this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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hi,

pretty much the subject... I am trying to choose my next laptop and I am tempted to buy a framework 13 AMD. I saw this post from one year ago : https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-13-amd

and while the review is impressive, comments are not. how things have evolved since then? any experience?

EDIT: you convinced me, I just ordered mine. Thanks for the incredible answers !
NEW EDIT: I use arch (btw), and Gnome. For the answers, I do not think this will pose a problem but... what do you think?
(and yes, I ordered mine before reading last comment of paequ2 who doesn't like it... for reasonable reasons, maybe. I hope I will have more luck ;) )

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

I've been using a framework since the first edition they've released and it worked great. Theyve only gotten better since.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I've got a 13 with Intel Ultra and it's a good machine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I've found linux support to be stupendous. I am running fedora silverblue and I can't think of anything that didn't work out of the box.

Even the fingerprint sensor!!!

Framework has really great forums and pages dedicated to linux. I even get firmware updates through ufw no problem.

Great build quality, amazing repairability, performance for the price is pretty decent. The keyboard is even pretty good.

It's probably one of my favorite laptops I've ever used.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

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).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I too am considering a framework 13, and am wondering the same. Hopefully someone will give some insight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 days ago

It's probably good if that is the sort of thing you are after, a laptop just isn't something I want to spend real money on myself.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yea*

It's spelled Y-E-A.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What distro has given you trouble on gnome? I've had mine a couple weeks and it's been pretty solid on fedora (gnome)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

You could also try using KDE Plasma instead of Gnome, which survives GPU resets.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yep! The Ryzen 5 7640U. It's never immediately, it generally takes several minutes, maybe just bringing up a Tumblr page with a video and letting it loop for several minutes might hopefully do it, though, I've had a crash when Tumblr wasn't the active tab so you can multitask if you're fine with suddenly getting booted.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Yeah same machine I have. Forgive my ignorance -- I've actually not used Tumblr very much. Could you link me to a page with a looping video? Somehow I'm having trouble finding a non-gif video at the moment.

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