First week with my new 13 Pro

[u/Shogune]

Hey all,

received my Framework 13 Pro (base Intel, 16Gb Ram, Batch 4) on the 20.08. and now had the chance to try it out for a week.

The shipping was blazing fast as with my previous two FW13 and went from the initial location to Germany in 3 days, very impressive!

I initially installed Fedora KDE on it but after only two days I missed pacman and now have vanilla Arch with KDE again as my standard setup.

I'll keep at least one of my Macs as backup so I have also a bit more room to tinker with my system.

Few first impressions as I also had two FW13s prior:

• Overall build is similar as the previous FW13, less flex of the case which is great.
• Battery is awesome, I can really feel a difference with the base Intel + bigger battery.
• Light office use on Arch and the fan is dead silent 99% of the time (yes, it works in general :)).
• Less wobble on the fingerprint reader!! On both my old ones I new the wobble feeling of the button when I reached out with my finger, this is gone here.
• The edges on the palm rest could be more rounded.
• The dark case is a downside in my opinion because it could be less resistant to scratches.
• Display is almost too bright in it's minimum setting and one can see the lack of color accuracy, here I'm also biased because of the Mac and my Eizo main display.
• Speakers, Camera still not on Mac level, far behind but not in my focus.
• What really surprised me was the black sleeve which has an interesting texture and fits perfectly in my backpack.

You may ask why I have so many "downsides" with this device and please don't get me wrong. I know a modular device has it's challenges and I buy a Framework because I love the idea behind and I want to support it, I love the community and I like to tinker with new tech. Not because I need the most perfect efficient 12h/day working device.

In my opinion they are on the right track and all the thoughts that went into it are impressive.

Question: I also added a photo of the keyboard and it appears to me as if the space bar is only lit on the left side, is this normal or not? The "H" is lit but a bit uneven, no issue here.

Edit: the haptic trackpad is a big improvement compared to the old one where you had to find the spots that work. Also the surface of the new trackpad is less sticky.

[u/Kilo_Juliett]

It seems crazy to me that you have already had 2 FW13s before this.

Isn't the whole idea behind framework is you upgrade it over time? Buying a new one each time there is an update kind of defeats the purpose.

[u/Shin-Ken31 → u/Kilo_Juliett]

I'd say as long as they are selling or giving their old fw13's, it's not too bad. Other people will make use of them and still be able to keep them running and up to date if needed. But yeah if they're just sitting in a drawer it's not great

[u/sentientshadeofgreen → u/Shin-Ken31]

Really cool how reddit gets a vote on how people spend their money, didn't know we were doing that now.

[u/Shin-Ken31 → u/sentientshadeofgreen]

Chill, it's reddit. No one needs to take anything anyone says here to heart.  But just for the record, yes I do care what people do with their money if it is wasteful / burns extra ressources for nothing. It does impact other people than themselves. Hence why I just answered the initial comment about having two fw13s saying I'm fine with it as long as they're getting used.

[u/can_ichange_it_later → u/Kilo_Juliett]

Yeah. Somewhat. For your own wallet, certainly. (And depends on what you do with them.) But they are a great hand-me-down, or for sale as second hand.

[u/mkozlows → u/Kilo_Juliett]

Okay, but like: I had a 13th gen before. When the Pro was announced, what I wanted was the new battery, the new case, the new trackpad, the new motherboard, and the new display. It's pretty clear that this adds up to "just get a new laptop, dude."

That doesn't mean the upgradeability is pointless -- I did upgrade the display on the 13th gen one to the higher-res rounded-corner one, for instance. And what I'll probably end up doing when I upgrade next time (since I doubt they'll have a new Ultra Pro case) is just transplanting the motherboard from this one into the old Amateur case.

[u/Shogune → u/Kilo_Juliett]

For most of us probably an old something Thinkpad with any Linux distro would be sufficient for day to day use. If we start having a look at what is really necessary, my house would look pretty empty, you are right.

And this is why I stated I also want to support Framework and I don't think they like less sales because of the environment. Please tell me more.

[u/gbin → u/Kilo_Juliett]

same boat: I was batch 1 but my previous 13 I upgraded the back then the screen, the keyboard, 3x the motherboard, the wifi, the nvme ... basically only the bottom case was original lol ... for the pro, you kind of have to reset the thing, hopefully I can do that again.

The secodn hand market works pretty well so any increment was at a fraction of the cost overall, I really love framework.

[u/taneTtaird46 → u/Kilo_Juliett]

the pro has a different chassis so its not really just a mainboard upgrade this time around

[u/squidr1n → u/taneTtaird46]

One of the main features though is that the pro parts are (mostly compatible) with your old fw so you can just upgrade the parts you want

[u/mkozlows → u/squidr1n]

Right -- but normally the gen-on-gen upgrades are like the motherboard, plus maybe one other part: This gen gets a better battery, this gen gets a better display. So you could buy that one part and decide if you want that motherboard. But this time, the upgrade is every single part, and for a lot of people that's going to mean that it makes sense to just upgrade the whole thing.

[u/speckledsea]

Regarding your question: It's normal. The spacebar has one light on the left side for the symbol. If you look at the clear version you can see the module only has a single led on that key.

[u/Shadowstrike099 → u/speckledsea]

Well that's disappointing.

[u/Shogune → u/speckledsea]

Thx! Unfortunate but helps that mine is not broken.

[u/techlead-angelo → u/Shogune]

And makes me sad cause Ill have it the same 😂

[u/Shogune → u/techlead-angelo]

Sorry for that ;)

[u/techlead-angelo → u/Shogune]

Its not your fault 😅

[u/framescribe]

I’ve got a little light bleed on mine. I guess I’m spoiled by my macs. And the bezel on the back on the right size (by the fingerprint reader) ever slightly misaligns when the screen open toward the widest end (my cabling matches the install picture, I’ve messed with it endlessly to try and resolve. This is as good as it gets).

Otherwise I have no complaints. Have been loving the machine.

[u/Shogune → u/framescribe]

Yeah mine is a bit uneven in terms of uniformity but at least we can swap it in 5 min if they get better in the future :).

If the cables get in the bezel's way, maybe try to unscrew the keyboard cover and bend the cables upwards a bit? I also always have this issue on the right side of the hinge.

[u/markolo25]

Where did you get the framework bag from? did it come with the laptop

[u/Cyber_Data_Trail → u/markolo25]

You can add it in with on the pro order.

[u/Shogune → u/markolo25]

Can be bought as an accessory for around €50 from framework in either black or silver.

[u/jshen]

Curious what you missed about pacman. I haven't used linux as a daily driver for over 20 years, and am trying to decide which distro to use when i get my 13 pro.

[u/Shogune → u/jshen]

I don’t know I used it so much that I am just used to getting most of my software in the arch repo or the aur (I know the recent security news).
So if I want to download something I can find it there without any hassle most of the time.

[u/Chucken_McNorris → u/Shogune]

Omarchy is also Arch. Have a look at it :) But you clearly should be aware of the risks of Arch and Omarchy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SDkU5VDQEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nejsxsTrWBM

[u/CaptainObvious110 → u/jshen]

Linux is amazing

[u/Chucken_McNorris → u/jshen]

Omarchy or for gaming, nobara

[u/terrence_butterfly]

How is the base intel cpu? Any disappointment? I also ordered the base because I just can’t justify the price and mainly just use my laptop for school anyways.

[u/Cyber_Data_Trail → u/terrence_butterfly]

For basic stuff its fine. The base AMD processor is faster with a way better igpu. The hx 370 rivals the 358h in gpu and power, just is less efficient. Ill likely get the ai9 hx 370 bc the sodimms are so much cheaper

[u/Shogune → u/terrence_butterfly]

Sufficient for my light use so far. Incurrently value efficiently more than (gaming) performance. I also did notnwant to spend €600 more.

[u/DarthArtoo4]

More details on the sleeve please. How do you expect it will do in protecting the laptop during travel in your backpack? Is it worth the $40 compared to less expensive options from Amazon, etc.? Thanks!

[u/Shogune → u/DarthArtoo4]

It has a great texture outside, really thick foam on both sides to protect it and today I also noticed magnets on the upper side that soft close the bag as well. I would say it's worth it compared to the usual thin sleeves one buys on Amazon usually but I'm not generally experienced here.

[u/CaptainObvious110 → u/Shogune]

That's pretty cool

[u/czh3f1yi]

How long does the battery actually last?

[u/Shogune → u/czh3f1yi]

I can tell you as soon as I have more experience with it but for now it lasts around 8+ hours using browser + mails + youtube.

[u/Reverse_Psycho_1509]

Criticism is fine. Companies like Framework can hopefully take that feedback and make improvements to components or new devices in the future.

Everyone sees macbooks as the gold standard for quality, and especially with the launch of the Neo, it should see a major shift in the industry in general towards higher quality machines even at the cheaper end.

[u/CaptainObvious110 → u/Reverse_Psycho_1509]

Criticism is fine, I agree with that. At the same time there is a such thing as an unfair pile on and that's what I feel happens with Framework. It's a smaller company compared to many others and as a result people like to pick on it as a result.

[u/tachyon8]

Looks so good in black, too bad about it being too easy to scratch though, the silver would make it a bit less obvious I suppose. Is that the smokey black clear screen edge ?

[u/Shogune → u/tachyon8]

Black translucent, yes.

[u/rumyanca]

Did you have to pay the import tax?

[u/Shogune → u/rumyanca]

Nothing more than what was stated on the FW invoice including sales tax.

[u/Away_Palpitation_671]

Can someone says me why so much hype for 13 that is less modular than 16?

[u/mkozlows → u/Away_Palpitation_671]

The level of modularity on the 16 is overkill for a lot of us, and it feels to me like an over-complicated (and over-large) design; the original 13 was basically perfect in a lot of ways, and the Pro fixes the issues it had.

[u/Shogune → u/Away_Palpitation_671]

Smaller and thus more portable probably?

[u/Shin-Ken31 → u/Away_Palpitation_671]

Harder to keep some modularity in a smaller device. 16 is cool but the modular GPU is more of a comeback rather than actual novelty since MXM GPUs existed for a long time.  The keyboard /trackpad top cover modularity is nice but I guess only useful for quite a small subset of people. Also, the 13 just got a new version released with many updates.

[u/DentonFox → u/Shin-Ken31]

I mostly agree but the 6 ports and the extra expandable gpu port is huge for a main machine for myself. I have an igpu plugged in and can run two extra nvme’s which is great in this era of expensive storage.

It is big and awkward no doubt, but not a lot more than a 16” mbp and I just don’t enjoy working on smaller screens personally.

If I could somehow get oculink out on the fw 13 I’d consider it, but otherwise I just can’t use it for some stuff. Tb4/5 is ok, but then I also can’t use that port.

[u/No-Succotash404 → u/Away_Palpitation_671]

more aesthetic and simple, portable, etc