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Laptop Replacement/Suggestions Thread: Bring out yer dead laptops!
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the framework OEM one for the 13" laptop is 60W. Any 60W or higher adapter will work. I'm willing to bet (though obviously have not tested) that a 45W adapter would also be fine/work but would charge the laptop slower, especially while in use.
The Framework adapter is $50 USD, and does include the USB-C cable, so if you don't have something lying around it's not a terrible deal, but if you have a 60W adapter you're good to go, or you can also just buy something better/what you want instead.
Does Framework have a "marketplace" of any kind? This came with a storage module I won't use.
half an hour ago it was scanned as international shipment release a couple provinces over, about 1300km away (about 800 miles).
I'm thinking FedEx may by lying to me.
I'm very sad because it not making it here today means waiting until Tuesday, since I won't be able to get my hands on it until then.
So the laptop hung out in Anchorage for 2 days for no reason, then on the day it was due to be delivered it flew almost directly over me from Anchorage to Memphis.
I know Memphis is FedEx's main hub, so aside from the fact that it literally flew over me and could have just parachuted it down, the fact that it sat in Anchorage for 2 days is what annoys me.
What apps is it happening in? UI elements and fonts in well coded apps should scale properly. Fuzziness usually only occurs in apps that haven't been updated/well coded for high dpi displays.
And I have also had issues with come of those hardware monitoring tools. Not sure why but a good number of them don't seem to like high dpi and the developers have never fixed them.
Fun "FedEx remains the worst" update.
So it went from Memphis to Fargo for some reason. And now it has been "in transit" from Fargo for about 20 hours. I'm pretty sure you could drive from Fargo to me in 20 hours.
Fedex is continuing to insist that it will be delivered by 5pm today, which is about 2.5 hours from now, despite the fact that is is not in the same country as I am.
It probably depends on the carrier/where you are, but for me, personally, FedEx is the only one that cannot give an accurate estimate, and the only one that consistently misses the target delivery date for me. Usually it's by a day, this time it's going to be by at least two days. As much as I despise UPS, they're way better. Canada Post is an easy punching bag, but always gets it right.
FedEx likes to overpromise and under deliver.
And again, I usually don't sweat it a whole bunch but if I don't get it by Thursday I have to figure out some other arrangement for the package since I'm away starting on Friday for a week.
And around here, FedEx is pretty damn accurate as to when they'll show up and I've had nothing but good experiences with them. I'll even pay a couple of euros extra to use them specifically.
But DHL I wouldn't trust with anything you had any expectation of ever arriving. They pull off the "recipient was not at home, sending over to terminal" with an almost clockwork precision, even though I get literally pinged on my phone if they try to ring, but they never did.
The speakers are baaaad. Like, I'm told these are an improvment over the first two versions of the Framework, but they are.. not good. It's not a deal breaker, but these sound worse than a few $300 chromebooks I've played with. Really disappointing.
The fan is very loud when under even moderate load. Not ideal, but livable.
Keyboard is fine. Not the best I've typed on, but far form the worst. Trackpad is the same.
The fact that the F12 button is a hard coded shortcut to the framework website is extremely obnoxious and I hate that.
The 3:2 matte screen is the star of the show here. Real good.
Otherwise, it feels like a solid but unremarkable laptop that came in pieces that I put together myself, which is kind of neat. I have no real feel on battery life since trying to gauge battery life while I'm setting it up is not fair to it. Need to give that some time.
I like the laptop quite a bit. But big shame about the speakers.
here's the $10,000 question from me
if you run headphones through the built in aux jack, are you getting baseline static/noise? that's the problem I have on my 11th gen (which I'm told is due to a combination of audio controller drivers/grounding issues). that was supposedly fixed at some point in the newer models.
What are wired headphones? Is that was is supposed to plug into that weird hole on the laptop?
I kid, mostly. I can't remember the last time I used wired headphones. it took me a bit but I did manage to dig up the 3.5mm cable for my noise cancelling headphones to test for you. There is a very small amount of noise when I plug headphones in. I can only really hear/notice it when the headphones are plugged in and there's no audio playing. When I'm playing something I don't really hear anything.
I finally bit the bullet. These two laptops went on sale 3 times since I started watching them, and every time for the same price, so it doesn't seem like that sale price is budging any further any time soon. Went for the 4090 version. So happy to finally be replacing my old workhorse of a laptop after over a decade of use.
the big disappointments on this device are battery life, speakers, trackpad, and fan noise.
big highlights are keyboard, display, and well the overall idea of the Framework.
I really wish the battery life was better. I'm on the i5-1340p, which means I got the 55wh battery. Battery life typing into the internet as I currently am doing is around 5.5, maybe 6 hours. In 2023 I would expect more from a laptop that is this expensive. I do wish that I could have orderd the 61wh battery with the i5, but framework doesn't let you, even in DIY. the ~10% more battery capacity might be worth about another 45 minutes of battery life, and I might do it once it is available as a standalone purchase.
There are rumours that the Ryzen 7xxx model of the framework will get longer battery life, but that's just all speculation based on the fact that those are 15W parts while intel is a 28W part. It's really going to depend on how effiecent each part is. I don't think the ryzen will be double the battery life. the one thing that I have seen mentioned nowhere however, is that the charging situation is ok. the standard framework charger is 65W but when I plug it into a 100W charger I get 90W charging when the battery is low, which leads to fast charging, at least to 50%.
Related to CPU and charging and wattage and the whole thing. I know this is a limiation of having to design a device with interchangable parts, but the thermals are not great. The fans spin up quite loud under medium load. that really is one thing that higher end laptops do well, they can design their cooling around the entire chassis, and some do it really well. This thing gets loud when you push it.
As I said before, the speakers are bad. Really bad. Easily the worst part of the product. If you care about that, avoid. the trackpad has some werid touch detection on right and left click, and the part feels a bit cheap, no better or worse than your standard $700 windows laptop I imagine, but this is not $700.
So yea, some things I don't like. But the screen is a chef's kiss. the 3:2 matte display is easily my favorite part of the laptop. It's a really good display. If you've seen a surface laptop, think like that, but matte. Really good. the keyboard is also good. Not the best keyboard ever, but honeslty better than I was expecting for a device I could take apart.
fit and finish is quite good for a device I can take apart. There's maybe just a little bit of a spot around the thumb scoop for the screen where I can feel the slightest misaligned egde, and getting the screen bezel set properly was harder than I thought it would be. But overall, it doesn't actually feel like a computer that is meant to be taken apart. That is a compliment. It is built really well.
Really, other than battery life and the speakers, I am extremely happy with this computer. If you can accept the fact that it does cost more than a comparable HP/Dell/Lenovo spec wise, and you don't care about onboard speakers, this is a recommended device..
Well it looks like I picked the exact right time to do it. I turned on my old laptop for the first time in a while to offload some files before wiping it and it just is shutting down over and over again after a few minutes. I think it's overheating, because the battery reads as fully charged, and the fans ramp up before it shuts off. Guess that thermal paste has finally had it.
This is for the 13" right? I'd imagine thermals are harder to do with smaller chassis. Speakers are interesting, my wife's X17 has some of the worst speakers I've ever heard and it's on a 17" premium gaming laptop haha. But we didn't care too much as she'd almost always have the volume off or use headphones.
I can say that she doesn't want an apple product, so needs to be pc based.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-9530-laptop/usexchbts9530gfpn
Just be careful with add-on warranties and similar service plans.
There may be other good options out there, but like you I only have a superficial understanding of what's good/not good.
I'd personally steer towards an HP Spectre. Those are solid laptops that include 3x USB-C/Thunderbolt, 1 USB-A, and HDMI, so no dongles to plug into a monitor.
My only other recommendation is to get something with at least 16GB of ram, even for an information worker. That's the minimum spec we go with at work now, even on otherwise cheaper laptops.
do you mind explaining how the expansion cards work for ports on this? I actually did look over the 13 as an option, but I wasn't sure what they meant by the expansion cards/how they would work in the machine. Are they external ports you swap in and out, or are they internal?
It's a fancy term for swappable ports. Basically on the motherboard there are 4 USB/C/thunderbolt ports. Framework sells cards that plug into those ports that serve as the ports on the laptop. They sit flush with the laptop, so it just ends up being like any laptop with 4 ports. The only exception to this is the Ethernet adapter, which is too big to sit flush.
The beauty of it is that you can customize the port selection on your laptop all you want. The only real requirement is that you pretty much need 1x USB-C port since that's how you charge it.
But otherwise, you can set it up however you need. Want to live the USB-C future and get 4x USB-C ports, go ahead. Still have a ton of older peripherals? Go 1 USB-C and 2 or 3 USB-A. Do you need/want video out that isn't USB-C? grab either HDMI or displayport. have a gopro? There's a card with a MicroSD slot.
They even have cards that are straight up SSD's, one 250GB and one 1TB.
It just allows you to customize the port layout as you want. I actually bought 5 cards. Normally I have 3x USB-C and 1 USB-A port, but I have an HDMI card avaiable for if I ever need to plug it into a monitor. I can swap one of the USB-C ports with HDMI.
edit: buying computer stuff is always so funny. I put together one of the 13 models for her, and I was like yeah this is a good laptop. And then I saw that there were 16 models, that come with an AMD graphics card, but they're on pre-order and wouldn't be out until Q1. So now, with a perfectly good laptop that I didn't even know existed a until yesterday, I have fomo for a laptop that isn't even available yet.
The 16 is an interesting device and while Framework has a good track record with the 13 now, I'd still be wary of this first gen product.
How's this look for my new laptop?
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