If you're running arch with wayland and sway, then yes absolutely. For people who stick with the default (often Gnome) I haven't had to tweak anything in many years. So I would just s/Linux/customized Linux/ or something like that. Mainly it only matters because some people will be scared away by "you’ve gotta tweak it to get it just right" so accuracy is important to me.

[thom]

What distro are you on with hibernate working out of the box (with an encrypted filesystem hopefully)?

[causi]

Yes, I'll be excited about version 2. Version 1 just has too many missed opportunities. For example, a single type-c bay could accommodate two type-A ports, or one port and one microsd reader. Wasting a whole one on a reader is dumb when most laptops just have one stuck somewhere. Give me a bay with a pop-out bluetooth mouse in it. Give me a non-chiclet keyboard and a touchpad with real buttons and a dGPU option and a removable battery in standard and extended sizes.

Why buy a laptop with four interchangeable ports when my normal laptop has two USB-A, one USB-C, HDMI, microsd, and a charge port all at the same time? Heck you can't even charge the Framework unless you leave one port as USB-C.

[kmeisthax]

There's been discussions about dual-port expansion cards on the Framework forums[0], but the problem is finding a chip that will pass through all the things you expect USB-C to handle over both ports. This is actually a larger problem with USB-C, as each altmode is basically a different spec that reuses the same connector, with lots of negotiation and custom electrical requirements involved. So any moderately niche application will either require custom silicon or have absurd limitations.

You could obviously wire up an off-the-shelf USB3 hub controller in such a way as to get two USB3 Type-C ports in an expansion card. (I don't think two type-As would fit.) However, you won't be able to charge the laptop, use external displays, or connect external GPUs through either of the ports... which is kind of the expectation that people have with Type-C ports. If they sold such an expansion card, there would probably be plenty of people angry that they can't just have this one card for charging and dongles, and then fill their other bays with storage drives.

Related example: fiber-optic Type-C cables for long-run use basically only come in two flavors, DP and Thunderbolt. And the source device has to use that one specific altmode; there is no downgrading to USB 3 or 2.

[0] https://community.frame.work/t/dual-usb-c-expansion-card-moc...

[gsich]

I don't know if that is expected. I don't because of the usual shitshow with USB-C.

[Torifyme12]

USB C is a case study in "There's no way that can be according to spec" and being disappointed every single time

[causi]

but the problem is finding a chip that will pass through all the things you expect USB-C to handle over both ports.

Why bother when no other manufacturer does? Just give me two USB 2.0 ports for peripherals.

[freedomben]

FWIW, I have an HDMI and an sd card reader expansion card that I keep in my backpack. I rarely need them buy they are small and super easy/quick to swap out that I just remove a USB port and put those in when I need them. I had a lenovo with all-the-ports and I feel like I have a lot more with the framework since I can put in what I need when I need it. I haven't yet needed an sd card reader while charging while plugged in to HDMI, while using the other port for something else, and not had the ports I need.

But I was (and still am) pretty critical of the headphone dongle that apple and many android phones make you use, so there may be some hypocrisy in what I say.

[causi]

Why keep a microsd expansion card when a regular microsd card reader would be half the size and plug into the USB port without removing anything?

[0x38B]

The biggest problem with headphone dongles for me and my family is that they don’t last. The Apple one has great sound but doesn’t take long to start cutting out (from getting yanked on in a pocket, probably).

I bought an all-metal, tiny USB-C to 3.5mm dongle and it’s started cutting out, too - and it wasn’t cheap, at about $40.

[Macha]

Another point in favour of version 2 is the timing that ended with them releasing with Intel 11th gen rather than Intel 12th gen or Zen 3/4 really is unfortunate. 11th gen Intel is not as much a gain from 8th gen Intel in power usage or performance as either 12th gen or zen3 are from 11th gen

[gtvwill]

Well common then bunj. Jump on the kicads and fart out a add on board for your dual usb type A's, or any of the other add ons you mentioned. I mean hell why not just go all out and slap usb-c double sided on a single PCB! You should be able to cram at least 4 in the same area!

Point is you can do that w/ framework. Fat luck getting dell or some other behemoth to design a device you can do that with. They have done a stellar job given how many have had hopes and dreams to do similar but haven't even got a product in people's hands.

[abeisgreat]

Had mine for a couple weeks, has some trouble sleeping / waking in Ubuntu 21.10 but aside from that (and the poor speakers) it's basically perfect. Trackpad is good and I don't see any battery drain issues. Definitely easier experience than getting Linux on other modern laptops.

[TranquilMarmot]

??? I absolutely love the touchpad on the Framework. I think people got spoiled by Macbook touchpads- no, and I mean NO, Linux/Windows laptops out there have a comparable touchpad to the Macbook. What the Framework has is good for what's available. Honestly I don't mind tap-to-click vs. press-to-click.

I can agree that the speakers aren't stellar but that's something I don't care about on a laptop since I always have on headphones or I'm just using the speakers for video conferencing or something. Never experienced any background static when using headphones.

[worthless-trash]

I think the macbook ones are hot garbage compared to my lenovo. I think people get a bit brainwashed when it comes to mac hardware.

[na85]

>I think people got spoiled by Macbook touchpads- no, and I mean NO, Linux/Windows laptops out there have a comparable touchpad to the Macbook. What the Framework has is good for what's available.

That's a dealbreaker for me. I'm not one of those people that carries around en external mouse and stuff. I bought a laptop for a reason. "Better than the hot garbage trackpad on my wife's Dell" is not good enough.

[TranquilMarmot]

Then sad to say you will be stuck on Apple hardware for the foreseeable future. It's all a matter of preference, too- I used to have a newer Dell and thought the trackpad was totally fine.

[na85]

Yeah, I've resigned myself to paying the apple tax for a while.

My wife has a recent (2019-vintage?) Dell XPS and I can't stand using it. It's just a horrible machine, despite Windows 10 supposedly being good.

- Sleep when closing the lid barely if ever works (netflix keeps playing, etc.)

- When it does sleep, the network doesn't work when you wake it back up (have to reconnect to wifi manually)

- Randomly spinning up the fans when it's supposed to be asleep. Wake it up to discover windows update decided to do whatever it does

- Trackpad just doesn't work well in general. Lousy palm rejection, fiddly multi-touch

- Camera is on the bottom of the monitor so everyone on zoom gets a great view of your knuckles, and up your nose.

It's like nobody at Dell dogfoods their own products. It's just a thoroughly shit-tier machine.

[aunty_helen]

They did change the audio chip due to supply chain issues. My laptop was right around the time they changed so I'm not sure which I've got. But there's an audible tone and then static and then an audible tone when there's no sound. So it's obvious that it's switching on and then off.

This is with a pair of akg K371.

[ksec]

Your link actually answered your question in the 2nd reply.

>That’s not subpar, that’s standard. There’s a reason why macbook touchpads are so widely praised.

Trackpad improvement in current gen PC is a very recent thing. After people trashing PC laptop trackpad for years, and Microsoft throwing in some R&D money to help improve the situation.

And again if you are comparing to a Macbook, most PC speaker has been garbage for years. Only when reviewer start comparing their PC laptop speakers to Macbook did they start to put effort into improving it.

I dont know any reviewer actually said it is Macbook Killer. It would actually be a stupid thing to say. ( Show them to me so I will take notes ). But I am not surprised because current generation so called reviewers have practically little hardware and supply chain knowledge.

There are of compromise being made to have it all fixable. But they also put in the extra effort in motherboard reliability design. And things that aren't so obvious. Compared to Macbook which is all integrated. ( Although that is changing now, you see more individual components "blocks" being used )

I think it is an expectation problem. And may be people should not have overhyped it so much.

[freedomben]

> The mac-book killer was very much hyperbole from paid reviewers.

Just because people have a different opinion than you doesn't mean they are hyperbolic paid reviewers. I love the trackpad, although I did have a minor issue out of the box where I had to click kind of hard toward the bottom center to get it to start working. I expect those things will go away as they get better. It's gotta be damn hard to put together such a complex hardware product.

[pmontra]

I didn't try the Framework but by looking at it my complaint with the touchpad would be that it has no physical buttons. Hard to middle click to paste with Linux. I only buy laptops with 3 buttons and I disable clicking on the touchpad, so the pointer doesn't move when I click. I've got the buttons after all...

Anyway, this is a 13.5" laptop so space is at a premium. I can't expect to include everything. But if they'll build a 15" laptop with NO NUMBERPAD and buttons on the touchpad, I'll consider buying it. I'll pay extras for those buttons and for the numberpad-less keyboard.

[frakkingcylons]

> The mac-book killer was very much hyperbole from paid reviewers.

Hold on. Which reviewers received payments in return for positive coverage of the laptop?

[nrp]

Arriving at this thread late, but we have never paid a reviewer and it’s unlikely we ever will. For reviewers like Linus Tech Tips and other YouTubers who do a mix of sponsored and non-sponsored reviews (and provide a clear disclaimer of which ones are which), we’ve only followed the non-sponsored path.

We discussed investment with Linus only after his review, and before making a decision on it, he brought it in front of his community to flag the risks of future conflicts of interest. Since completing the investment, he has also continued to flag that potential conflict in additional videos he has posted.

[sensitivefrost]

None of them, they're being massively hyperbolic and disingenuous because a piece of hardware isn't perfect the first iteration thus the reviewers who think a great device is great must be paid.

[zmk5]

None of them did. I think this person is just making that up.

[GauntletWizard]

Not that I agree with the characterization, but they might be referring to Linus Sebastian of Linux Tech Tips, who invested a bunch of money into the company:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg

[Wuzado]

But that's the other way around!

[emptysongglass]

Has the 3.07 BIOS update fixed the overnight drain issue? [1]

[1] https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-a...

[tebruno99]

Weird, I love the touchpad. So much better than My Dell XPS 9710