Framework 16: Completely Upgradeable, But Is It Worth the Price?
March 18, 2024
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Summary
Explore our in-depth review of the Framework 16 laptop. Uncover its features, performance, and whether it's worth the investment.
March 18, 2024
|Explore our in-depth review of the Framework 16 laptop. Uncover its features, performance, and whether it's worth the investment.
Framework's new 16-inch laptop is here. If you're unaware of the hype surrounding Framework, they are a new laptop manufacturer that burst onto the scene 3 years ago. One of the unique features of their laptops is that they are completely upgradeable, from the CPU to the speakers to the display. This makes the buying process stress-free, as you can purchase with peace of mind, knowing that you can upgrade your laptop later on if needed. Additionally, this is a more environmentally friendly option, which we really appreciate. Our model has the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor paired with AMD's Radeon 7700S graphics and 16g of DDR5 5600 memory.
The laptop's design is blocky and slightly outdated, but the RGB keyboard adds a nice touch. The bezels can also be replaced with different colors to enhance their appearance. The bottom of the laptop feels rigid, and there is minimal flex on the keyboard deck. Unfortunately, the lid has a lot of flex.
If you have the dedicated graphics expansion bay module in with the Radeon RX7700S, the back of the laptop extends out. This makes the overall footprint quite large for a 16-inch laptop, especially considering this doesn't have the most powerful laptop components inside. Compared to similar laptops, it's larger than the Legion Slim 7 and MacBook Pro 16 and significantly larger than Lenovo's compact Yoga Pro 9i.
If you don't use the dedicated graphics, the laptop is physically smaller, but it's still larger than many laptops in 2024, including those with dedicated graphics. In terms of weight, it's about average for a 16-inch laptop. However, the use of USB-C charging does enhance the laptop's portability. Our model came with a 180-watt charger, but the ports also support 240 watts of charging. So, in the future, the laptop can support higher-powered components. This laptop is also compatible with USB Power Delivery 3.1.
On that note, let's deep dive into the ports, as this is an area where Framework has completely innovated. The laptop has 6 hot-swappable ports. You have options for USB-C ports that support charging, USB-A, HDMI, Display Port, Storage, Audio, a Mini SD card reader, and even 2.5G ethernet. A full-sized SD card reader will be available soon. The ethernet port is the only one of these expansion cards that sticks out, so be careful if you're putting the laptop in and out of a backpack or a sleeve, as that one could catch.
The ability to swap and even upgrade ports is a huge win for this laptop. However, one thing to note is not all port expansion slots support all types and speeds. For example, only the back ports on each side of the laptop support USB 4.0 transfer speeds.
There is only one display available, but it's a good one. It's an anti-glare 16-inch matte panel with a 2560x1600 resolution. It's bright at 500 nits and has a wide color gamut. The display offers a refresh rate of up to 165Hz and has dynamic switching available if you want to conserve battery life. The screen also supports a variable refresh rate with AMD's Freesync.
As this laptop heavily targets software developers, we want to add the following. While a resolution of 2560x1600 with a PPI of 189 is suitable for gaming on a 16-inch laptop, for coders who look at tiny text all day, this is not the best pixel density for you. A MacBook Pro 16 offers 254 PPI. A higher pixel density display like the MacBook's will make small text crisper, and your eyes will thank you. To be clear, the screen on the Framework laptop is not bad for coding. It will function well, but it may not be as optimal as other laptops, such as a MacBook with higher resolution and similar screen size and brightness.
The keyboard is comfortable enough with 1.5mm of travel. Key presses are very quiet, making this an excellent keyboard for class or office use. However, the downside of this quiet keyboard is that you lose that satisfying click you get when using louder keyboards like Lenovo's Legion Slim 7. The keyboard layout is standard, each key is individually RGB lit, and the fingerprint reader in the power button works well.
This keyboard is incredibly innovative in terms of its customizability. You can shift the keyboard to the left or right to add a number pad or an RGB Macropad, which is a set of keys you can program to whatever you want. You can also set custom colors for each key. There are so many use cases where this could be useful. Imagine if someone developed software that turned this into a stream deck. Press a key to change camera angles or invoke scene changes. And when it comes to programming, this keyboard supports the open-source QMK Firmware project.
If you aren't using it with a number pad or the Macro Pad, you can center the keyboard and fill in the gaps to the side with spacers or even LED matrices that allow you to run light shows.
The trackpad could be better. The tracking and click are decent, and it recognizes gestures well. However, its palm rejection was rough. The cursor constantly jumps while typing on the keyboard. This is a laptop you'll probably want to use with a mouse.
The speakers on this laptop don't have much bass, they don't sound very clear, and under Windows, they don't get very loud. We say under Windows because the speakers were far louder when we tried them using Linux. Plus, the right speaker kept dropping out. Re-seating the cable fixed it temporarily. You shouldn't have to keep opening your laptop to get stereo sound. Hopefully, Framework address this in future versions. Overall, the speakers are middling for a laptop in 2024, which, unfortunately, is in line with prior Framework laptops.
The 1080p webcam could be better, too. The colors seem a bit off, and it isn't very clear. The mic and camera each have individual physical privacy shutters, though, which is nice.
To configure the laptop, you basically need a computer science degree, which might be okay as this laptop is mainly aimed at programmers. There are 2 applications to change lighting. One for the keyboard's backlight and one for the LED Matrices. It's like Framework had a back-end software developer build these applications. They look like they are from the 1990s; they're complicated and just not user-friendly.
When changing the performance modes, CPU performance is controlled through Windows power settings. GPU performance is controlled through AMD's software.
In Geekbench, which tests a variety of common performance tasks, the Ryzen 7840HS is an okay performer. It beats out the same processor in our Legion Slim 7. That said, it is substantially behind Intel's 13th gen H series processors in these tests. Compared to Intel's new Meteor Lake processor, it performs faster in single-core and slightly worse in multi-core.
Cinebench, which tests the processor when maxed out, tells a similar story. The performance is okay, but it lags behind competing Intel processors. When we look at power draw, the Framework 16 can draw up to 60 watts and around 45 watts sustained, according to our measurements. Interestingly, this laptop performed around the same as our Legion Slim 7 while drawing less power. This is actually not that surprising. These processors have significant diminishing marginal returns above a certain power draw.
That said, our Performance per Watt, i.e., power efficiency graph, shows that this Framework's 16 Ryzen processor is very efficient, which is great to see. The MacBook Pro 16 with the M3 Max chip is the only laptop that beats it. Overall, this laptop's CPU performance is really nothing special.
This laptop uses AMD Radeon RX 7700S graphics, which is unusual. Its graphics performance in Timespy is slightly below an RTX 4060 but well above a 4050. However, it performs identically to our Legion Slim 7 with the same CPU and an RTX 4060 in actual gaming. But laptops with Nvidia graphics get access to their excellent DLSS 3, which gives you extra frame generation. AMD laptops do have FSR3, but it isn't as widely supported in games.
The video editing experience was fine when navigating the timeline and actually editing the videos. Exporting a video was a little faster than on our Slim Pro 9i with the Intel 13th Gen H series processor and an RTX 4050.
When on battery, there is no noticeable drop in CPU performance. We ran the laptop's CPU at max for 30 minutes and recorded 60% battery remaining, which is about as good as you're going to get. It is on par with the MacBook Pro 16 with the M3 Max chip, although that laptop is much more powerful. For a more realistic battery test, we ran a Netflix video on repeat over Wi-Fi for 4 hours. The screen was set to 200 nits of brightness, and the laptop was in the Best Battery setting. At the end, we recorded 35% remaining, which is certainly not a good result, but also nowhere near the worst we've seen from similar laptops.
This laptop's upgradeability is fantastic. There is no other laptop to compare it to. A lot of care has been taken to ensure the laptop is as simple to take apart and reassemble as possible. You can even sell your old parts. The online guides are super easy to follow, although they need to update the Linux install guide to tell you to turn off BitLocker first.
To test Linux, we installed Ubuntu on this laptop. The speakers, webcam, mic, Wi-Fi, trackpad, and the USB-C port we tested all worked well. And the speakers even worked better than on Windows. We tried a game of CS2 under Linux. Overall, it seemed to work as well as Windows. The only issue we had was massive lag spikes within 30 seconds to a minute of loading the game. After that, it smoothed out. This could be a CS issue, not a Linux or Framework issue.
The way this laptop's fans work is they very quickly spin up during high-performance tasks and become silent the moment you don't need them. This makes the laptop dead silent for light tasks and, for the most part, very quiet when doing something like programming. The fans only spin up when you're compiling code or running a test. But when the fans spin up, the noise is very noticeable. It's not the volume that gets you; it's the high-pitched sound they make. And because they spin back down so quickly, you really notice them going up and down during performance tasks.
Regarding the heat you feel, benchmarks show that this laptop had pretty good results. But it's misleading because of how we measure heat. We take the max of the keyboard deck and palm rest during intensive tasks. Most laptops only hit these temperatures in a small part of the keyboard. The Framework, however, is very warm across the entire keyboard deck and palm rest. This makes the laptop uncomfortable to use for tasks like coding, gaming, or video editing with the dedicated graphics module. We did try the laptop without it, and temperatures and fan noise were much improved. Still warm, particularly on the left side, but it was manageable. And the fans came on less often. That said, you will hear that high-pitched sound if you are hitting the CPU a lot.
We love Framework and the many innovations they bring to the laptop space. However, as a 16-inch performance-focused laptop, this one is average at best and has a high price tag. With the graphics module included, you are looking at well over $2,000 despite many usability issues.
So, here's where we land. If you want the Framework experience, we recommend buying the Framework 13 with AMD. Its Zen 4 U series processor is more than powerful enough for tasks like software development, and its heat and fan noise are acceptable. It's no MacBook, but it's pretty good for a 13.5-inch laptop. And if you want a larger display, buy an external monitor.
Without the graphics module, the Framework 16 is undoubtedly more useable. But if you want a 16-inch laptop with dedicated graphics, we cannot recommend this one. You can buy Lenovo's excellent Legion Slim 7 or the Yoga Pro 9i for a lot less money. Both feel more premium, they are more portable, and they don't have the usability issues of this laptop. While the Framework 16 is upgradeable and has phenomenal Linux support, the delta between other laptops and the price difference is too great.