Framework Laptop 16 after a year

I received my Framework Laptop 16 in June 2024 (see my post about building it here) and posted an initial review after four weeks. I've now been working on my Framework Laptop 16 (hereafter Framework 16) regularly since then, so figured I'd post a follow up.

Day to day performance

When I bought my Framework 16 my intention was to replace my existing laptop and desktop with a single device. Both devices were becoming unreliable with a partially upgraded PC of 11 years old and a laptop that just had poor build quality. Day to day, I expected to use my Framework 16 for browsing the web, some "life administration" and gaming.

Since then I've founded my own company, and my Framework 16 is my daily driver. It runs Ubuntu Linux (currently version 25.04) very well, and I've not had any performance issues for day to day office type work.

Gaming performance

I remain impressed with my laptop for gaming, although there's been the odd hitch. Ignoring the complications of gaming on Linux, there have been occasions where settings such as frame generation being on has resulted in input lag in games like Satisfactory. I'm unclear why that setting caused the problem, but the Framework 16's graphics card is considered to be older tech by some - for me it was a huge improvement over what I had before.

Gaming is still enjoyable on my Framework 16, and I've got a sizeable Steam library of games that I've not finished - I'm doing my best to not buy any more games until I've completed some. I can generally play each game with its graphics settings set to "high" as a minimum, and the graphics look good.

Typically I play my games using the dedicated graphics card (the AMD Radeon™ RX 7700S in the expansion bay), but I have gamed using the built-in Radeon™ 780M card. That works well enough, and certainly while playing older games like Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY the built-in card works well (and looks amazing, all things considered). I was even able to play Unreal Tournament on battery for about an hour without problems. Certainly can't used the dedicated graphics card on battery for long!

Sadly, the laptop does get incredibly got while gaming, and as a result it also gets very loud. Not a huge problem, as I play with headphones on.

Development performance

For the most part I've had no problems doing development work on the Framework 16. PHP development (using the Yii2 framework, Docker, and MariaDB / MySQL) has always been smooth on this laptop (and on all my others). Android Development works well for the most part, but sometimes there's quite a lag while using Android emulators. I suspect that's more down to the Android emulator itself rather than the laptop. Certainly starting five emulators at once slows right down.

I've started to develop using Flutter recently, allowing me to write code once and deploy to Android, iPhone, Windows, MacOS, and the web, and that experience has been smooth too. "Hot reloading" to apply changes instantly has been, well, instant.

OS usage / lock ups

Since I started with the laptop, I've upgraded to Ubuntu 25.04 from Ubuntu 24.10, which was upgraded from the original officially supported 24.04 LTS. The upgrades went smoothly, and day to day operation has been mostly flawless. I've had three total system lock ups since initial installation, and as I was working on this post I noticed my storage had an issue. After taking the laptop apart (easy with the provided screwdriver, and 15 screws to get to the innards), and re-securing the storage, I've not had further lock ups. Other than that, the OS has been pretty stable on this hardware.

When I wanted to have a play with GPT4All and the Llama 3 8B Instruct model I tried to install the AMD ROCm drivers. I strongly suspect the problem wasn't a Framework issue, but something definitely went wrong and I ended up without a functioning desktop environment for a while until I realised the display driver had been blocked from loading for some reason. I backed out of using the ROCm driver, and practically had to tell Ubuntu to reinstall all my chosen packages.

Given that Framework officially support various Linux distributions, I had no concern that my preferred operating system would work on the Framework 16. All the components work, from the fingerprint reader to the webcam. I might install a second storage device at some point to install a second OS (possibly Windows, after buying a licence) that I can dedicate to my company.

"AI" performance

Despite my initial problems with ROCm, I managed to get GPT4All and Llama 3 working, which gives me:

• 11 tokens per second with the Framework 16 in "power saver" mode
• 22 tokens per second with the Framework 16 in "balanced" mode
• 17 tokens per second with the Framework 16 in "performance" mode

GPT4All tells me it's using the "AMD Radeon RX7700S (RADV NAVI33) (Vulkan)" driver. I didn't provide the same prompts each time, which likely impacted the number of tokens per second, but after a number of prompts in performance mode, it seems that balanced is the most effective at the moment.

I don't do much local "AI" processing, so this is more for interest. Potentially I can tell JetBrains AI to use my local Llama 3 instance, which could be useful when developing offline. It does appear that the GPT4All project has closed though, so that application may not be useful for much longer.

Expansion bay shell usage

When I purchased my laptop I ordered the dedicated GPU and the expansion bay shell. Other than during the initial build, I've only swapped out the GPU for the expansion bay shell a couple of times when I was travelling and wanted to reduce the weight and size. The weight doesn't change a huge amount, but reducing the laptop's size slightly did make packing easier 🙂.

Framework has released an upgrade that takes advantage of the expansion bay shell, allowing you to install two additional m2 NVME drives in the expansion. The parts aren't expensive, but as I use the dedicated GPU most of the time it's not an upgrade I plan to take advantage of.

Battery life

Obviously this depends on what you're doing, but for standard web browsing type activities I can get about six hours out of a full charge. While doing light development work I can get around five hours. In both cases that's while running in "power saver" mode, which is perfectly fine most of the time.

As my laptop is usually at my desk, connected to my powered dock, I have set the maximum charge level to 80%. In theory, applying a maximum charge restriction via the BIOS helps to maintain battery health (the BIOS suggests 60% from memory). While typing this, with the laptop unplugged and in power save mode, my battery is at 79% charge and Linux is suggesting I have over five hours left.

Paintwork issues

Like others, I've started to notice the paintwork on the side plastic is wearing away and revealing the underlying black / grey plastic. Depending on your viewing angle, it can appear that the plastic itself has worn away. That doesn't appear to be the case but I'm keeping an eye on it. Paintwork coming off after a year, especially on a surface that isn't regularly touched (usually my laptop is on a stand, and I use an external keyboard), is a little disappointing.

Wishlist

There's a few things that I'd like to see changed on the Framework 16, although I acknowledge the fact that I've got a highly configurable laptop so that creates some niggles that I have to accept.

Firstly, the laptop is very noisy when it's under load and the fans kick in. One friend at a co-working space asked if my "laptop was preparing for take off", and my wife, who's partially deaf, can hear my laptop from another room. Most of the time this doesn't bother me, as the fans usually ramp up when I'm gaming with headphones, but it would be nice if it was quieter.

Heat wise, the laptop does get very hot, even with the fans going. On the one hand that's a good thing, as it means the heat is being carried away from sensitive components like the CPU and GPU [1]. Framework moved away from its original "liquid metal" cooling system in later batches, and I've got the replacement parts (free from them) to make the change on my laptop. I'll be interested to see if that makes a difference.

When I'm typing on my external keyboard, with my laptop on its stand, the laptop screen wobbles quite a lot. As my primary screen (despite being only 16", it's currently the nicest screen I have) the wobble can be irritating. Stiffer hinges would be good, and I know the Framework Laptop 13 had a similar issue originally so stronger hinges were produced. It'll be interesting to see if the same is offered for the Framework 16.

Overall

I remain very impressed with this laptop, and it's the first laptop I've had in a long time where I've looked at it on the desk and been genuinely happy to have it. I've not covered it with stickers, partly because the laptop looks so nice, but I might apply a Dbrand skin at some point - my challenge was deciding on the design (and right now I should save the money).

I have re-arranged the input deck a few times, removing the number pad and centring the keyboard and mousepad. While I don't think it's a gimmick, as there's a definite use, I've not taken advantage of it often. If the number pad sized eInk display gets produced I'd consider using that for something though.

The input module system, allowing me to change the six ports on the side of my laptop, I have reconfigured a few times. Originally I had Display Port and HDMI installed, but have never needed Display Port, so swapped that for another USB-C. I've never used the dedicated graphics card's USB-C port for graphics out.

If you have the budget, and believe in Framework's mission to reduce eWaste, the Framework 16 is a good choice. Sure, you can get a higher spec laptop for the money, but the ability to quickly make changes and upgrade over time is very attractive to me. Framework's other laptop offerings are very tempting too, but I shouldn't buy another one at the moment (my only reason would be reduced size for portability).

Banner image: Cropped photo of my powered on Framework 16, taken in July 2024.

[1] - CPU is Central Processing Unit (or "processor"), GPU is Graphics Processing Unit (the graphics card).