My definition of “high end” in 2023 is a battery that last 14+ hours of general use, doesn’t sound like a 747 when I open two Chrome tabs side by side and won’t fry my nuts when I put it on my lap.
Fullack. Returned my framework laptop because of 3 hours battery life (streaming Netflix, measured multiple times), the 747 sound (customer support told me "works as expected"), and if I want to fry eggs I have other devices for that. I'd say "there's room for improvement".
I think that's a consequence of the gen 11/12 Intel chips used? I think the AMD versions would be much cooler and have better battery life (or so I hope!)
One data point I can contribute is that of two "cousin" HP laptops: Elite Book 845 G8 with an AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U and 840 G8 with an Intel i7-1165G7.
These are 14" "Ultrabooks" with the same rated battery capacity, dimensions and almost the same components.
The AMD one has 64 GB of RAM and a very bright screen (advertised as 1000 nits). The Intel one only has 32 GB and a very dim, 6 bit screen.
They both lack a dedicated GPU.
Under Linux with the AMD one, while doing basic dicking around on the internet and light Rust dev with intellij, I get a good 5-6 hours without draining the battery fully. The screen set to the minimum or almost (it's more than enough in a bright apartment – around 50% is enough when outside if the sun doesn't shine directly on it). I haven't tried this computer under Windows while unplugged.
With the Intel one, in the same conditions as above, except setting the screen a good 2/3-3/4 (the screen is absurdly bad and dim, so I need to up the backlight) I only get around 4 hours. Under Windows, it seems similar. But under Windows, standby seems to drain less battery (not counting when it hibernates). The PC does not have the option to enable S3.
Both laptops have the "battery saver" function on, which means it only charges to about 80% of the rated capacity. "Linux" means Arch with the latest "zen" kernel and X11. Windows is up-to-date 11 22h2. I didn't bother doing any specific tuning for either OS.
One other data point is a newer model of the same PC with a 12th gen i5 part (1240p I think but really not sure). My colleague who has it complains that the fan is always on. However, he uses Windows, and even on my 11th gen I do find the fan tends to come on fairly often, while it basically never does under Linux.
it's a consequence of framework not having good power management/speedstep support, although supposedly it's gotten better recently.
Using AMD chips is also not a magic bullet if you don't implement power management properly - a 25W AMD chip and a 25W Intel chip notionally pull the same power (although there are always games).
I hate to be that guy. But why do you want a laptop for that? While my above list of requirements is basically implying a MacBook, if I wanted a really performant computer with a good GPU either internal or external for a high end use case, I would get a non-Mac desktop.
When I go into either one of my corporate offices (rarely) or a client’s office, it’s nice to be able to just plug my laptop in the night before and not have to worry about a finding any place to plug it in during the day, going back and forth between conference rooms, etc.
I also go home to see my parents for a couple of weeks sometimes and work from there.
And I realize this is a very esoteric case. But I also do the whole “digital nomad” thing half the year.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. My external GPU enclosure is extremely portable. My everyday backpack fits a laptop with external GPU and a weekend's worth of luggage very comfortably.
Damn Apple. Macs have no single drawback except repairability, not even vendor lock-in (you can flash Asahi). That’s it. I’m going for a Mac except the Framework I previously planned for. Single digit battery life shouldn’t be thing in 2023.
Can I use CUDA without an Nvidia graphics card? That was my point, just like Apple they’ve locked this functionality to their hardware. Which is fine, they developed it, it’s their right to do so.
I’m well aware of the limitations of discrete graphics on Macs.
The nice thing about an eGPU is your portable becomes much more portable, since portables with reasonable GPUs are heavy, big, and hot. The bad thing about eGPUs is they're ~$250 on top of the GPU cost, which is a little to close to a second desktop PC.
running Windows or Linux ? If I remember correctly they had issues anyhow with power leak on standby from the expansion cards but under Linux battery life was much worst anyhow
I’m not a fan. Thinkpads have had magnesium enclosures since 2000. I don’t like the framework design or philosophy. You’d have to be insane to buy an Intel laptop for the same money as an ARM Macbook. This reusable thing doesn’t make a bit of sense to me either. Do you really want to be using a 10 year old chassis with new parts? What’s the point of trying to save the environment when the other 8 billion could care less?
Unless you don’t want a Mac? I like my Mac, but prefer Linux for dev. Having a beefy AMD framework 16” that I can refresh in 3 years sounds great to me.
> What’s the point of trying to save the environment when the other 8 billion could care less?
“What’s the point in doing things you personally care about if there isn’t worldwide consensus?”
If the parts are made to fit the chaos and the design is reusable, what does it matter of the chaos is old?...unless say it's greatly worn and the integrity is impacted....but then you can buy a replacement part.
Their pricing on the 13 is fair for the components they offer. I'm not in the market for a new laptop, still rocking a 2015 mbp...but if I need a new one, I hope they're still around.
Come on they’re dumping metric tons of industrial waste into the oceans every day but here we are sorting cans from cardboard. It’s just virtue signaling. It’s totally meaningless.
That it’s now law is just a mind game. They get you to habitually say yes to a series of nonsense tasks and arbitrary rules so later you don’t question when they march your children off to a pointless war
Because my two previous laptops were still working fine when their plastic body started to crack and it was heartbreaking to have to toss them away. I managed to changed the plastic body of the second one but the the keyboard broke, then the battery, then the HDD. Now the motherboard has died on me. It was all for nothing. It was a pain to dissassemble each time, fearing to lose screws and to break the old plastics.
I don't know about the rest of the world but for people like me who care about their stuff to be sturdy/long-lasting/repairable, who feel responsible of what they buy and to stop littering the world with trash, I don't how Framework could have done better. I have the second generation, I don't care about you price for specs. It does make noise when compiling but hey at least I get the performance, the rest of the time with my terminal editor, dev server, and many tabs browser ? Not especially noisy and it is never slow.
It's all I wanted and I got it.
Plus I can dream of replacing the motherboard in 10 years with a super low consumption cpu, if all my money isn't going to buying food made very expensive by climate change that is.
If that is your definition then a Framework 13 is probably not the laptop for you.
It does fit my needs perfectly though - a usually on desktop but portable for travel notebook PC with 64G ram and 2TB ssd for under $1200. Very cheap compared to other laptops with the same specs and I really like it.
It's cheap because the DIY edition has no RAM/SSD and these are super cheap from 3rd parties currently while other laptop vendors take fat margins on them. Throw in that no SSD means no OEM windows license fee (I have free msdn anyways) and it's just so much cheaper.
So low end counts as "high end in 2023"? Also, you probably want to include weight in there, otherwise 10 year old thinkpads with powerbridge easily qualify: 188Wh give you lots of time. Also any silent laptop + power bank.
This is where buying "professional grade" does often save you. I have seen tons of Dell Latitudes and Lenovo Thinkpads that look like a black brick but are still going 5+ years later. They actually invested in thermals and it shows. (Written on a 7 year old Thinkpad).
I had to repaste the CPU in my old Thinkpad after a couple of years, but overall I got several years of hard use out of it (including playing games on it in hot apartments) before I destroyed it with an unplanned rapid deceleration.
It's funny you should say that... I just bought a 6? year old Latitude E7470 for £189 last week.
I had one years ago and it was built like a tank. Also, the screen (2560x1440) is possibly the best I've had on a laptop and the keyboard has particularly deep and solid travel making it the best typing experience I've had on a laptop too.
So, best laptop I've had tbh.
It's only an i7 6600U so not mega powerful but I don't write 2M LOC apps anyway so it's fine.
Just waiting on 32GB RAM arriving (official support is 16GB but the chipset supports 32).
I agree 100%... business-class laptops (and printers for that matter) all the way.
