Last week, we published the final release for the Windows version of 12th Gen along with more context around what has stalled the Linux updater: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/framework-laptop-bios-and-d...
Early this week, we'll be releasing final Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16 AMD BIOS and Driver updates that have been in Community Beta testing over the last 10 days.
A few months ago, we released an 11th Gen BIOS update for Windows: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/framework-laptop-bios-relea...
With each of these complete, we've resolved both infrastructure and process issues that make it faster for us to iterate on BIOS and driver updates on each platform. Obviously, our words here are not enough. We need to and commit to demonstrating this by actually improving both our iteration speed on software updates and our communication processes so that you both know the status and are aware when we have releases.
This line really resonated with me. I own a 12th-gen Framework laptop personally, and have enjoyed using it enough that I wanted to have one at work as my existing machine is aging out. Like many businesses, my org requires some paperwork ("telecom approval") in order to buy computing hardware, which is basically a short questionnaire that I assume to check off some "we're not actively trying to backdoor you" boxes. I've had vendors get this turned around in <24 hours. Framework, however, has not been able to do this. Their reasoning is basically, per the article,
> [..] interspersed with not-untrue but unsatisfying responses from Framework employees (some version of "we're a small company" is one of the most common)
claiming their B2B lead is "swamped". Unfortunately, they've been that way since I started that approval request (with repeated follow-ups) 6 months ago, and can't even give me a timeline for when they might even be able to review it. I'm trying to get approval for an org with high-four-figures employees; not Google-size, but not exactly a small business either.
The initial execution on their laptops has been good, and I'm hoping that it continues. But at least to me, it definitely feels like there's a lot of maturing to do for the company on the process for product support and customer experience.
It's encouraging to see that they've taken this kind of feedback so seriously, and I'm hoping that the organizational steps outlined above will help to make this process smoother for other groups in a similar position looking to buy from Framework moving forward.
I'm not in this industry but do sell into regulated industries with vendor diligence practices.
I would check your assumption that it's just "checking off some boxes" -- often questionnaires can be hundreds of pages long, and require you to sometimes get esoteric certifications or attestations. The questions are often very sophisticated meaning that not just anyone can fill them out. Big companies have dedicated roles for this type of thing (a lot of CISO at SME is filling out these papers) where the person is specialized in filling out these papers. Also, there is a knack to these types of forms -- you have to be able to hold two opposing ideas in your mind to do this effectively, A) this is important to do quickly and well to enable us to make sales to this company, and B) this paperwork is bullshit and you should focus on checking the boxes versus worrying about, e.g., truly enforcing a floppy disk security policy at your firm (yes, most of these questionnaires get added to over the years and never pared down, so you often have to answer questions about comically obsolete or irrelevant technologies). There's a big catch because often someone skilled enough to answer these questions would be better served actually doing things, e.g. writing code, and the people who can fill out these questions but not skilled enough to do the actual things are a weird middle-ground of mediocre that is hard to find.
Really big companies often solve this by just paying overskilled people to do this for a few years, which is expensive and soul-destroying for the skilled person (I had a CTO quit in large part because of having to do paperwork). And after a vendor is already established with a company, the requirements for updating it year over year are really light, so it's actually not as hard for established companies to maintain versus new vendors.
This is a really insightful comment, how do companies get around this issue (apart from paying overskilled people until they burnout)?
What is there to backdoor? Why can't businesses just pay money and get product and not overcomplicate this?
In most companies if you want to buy from a vendor that has no prior business relation you'll need to do the paperwork.
They do this for many reasons, but generally predicting the risk of very low probability events is very difficult, so they don’t understand the risk vs cost tradeoff as well as they think.
I love their vision of a repairable laptop, and have replaced parts on them, without issue. That is a great achievement.
I have had issues with drivers, and specifically had to reinstall windows to reflash firmware to get a new touch pad to work in linux. Bummer, but I'm also running on the fringe a little, so I accept that.
Overall, the experience has been positive, but I can just imagine how much of a tidal wave of support they must be experiencing. That's not to give them a pass. I hope they improve, but they are trying to do an audacious thing.
I was hoping for pluggable modules for {IMU, GPS, barometer, geiger counter, air quality sensor, software-defined radio, 5G cellular, RGB LEDs, power-over-ethernet charging, even a small motor module so the laptop can drag itself around on the table}. And what do we get? Some stupid 2nd hand USB-C passthrough and HDMI modules.
Not even a 2-USB-C module that the forums have been asking for ages.
Not even a Dvorak keyboard.
No e-Ink display option. No flush mount bezel option.
No multiple camera options. No depth camera. No LIDAR. No 4K webcam. No low-light StarVis webcam. No stereo cam. No infrared webcam.
No nothing. The ecosystem doesn't even exist.
I was hoping for this to be the Raspberry Pi of laptops with a huge pile of parts on SeeedStudio and AliExpress that you can plug into it.
Josh Cook is probably the most prolific developer and has most of his designs available for preorder: https://community.frame.work/t/custom-framework-module-purch...
Overall though, I'm still more than happy with my 11th gen. It's far better than any laptop I've had before and I have next to no complaints about it as a laptop.
1. They are actually more expensive than something like ThinkPad X13/T14/T14s with the same specs (if you know how to find and use their "coupons"). It is definitely not as modularized (although that will also change in the next generation), but it is hard to justify spending more when you consider build quality and support. 2. There are still reliability issues, like what is mentioned in the article, and things like HDMI not working in certain conditions [0]. I knew that I need better than this.
I used to tinker with Android ROMs/root and different Linux distros a lot back as an undergrad student, but I very quickly realized that, even as a grad student, I need something that is reliable and works, and I need to focus on real productive work instead of figuring out how to fix things. Since then, I only use mainstream laptops/phones with a standard setup as my main devices, although I sometimes have spare/separate devices for trying things out.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/1biqwdm/laptop_l...
When I think of the other big names, they've all been around for quite some times and they were already established companies. I'm not excusing Framework, but I am excited for their future. My Framework 13 AMD has been running great for the last 6ish months. I've had a big where the screen won't come back on after a charged sleep twice now, but it's been a minute since that happened.
Edit: I think this is why Dell/Apple end up winning in the end. Stability in a computer is critical.
Only thing I really miss is passing a PCI device to crostini like you can do with USB. In dev mode I have seen indications it may be possible but no luck yet. Passing the iGPU or a thunderbolt PCI device to crostini, then to a VM would be so awesome.
It sounds like the wifi issue has now been fixed upstream, and apparently the BIOS beta they just released improves charger compatibility.
So not perfect, but good and improving. I bought this thing to last a while, and I think they're on the right trajectory for that.
Still for a coding/web browsing machine I've had a decent experience, though I do regret not waiting another 6 months so I could have gotten the 16 inch version.
For the touchpad, similarly, we used the same controller chip because we've seen it work well on Framework Laptop 13, but the touchpad surface dimensions and overall structure are unique to Framework Laptop 16.
I really do hope they begin to offer more customization and expansion options soon; I'd love to support them some more, but there's not anything that I need from them, since I got a couple extra modules when I ordered it.
My biggest gripe is actually the LED array modules, because they don't have any convenient software to utilize them if I don't want to write python in my freetime. They're soliciting feedback on what people want out of them, but I definitely get the impression they're just planning to have users create the apps. Stuff like battery percentage or scrolling marquee should have been there from the get-go.
It feels like a good response to me, similar to nrp's comments in this thread: it acknowledges the issue and explains what they're doing to address it.
At least Framework are trying, unlike Dell/Lenovo/HP.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/25/24081225/lenovo-thinkpad-...
Dell on the other hand...
Also my T14 gen 3 has several firmware problems.
Were MacBook upgrades not so expensive (all i want is 16GB!) and my love affair with NixOS, I'd probably have regretted buying one.
My daily driver is a MacBook and honestly... I'm not expecting that to change. So I guess I don't mind if the Framework is a worse experience than the MacBook. It just needs to do the few things that I need a Windows laptop for. (and maybe support some experiments using desktop Linux...)
Year of the Linux desktop?!?!!!
That implies you believe they are doing something shady or nefarious by not making a sd card module - which they aren’t. This is just an old fashioned business decision where it’s not the financial priority right now.
What I think you mean to say is that it’s a feature required for you that they don’t have. In fact it looks like they’re making one soon: https://frame.work/products/sd-expansion-card
And you can say “well that wasn’t the official framework org” but they’re kinda holding themselves out as a serious contender (marketing on LTT etc) yet apparently don’t have things as basic as working Linux drivers (in their officially supported choice of distro)! I think there is indeed a general belief among the public that you need to at least get that far before holding yourself out for public consumption, as a non-beta product, yeah. When you do those sorts of things it’s clearly not being held out as an enthusiast device for tinkering etc, and then people will have some (reasonable) expectations that it’s gonna actually work. If not, arguably it’s FTC time at that point.
It’s kinda the same as AMD graphics drivers on windows… having the fans repeatedly insist they’ve never had a driver issue for 10 years now (when Vega, rdna1, and rdna3 all had major issues that lasted a significant amount of time) does destroy trust among the public when they try it and see it’s not true. Nothing feels worse than recommending them to a friend based on seeming internet consensus and having them have problems over the advice I gave them. Spent a lot of time trying to debug remotely and get their 5700xt working etc, never did, they ended up selling and buying a 2060S that worked perfectly, and I’ve never trusted the fans again.
The boy who cried wolf is a cultural touchstone for a reason, we don’t like being called to action for something that turns out to be untrue. And spending a lot of money to learn that lesson generally does create a trust issue that turns people off with these brands.
Apple however makes a lot of sense to mistrust at pretty much every turn.
Meanwhile, my 12th-gen Intel Framework 13 has severe thermal throttling issues that support hasn't been able to resolve after more than a year of back and forth. While my confidence in the company is at an all-time low, I don't think this is a trust issue.
Anyway, they've already pre-announced a SD card module[0], and people can sign up to get updates about its development. They're even completely candid that it's not 100% certain they won't cancel the project. That sounds refreshingly trustworthy, over other companies that might promise it without disclosing the uncertainty, or even take pre-order money and hold onto it for who knows how long.
Then again they have a miniscule engineering team but they have made two laptops with some pretty non-conventional design aspects and a bunch of modules including a swappable GPU and (one of?) the first 180W USB-C power supplies they're doing a pretty good job so far.
Considering the relative rarity of SD cards compared to microSD, other than photo- and videographers who aren't really a core demographic, welded as they often are into the Mac ecosystem, I can see why it's not the biggest priority and it certainly doesn't smell of dishonesty. I mean, why would they even be up to shenanigans over SD cards of all things?
Since they're on the case (ha, geddit?) anyway, you can get a $5 USB3 SD adapter today and buy the module when it comes out. Which is more than I can hope for with a recent ThinkPad!
I wouldn't be surprised if the internals of the module would need to be completely redesigned, with the circuit board layout redone, for a full-size SD card. The SD card itself likely would physically reside in a location where other components reside in the microSD reader expansion card.
I do wonder how true it is that the "put microSD cards in your computer" market is smaller than the "put SD cards in your computer" market.
If I think of the devices that I have microSD cards in (Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, Windows tablet, phones), they're all devices where the microSD card just lives in the device and only gets removed when I'm upgrading the device. Or I guess there was the time I installed CFW on my 2DS XL.
On the other hand, I take the SD card in and out of my camera much more often, despite it getting less use than the aforementioned microSD using devices.
Not to mention most microSD cards are sold with a microSD -> SD adapter, so to me it feels like if you're going to do only one adapter, you'd do SD.
They have Intel 13th, 16GB onboard RAM, 3x USB-A, 2x TB4, VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, SD slot, 19V barrel jack input, removable battery, etc etc at $1999 starting. That should tick every major boxes that Framework 13 does except price. If by modularity people means SD and VGA and Framework modularity cannot accommodate that, that doesn't count.
Has this all been just a massively roundabout way of finding that out?
