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by jdblair 174 days ago
I'm also a laptop weirdo and I've had a Framework 13 with the Ryzen 7 motherboard since May of 2022. I run Ubuntu (currently 25.10) on it.

Its a good laptop, but not a great laptop. Its very light and compact (very important to me), and its been reliable, at least since the AMD GPU driver issues were resolved. The matte screen is fine, battery life is adequate, and the CPU meets my needs as a hobby developer.

Overall, I'm happy with it and I expect to use it for many years.

Its biggest issues are the touchpad (it's a diving board design, so you have to always click in the bottom 1/3 of the pad) and the quality of the case. The case flexes slightly if the computer is on an uneven surface, or if you are holding it in one hand by the corner while typing/mousing with your other hand, and this can cause the mechanics of the touchpad to jam. I've trained myself to tap instead of click, but that's me adapting to bad hardware.

I wish the case were more solid, even though I know this would add to the expense, size and weight. I expect to eventually replace every part of this laptop except the case, so I would appreciate more durability.

4 comments

I tried a coworker’s, I was a bit shocked how poor the case is. Everything flexes badly, especially the keyboard.

I was considering one, but definitely not worth it. I can get a ThinkPad for less and it’s much better quality.

Is it a 13 or 16? I have a Intel gen 12 framework 13 and it feels solid except the display is a little wobbly. The original display tended to swing in a heavy wind a bit much, but they improved the hinge at some point.
13.

The entire laptop can be easily and worryingly flexed by hand when closed.

The keyboard in particular flexes by more than a millimetre when pressing on a key or in between them.

It seems ridiculous when the much cheaper and thinner MacBook Air is far stiffer with no noticeable keyboard flex.

i'm not sure what parent is talking about, i have a fw13 and the chassis and trackpad are effectively identical to macbook's in look-and-feel
Also, something weird:

I looked up my purchase using my Framework account to confirm my purchase date, and it lists my mother board as System: Intel® Core™ i7-1260P. Sloppy record keeping like this doesn't inspire confidence.

It is definitely not, and /proc/cpuinfo confirms it:

model name : AMD Ryzen 7 7840U w/ Radeon 780M Graphics

Could you submit a support ticket around the order record issue? We certainly want to determine what happened there: https://frame.work/support/
Done! Thanks for coming here to read the tough hacker new comments. I really like what you're doing with Framework, and I hope you are able to keep iterating and improving.

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Update: Sorry, there is no mistake! The i7 order was my original pre-order, which I canceled. My order is correctly recorded.

was close to getting one, more for worry free linux compat than for repair, but ended up with a mba instead for now mostly because of the touchpad. someday i will have my perfect linux laptop. i saw the framework youtube video where they failed trying to make a new giant haptic touchpad. don't do this just copy the mac. after you copy the mac you can try to improve it maybe.
> Its biggest issues are the touchpad (it's a diving board design, so you have to always click in the bottom 1/3 of the pad)

Wait, are you saying it's not possible to change settings so that I can

- single finger tap anywhere for a left click,

- two finger tap anywhere for a right click.

No, it is. That's how I use mine.