Framework 16 Unboxing and Review
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- A laptop that you can build and fix yourself, the Framework 16 is the future of personal technology!
Configure your own laptop here: frame.work/products/laptop16-...
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Music: "Earth Bound" by Slynk
Edited by Autumn - Věda a technologie
Disassembling and reassembling your laptop in a meeting is the grown-up version of disassembling and reassembling your pen in class.
I was quite often reversing the polarizer of classmates calculaters during class
Back in Covid I WFH for a company where at every meeting this one guy would clean and take apart his guns on stream.
I'm so rooting for this company, we need more of their mindset and MO.
I think this will become a popular trend in the next 10years. Tech has kind of plateaued to a point where we don’t really need any more power or accuracy for 99% of usecases.
This has caused the main players in tech to look elsewhere for improvements. Which is why we see companies like Apple planning to essentially pivot their entire company to VR. It will take some time to get there but Apple Vision is being positioned to replace Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets and Watches.
Which means that there will be a moment during this transition period where smaller companies will be able you take over the niche of supplying customers with oldschool devices. It is my belief that being repairable and more open source will allow these niche companies to take over whatever marketshare is left as Apple exits these market.
We see a similar thing happening to computer peripherals. The sensors/buttons are all perfected now. It first started with keyboards and being able to change switches/keycaps, and now we’ve started to see some companies in the mouse market selling hotswappable switches. Customers are really starting to get annoyed with their switches/scrollwheels dying, so I expect to see reliability and repairability to become a major focus, as well as click/scroll feel.
I suppose there is still a lot of time until the industry transitions but its kind of sad to know that for these companies their days in business are numbered, they will be replaced by VR eventually.
Just look at what happened to audio and photo. Ipods, walkmans, boomboxes, record players, polaroids, 80mm film cameras etc. all basically don’t exist anymore in modern life. There is a trend for people to bring back this old tech, so its not completely dead, but when you compare it to the time when everyone had and used these products every day, its a stark contrast.
The Chaos Engine! Hi friend!
I've got one on preorder already...
27:10 85kWh is an amazing battery :D That's like 15 Powerwalls in one laptop! Amazing engineering!!
Oupppppssss
I'll be buying a handful of these and backup power for my neighborhood.
@@Level1TechsI wouldn’t mind proof-reading/listening to unreleased content. I get it that stuff sometimes gets mixed up on its way between the mind and the windpipe, people who know their stuff notice it (Rocket Lake, Meteor Lake, Raptor Lake?) but people who don’t might get confused. The only content I’d have to tap out is Linux content.
Holy $hit. I have a 65kWh battery that can run my house for 4 days which cost me an arm and a leg! I need to get me one of these laptops 😂
@@abavariannormiepleb9470 I'll volunteer as tribute for the Linux content ✋😁
I hate laptops because I can't fix them. I'm glad this company exists. Love from Indiana.
Jones or the state?
Lol both
Been waiting to buy a laptop specifically for this. Plus the ability to add a dedicated GPU later In THE LAPTOP BODY, and potential to upgrade it all in the future without buying a whole new laptop.
Framework is a game changer!
@@jonbondMPGor Nidel?
For every one of us that want to buy these, there's thousands of users who buy disposable ones. Totally negating whatever wallet voting we do. See what happened to smartphone removable batteries.
>"I learned a lot"
>"Anyway, it's broken"
dude could not be more relatable
I hand laptops out to teachers, We have massive problems with laptops that have exited warranty with ports that wear out and cause problems (screen disconnect, charging issues etc... In normal laptops its a motherboard replacement and generally the cost and age we pitch the machine. With the framework I just swap in a new $9.00 modules. I have picked up 3 and sent them out to see how they hold up. For once I look forward to them getting broken.
I'd point out that a lot of people that have work-supplied laptops (especially teachers) quite often don't care about getting a new laptop. The common complaints are ' I like it, but the battery doesn't last' or ' its fine but the trackpad/keyboard doesn't work properly' etc. They really just want one or two parts replaced - they don't really need nor want a new machine.
Agreed, I have gotten push back because "We order dell" etc... But i have been holding firm on this fits the boards green initative, and allows us to better serve the users. @@smalltime0
@@smalltime0 Exactly! And replacing the one faulty bit is not only cheaper than a new computer, it's better for the environment. Wins all around!
In companies, you usually lease laptops for 3-5 years then replace. And pay for onsite support. Any issues, Dell or Lenovo can come and fix it. Deploying Framework laptops to several 100s sounds like a nightmare.
@@smalltime0In companies, you usually lease laptops for 3-5 years then replace. And pay for onsite support. Any issues, Dell or Lenovo can come and fix it. Deploying Framework laptops to several 100s sounds like a nightmare.
If I were to buy a laptop I would ABSOLUTELY BUY A FRAMEWORK!!!!
29:06 The OCULink thing Framework has schematics for the expansion bay and the modules so you can hack together if you know how to do stuff :)
I'm so happy you pointed out the power requirements on the SSD. I feel like most people don't bother, and there isn't really a lot of easy to find info on power efficiency, especially with stuff like SSDs, where most people go "what do you want, it's better than a hard drive, isn't that enough for you?"
I literally gave up looking up anything beyond size (physical), size (storage), PCIe gen, rated speed and 1 star reviews on SSDs simply because it's a full day of work to find the correct specs of any disk. Often the cache size and type doesn't exist even on the official website of the product, let alone projected lifespan in TBW or power requirements. There really should be some site that gathers all the actual spec of all the tech stuff INCLUDING laptops (another imperscrutable field) so it's easy to see know what you actually get
TomsHardware may not be the best, but they usually have idle and stress power consumption in their SSD reviews
"SN850X or 990 Pro gotta go faaaaast!" ... "Why is my idle-ish battery life half of what it used to be...?" See it far too often, 0.5W vs 1.2W idling SSD is a big difference in laptop terms!
@@nikolaj5054True, but because they're the only major outlet to do so and they don't review every SSD, it still leaves substantial gaps (speaking as someone having recently bought an SSD specifically for low power consumption on a Framework lol)
Edit: almost forgot to mention, Tom's only does idle and full speed power without discussing power modes, supposedly SSDs have 4 power modes and run using different modes depending on OS, driver configuration and SSD firmware preference. 2 different SSDs with the same power consumption in Mode 2 can still have vastly different power consumption in the real world because one might prefer to stay in Mode 3 for power reasons and the other might keep switching to Mode 1 for higher performance.
the usual hack is to set Windows to turn off the drives after 1 minute of inactivity to get around the power consumption requirements of a SSD
I got the Framework 13" AMD (same Ryzen 7 7840U as the 16" model in the video, but no discrete GPU). I love it, and I love the framework philosophy. BUT I want to temper expectations a bit, there *are* trade-offs. The speakers are not the best. The battery life is _really_ not the best. You can get better for cheaper from other brands, you might even get more prompt customer service and replacement under warranty from other brands. This is still a relatively new and tiny company! But the repairability and availability of parts for reasonable cost is fantastic. The documentation and discussion online is fantastic. If you're a power user with realistic understanding of the tradeoffs (and some patience for bios updates), then this is probably the one for you. Framework is good people.
According to reports I've seen on the forums, JEDEC DDR5-5600 is really the only spec you're likely to have success with, for the time being.
the 16 has a 7840 hs that has a higher wattage
I really hope this company success, this is how laptops ahould be made, easily repairable and upgradeable.
This is a great overview of this laptop. I have a 10th or 11th Gen Intel by MSI (Leopard GP 66 I believe). There are so many annoyances with working on it. Add in the more open platform and more efficient AMD platform and this thing is really looking attractive. I think when the time comes for that purchase, I've seen enough about the FW 16 to know I won't be considering other brands until more companies match these features.
I'm in a similar situation, it's an Asus ultrabook with i7 10th gen. I'm only waiting to see where life brings me after university, in order to decide between a 13" or 16" framework.
Dude MSI is a really shitty company, like a lot
12:58 Love the Tech Icarus story, if you haven't let a bit of magic smoke escape in your time can you even call yourself a tech nerd?
No. No, you cannot.
Indeed, but sometimes the magic smoke is only there to scare you and in fact everything works perfectly fine.
Ooooh, thanks for the SSD showcase. That power usage difference is amazing :O
Batch 9 since July. I will wait until the end of times for this machine
It's coming in tomorrow :D
12:00 IIRC there is a setting regarding boot order on the previous page, change that to something besides "Auto" and then you'll be able to edit the boot options.
This has to be the future for laptops, other manufacturers need to adopt this form. Imagine being able to mix and match components ie Screen from Asus, keyboard from MSI, Touchpad from Lenovo etc etc
One of the best presentation and review for Framework 16 laptop. Congratulation and keep posting.
Today I Learned: Wendle is hard on his toys. Also, I need to save up for a Framework laptop. Mostly just that Wendle is hard on his toys.
Hard on toys 😏
Love the intro, never change Wendell never change
I am still waiting for mine to arrive but the assembly process looks simple and knowing it was actually fully tested at the factory is reassuring.
I'm in pre-order batch 10. This got me even more excited to get one of these.
Me too!
When does batch 10 arrive?
Thanks! I’m in Batch8 awaiting my FW16!
I'm in Batch 5 and looking forward to mine! 😊
This video is the perfect drug. The man, the hardware, the software. Love it!
Man you making me even more hyped for my batch 10 pre-order
If I'm ever in the market for a laptop again, I will grab one of these. I've been following Framework for quite some time, but just haven't been in the position of needing a new laptop at this point.
Thanks for the pop os guide love the distro
Great review!! Wonderfully in-depth breakdown and that's the final push for me to buy this thing.
I got the shipping notification yesterday. (Rubbing hands together gleefully.)
thank you for trying it out with Linux I didn't know it worked so flawlessly
I LOVE the concept of modular devices.
I'm glad they seem to fix some of the problems with the pre-production units they seated to other reviewers. That keyboard flex would have been really annoying for somebody coming from the framework 13 which doesn't have that issue
Thanks for reviewing this! I've never been so impatient to buy a new laptop and I've used some dinosaurs before.
Been following framework for a bit and looks solid as a daily driver .
i am looking forward to mine. I've wanted a left side num pad on a laptop for some time. I also like that i won't have to commit to that for times that make less sense. I also got it with a Korean language keybord. Then, with a 6 module configuration, i will truly have a laptop made for my needs.
I love having my numpad on the left although it does throw the keyboard off after years of them being on the opposite side. Then again I use the numpad more than I actually type so I'm keeping it on the left.
No expert here but it seems that Framework have achieved a tier 1 AMD laptop in their first attempt vs Lenovo, who arguably still haven't cracked that... Oh Framework, please do a keyboard with a TrackPoint, there are a lot of us out there...
Doesn't Lenovo have a patent on that?
@@Dracossaint Dell and HP also sell laptops with trackpoints. I've never tried them though so maybe they work in a different way.
@@Dracossaint IBM's pointing stick TrackPoint was first introduced in 1992 and the current version (IV) came out in 1997. US patents last for at most 20 years so they've definitely expired. There are other brands of pointing stick as well. The ALPS sticks in my older Dell Latitudes (2003-2010 MYs) seem a bit off but my newer 2016 one feels great. AFAIK some of the patents on pointer acceleration ran out in that time.
There's a Framework community project to integrate a track point and also a 3 button touchpad.
@@gwenmorse8059 Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to find more about that. I know from reading the Framework forum that *many* have asked and they said they wont be doing such a keyboard...
12:30 Legit one of my favorite pieces of utility software. Threw it on a 64gb USB A+C flash drive I keep on my keychain and haven't had an issue in 3 years
Yep, Ventoy is the bomb.
The HDMI module (for the side) can be plugged in the gpu (in the back) and it works flawlessly.
That opening is hilarious.
Alright, this is actually impressive and neat. They've come a long ways!
This might be my next laptop
Back when I was in high school I had a Dell Inspiron 8200 with a broken standoff that would cause the gpu and dc to dc conversion board to become unseated. I ended up having to disassemble my laptop a number of times in the middle of class to reseat both modules so my laptop would work again. Course I was also a nerd that brought a shuttle desktop to school as well sometimes...
i love this guy/channel
we click the like before watching the video over here
I'd like to see an IBM style (T420 era) keyboard as an option. Thanks for the review, i had my eyes on this for a while.
I am so excited!
Always appreciate Wendel's take, comes from a very different and unique angle compared to most reviewers.
I was in batch 1 for the AMD Framework 13. (I'm special.) It has been a great laptop. I love the 3:2 matte display screen. The port restrictions are due to AMD. The Intel-based Framework 13 does not appear to have port restrictions. Not a big deal. I would love to swap in a RISC-V motherboard. Maybe in a few years???
Got a fujitsu laptop u7313 on debian that has a working fingerprint reader that works after sleeping for like a week, its mostly modular, infact it uses a similar battery system that you can screw out and pop back in with the pins, been an absolute trooper for linux, dont think i ever had a laptop that is this good for linux, and its sold as a windows machine anyway wasnt expecting it to even work tbh.
I'd love the forum guide me linked in the description. I can't wait to get my framework and have it setup
21:00 The internal display is muxed with the GPU expansion module, it's not routed through the iGPU.
my dell laptop from 2019 I set to an 80% limit and i've only now noticed the battery degradation kicking in, so I will absolutely be setting that option on every future laptop I have
Your laptop would have been down to 80% capacity now, had you charged it to 100% every day for 5 years
@@brianhansen2202nope, i have a friend who has a similar usage pattern to me and his is down to 68%
I would love to see a module with a larger touchpad to compliment the larger palmrest/screen. I know the engineers said that there was a compat limitation but maybe we could have one with reduced compat? I really like my big touchpads.
Batch 2 got mine this morning.
im saving up to buy one in the future. The whole idea behind framework tickles my fancy.
My next laptop will be a Framework, hands down. I hope businesses start getting onboard with using them too - so much better for smaller businesses than dealing with the main big manufacturers.
Actually pretty terrible for small busniesses. They just can't reliably deliver product in a reasonable time period. I can order a Dell, Lenovo, or Apple and pickup from half a dozen retailers in 2 hours. It doesn't need to be that fast, 2 days would be good, a week would be acceptable. But "when we get to it" just doesn't work for small businesses.
Not trying to hate on them. It's actually pretty remarkable how well a company that size is handling themselves.
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872while yeah, the FW16 has been on preorder so people like me have been waiting a while, 13 orders have been shipping in most places in around 3 business days
If I ever am go buy myself a laptop, I'll shell out for a Framework one. However: I got myself a M1 Pro MacBook Pro and I am happy with it for the time being, especially dur to its incredible battery life with a single charge. If / once AMD/Intel come within shooting distance (on Linux, because no way in hell I am using Windows for anything else besides gaming), I'm in. I get about 12-13 hours developing stuff, compiling every now and then, browsing web and listening to music at mid-brightness.
everything about it seems great. I bought a sys76 adder w3 13900H and 4060. its.... ok.... I mulled around the idea of the framework 16. I should have went with it. That said. I do worry about rigidity over time. many moving/replaceable parts makes me leary of the actual ability for it to be robust and rigid enough for portability over say a year or 2
"This is the future that we were all robbed of"
It feels so good to see the interest is shared,
Growing up seeing and hoping for modular things (like proyect Aya) and having them dumped and us forced to buy a new phone when the usb port starts failling, gets depressing, until now
Love framework!
just pre ordered one
I really love the idea of Framework laptops. I am currently in the market for a 16 or 17 inch laptop but prefer Intel so I am holding out. If you only offer 2 sizes I think their 13 and 16 inch sizes make perfect sense, and hopefully they will offer both sizes with solutions from both processor brands soon.
What we need now is a CoolerMaster (or equivalent) case for the motherboard. I would use this as my desktop.
Love the framework series. I will buy one when my horrible hp dies
Only one of the speakers has a sticker because they're permanently connected together and come as one unit!
I love the repairability. If I ever need an x86 laptop, Framework would be my choice for sure.
I cant wait for the component refresh for the GPU.
If its like repurposing the mainboard you could have the option of an Egpu for a Mini Pc. Id love an Egpu for my Minisforum without paying the premium alot of companies want for a basic shroud not including the card itself.
I think Wendel would honestly have a great conversation with the engineers face to face
Love that they finally moved to amd as well!
Thanks for a review, this is awesome! The MTK Wi-Fi module experience, was that under linux?
Yes it was!
@@Level1Techs Wow, great (in a sense that it works :) ). This laptop is on my short list for work laptop replacement, but the warranty length is a bit of the show stopper at the moment, but there are so very few alternatives. It's basically Framework 16, StarLabs StarFighter or Lenovo Z16
I bought a RZ616 (Mediatek MT7922) wifi card just to test it in an older AMD laptop since most newer AMD laptops/motherboards come with it and it holds up relatively fine with kernel 6.2 and newer. You can even use it as a hotspot while connected to wifi as a client, although you can only connect up to 15 devices in AP mode to it. Intel's AX200/AX210 are better but this is second best in my testing - a lot better than RTL8852ce or similar.
I delayed ordering mine for a bit so I'm in group seven which is perfect. Not so late that it's going to take forever to ship. But not so early that I'm beta testing some of the early release batches. Really look forward to this. I've wanted this since about '98 '99. Then I got an alienware that had an upgradeable GPU. That Dell never bothered to ship out an option to upgrade. Dashing my hopes for an actual upgradable laptop. Fast forward to today and we have the framework 16
Dell is atrocious. Never buying anything from them ever again.
3:40 Sums it up perfectly. Replacing components yourself should be cheap and quick. We're almost a quarter through the 21st century! My next laptop is definitely going to be a Framework.
You could try and make a smaller ethernet port, have a flab like many laptops got to keep it smaller.
Of course it's not perfect, but it's one of its kind, special, unique and perfectly compatible with LInux👍 Thx for the unboxing & review!
What is that tablet device at 14:02? I'd love to have a high quality LTE Linux Tablet.
That's my new email signature. I can't sit in meetings and take my laptop apart 😅😅😅
This does look great, I do wonder though, if the current or a later purchased GPU could do VR? That may seal the deal for me to get one 🙂 Also a keyboard that has the num pad on the right would be cool too.
Been looking at that laptop as a potential choise. Although I will stay as far as possible from linux. I got my fair share of it 20+ years ago. Still, interesting machine.
29:25 if you need oculink you can create x8 external adapter that goes in place of a GPU
I have the Framework 13, I wish they have a KVM module and an option for touchscreen. It would be great if the software can be better too.
Wish more laptops were like this. Really larger 17/18" would be awesome, more ports and OLED too.
Well, the first Framework was 13", this is 16", so the next one could be bigger still! And the screen is replaceable like everything else in this laptop, so an OLED version seems feasible! Fingers crossed.
Might be a tight fit on an airpline tray table. And when the person in front suddenly slams their seat back - >crunch
i would highly recommend setting battery charge limit to 80%. I set that on my dell latitude 7490 and over the last 4 years my battery wear level is only 7%
I remember making a negative comment about System76 laptop hinges and they (and a lot of people) told me I was full of BS.
Yeah. About that.
Laptop hinges (in general) are horrible. See my rant further down on that subject. Thinkpads were the only machine with great hinges.
I love how this showed up in my feed even though I unsubscribed after your review of the System76 lead me the wrong way...
Led you the wrong way how?
I picked up an HP envy x360, with a i5 8250U in it, for about 90 bucks on eBay. It had a few things wrong with it but one of the things I found interesting when I opened it up, is how modular it was. It's like these companies are capable of doing it, but they just refuse to nowadays.
As a Mint desktop AMD gamer, i would love to hear more about power management.
Feels bad to use OC from bios when my current uptime is 11days 20hours.
Lot of wasted energy with my 3700X just existing. :/
It’s an exciting day when Wendell is excited.
I personally thought the watershed moment for AMD was with mobile Zen3 (5000 mobile series), and what really held them back was no way to implement PCI-E tunneling via thunderbolt. With the 7000/8000 mobile series and USB4 implementation though..!
I just put in my order. I also just put in a return on a ThinkPad. I'm tired of dealing with WiFi chips that don't work right in Linux and then it turns out they're soldered to the damn motherboard so you can't replace it! I'm tired of sleep states not working properly and there being zero support from the OEM to fix it. I am deeply looking forward to my Framework 16. I hope Framework is aware that there is a customer base out there who care about first class Linux support. The user replaceable and serviceable hardware is just the cherry on top for me. With both of these markets though I hope they can run a sustainable company. I'd like to be able to buy upgrades a few years down the line from them.
what i would like is the possibility to use some e-ink modules instead of those LED panels. It would for a much more flexible status display, I think.
There was an early demo of a numpad-sized eink pad but it apparently didn't look good.
Maybe an option for a modding project?
06:06 My current laptop is from 2015 and the battery just now needs to be replaced. Until a year ago I kept max charge at 80% and tried not to let it get below 40% too often. About a year ago I got to "this thing is about as close to computationally useless as I can use" and the battery is just now getting to where I might want to replace it.
I really hope Framework is around for the long haul. Even though I generally keep a system until it is at the point of "lets replace the whole thing", I could easily repurpose a Framework mainboard to an old monitor and remote into a more powerful system.
I really really hope they release a professional graphics card. A Quadro would be nice.
I am excited to see where this goes in the next 5 years.
"it's modular... MODULAR!!"
Looks pretty neat! Would be nice if it was a bit less bulky. Been thinking if we eventually get back to the point where an egpu is viable again one of these with a dock could be a pretty solid desktop replacement.
It's been 'viable' to run a mini-pc/laptop with an eGPU for some time now. With things like MCIO (Mini Cool Edge) and USB4 natively supporting full PCIe tunnelling it's only going to become more universally compatible. What will continue to be true is that running an eGPU is a compromise between cost, performance, and bandwidth. Highly unlikely you'll be maxing bleeding edge games @ 4k 120FPS+ with an eGPU, but if your use case is more modest/realistic running eGPUs are entirely 'viable' today.
@@FrenziedManbeast Sure, but it's basically useless with how much of a bottleneck usb/thunderbolt is, and onboard laptop gpu's aren't far off in that case. I wanna be able to run a G9 at a decent frame rate.
@@spiralout112Yes as I said that's a bleeding edge use case. You'll be wanting to use a dedicated internal GPU with a full x16 pcie 4.0+ mobo and a $700+ GPU to drive that display. Well outside mainstream use case for something like an eGPU and that won't likely ever change if you want the latest greatest in tech.
There is the potential here to use the full 8x connection for the gpu module with an external dock but you probably lose hot swap functionally and its much less standardized vs thunderbolt.
@@mgkleym That would be a neat accessory to release.
Most relatable opening ever
0:00 I've already done this. Multiple times. The looks I get are GREAT. :D
"Jealous? 😏"
"I'll be able to sit in corporate meetings and disassemble my laptop in meetings" Dude. I take the module out and fiddle with them all the god damn time in meetings. I also have a tendency to show people the inside of my laptop because its SO DAMN EASY TO REPAIR
Yeah yeah, Game of Life, but what's the over/under on number of days until a Doom port?
I daily drive a hacked about 2011 Macbook pro with a fried dGPU, so it's fair to say I don't need very much from a laptop. When this thing dies I'll be buying something from Framework.
I hope they achieve 'mortal' pricing at some point. These run about double market price for similar specs from any other manufacturer.
This laptop will only get better with time. I hope they will consider making a OLED display eventually.
11:30 I would caveat that the Framework isn't necessarily fully representative of AMD performance because the removable SODIMMs impose a memory bandwidth limit compared to soldered RAM, 5600 is a fair bit slower than the 7200+ you can get in other AMD mobile systems like the GPD WM2.