Episode: 4065
Title: HPR4065: Framework 13 (13th gen Intel) review
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4065/hpr4065.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 19:11:06

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,065 for Friday 1 March 2024.
Today's show is entitled, Framework 13 13th Gen Intel Review.
It is hosted by noodles and is about 19 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is I give a review of the Framework 13 laptop 13th Gen Intel.
The review is very positive.
Welcome HPR listeners.
I'm Nate or noodles as my host is and I was just listening to HPR 4045 by Swift 110
about his MacBook Pro 15 inch 2015 and he had mentioned that he wanted to try out the
Framework laptop specifically the 13 inch and I decided you know what let me give my review
on it so that we can go in there expecting what he should expect from this.
I got the 13 inch Framework with the i5 1340p with a 250 gig SSD the NVMe one and then 16
gigs of DDR4 3200 megahertz memory.
I did get the power adapter with it along with 5 expansion cards.
This is the HDMI, the USB-C, USB-A, Ethernet, and microSD.
Altogether this cost about $1,092 as I'm looking through my, oh jeez, invoice here and
I have to say I'm very happy with it.
Right now I'm running NIXOS but when I first got it I started by running ARCH on it and
I'm very happy with the hardware support.
There's not a single bit of hardware on that computer that is unsupported.
The fingerprint sensor is pretty difficult to get running but that's true on pretty
much any Linux distro.
As for performance I don't have any specific benchmarks to give any sort of objective
number to this but I have to say for my personal experience it is excellent.
I tended to beforehand using my, I had a ThinkPads e450 beforehand.
Before that I used to do all of my compilation and programming since I normally just make
terminal applications on my desktop computer through a remote connection over SSH.
And now with my framework I don't have to do any of that.
I can do all of my programming locally on the laptop and I'm very happy with that performance.
As for gaming I wouldn't say that I'm super happy with it.
It is no gaming computer but if you're running very simple games like Stardew Valley or
perhaps even factorial as long as your world isn't super crazy.
And geometry dash, love that game for some reason.
It has pretty good performance.
That being said it's gaming performance is not that of a steam deck so if you're looking
for a gaming machine you might be better off with the steam deck along with a small
dock with it.
That might be a better experience if you're going to be primarily gaming on the go.
As for build quality, I have to say it is pretty much on par if not better than my ThinkPads.
Everything stays nice and together.
I have no problems with any sort of rickety or squeaky parts or anything like that.
The only thing that I would say is that because the bezel is magnetic it's very easy to
fiddle with.
I fiddle with it, I pull it off and put it back on all the time and I broke it in that
process.
Had to buy a new bezel.
That is user error at the end of the day but because it's so easily removable it's
a very easy to fidget with it.
As for the keyboard it's very good, I'm very happy with the keyboard.
It reminds me a lot of my ThinkPad but the ThinkPad has a lot more travel which I like
in a keyboard.
I like a very long travel in my keys.
The trackpad is nothing to write home about.
On my ThinkPad I used the trackpoint a whole lot more than I used the trackpad and I wasn't
very happy about giving up my trackpoint for the trackpad but after a while I got pretty
used to it.
It's clicky.
It has pretty much the same exact click type as the Macbook.
You kind of have to use the bottom corners to click or you can use multi-touch gestures
to do the click.
For example, two finger tap will give you the left click, a single finger tap will give
you or the double finger tap will give you the right click, excuse me, and the single
finger tap will give you the left click and the three finger tap will give you the middle
button.
As for scrolling it's a pretty nice experience but I think those experiences really depend
on your Linux distro that you're going to be using or Windows if that's what you're
into.
Just for the expansion cards I love it.
I actually used these expansion cards all the time on my Steam Deck.
They are completely interchangeable for that because at the end of the day it is just
USB-C.
I'm very happy with them.
I specifically exchanged the Ethernet and the HDMI expansion cards all the time.
Usually if I'm at home I end up using the Ethernet but not so much the HDMI.
This is a really weird experience.
I don't imagine many people will share this experience but when I'm not at home I swap
that out for the HDMI because chances are if I'm not at home I'm not going to be using
the Ethernet.
I'm not plugging into any sort of Ethernet.
More often I actually end up having to plug into the HDMI for things like projectors
and things like that.
I actually want to get even more expansion cards as time goes on.
I do regret a little bit only sticking with the 250 gigs of storage especially since
NixOS loves to eat up your storage.
I think right now it has like 25 gigs reserved through all the next stores.
I kind of wish I had gotten more storage and they make storage expansions and I think
it would be really useful to move my Steam games over to the expansion so that way I
can use it with both my Steam Deck and the Framework and my desktop that I'm using right
now to record on.
Speaking of which, how does it compare to my desktop?
My desktop has insane specs.
Let me pull those up right now, NeoFetch.
So it has a, whoops that's the Framework, NeoFetch.
So it has an AMD Ryzen 750700X running at 3.4 gigs and has an RX 770XT graphics card.
So definitely a gaming powerhouse.
I have to say the CPU performance although not exactly one to one, it's no slouch.
I can do pretty much anything that I can do on my desktop on the Framework and I'm very
happy with it.
Yes, I do take a performance hit and yes, I can feel the performance hit but it's negligible
enough to where I don't find myself missing the desktop except for very long compilation
processes.
For example, compiling the GameCube emulator Dolphin, I find that it takes about 5-10 minutes
on my desktop but it could take 15 minutes or so on the Framework and that's while I'm
doing other stuff too, it's not the only thing that's running on it.
As for the RAM amount, I'm pretty happy with 16 gigs, I find that at idle with my current
desktop setup, at idle with everything that I would normally have open.
So I run sway with pretty much just sway and all its built-ins, I don't go fancy with
any docs or anything like that.
With Libre rule for what running as my browser with about 3 or 4 tabs open and a few terminal
windows open, those are open in foot, the terminal emulator.
It's taking up about 2.5 gigs of memory and I find that I usually don't use too much
more than that unless I'm running games or some sort of compilation.
I've never actually hit the 16 gig limit so I'm pretty happy with the 16 gigs.
My desktop on the other hand, I hit it's 32 gig limit all the time because I'll tend
to run games while doing compilations and stuff like that.
The tutorial is a memory hog, so yeah, I do tend to run into it's 32 gig limit sometimes,
I wouldn't say all the time.
So I guess my overall impression, oh, I forgot to talk about the screen.
The screen that I got, it is frosted, it is not glossy, excuse me, it is not glossy,
it is the anti-glare coating.
I am very happy with it.
On my T450, I found that the anti-glare definitely took away from the brightness and the clarity
of the screen.
The framework has, I'd call it a 1440p-ish screen, it actually has, I think a 4x3 aspect
ratio, kind of like the old CRTs.
And its clarity is amazing, 1440p is that sweet spot for a laptop screen.
I think at 4K you're not, you're finding very, very much you're running into diminishing
returns, but 1440p is that exact amount of clarity that you want better than 1080p, but
not so much that the graphics card is going to be struggling to push it.
It does run at 60Hz, but that's okay, I don't mind that, I don't really notice it.
My monitor for my desktop runs at, gosh, I think it's 180Hz, and when you're using it
on a laptop and you're not doing any gaming, yes, you do feel it when you're moving around
windows or removing your cursor around, but through everyday use, you're not really noticing
it.
So overall, I'm pretty happy with the screen, it gets plenty bright.
I don't think I've had to have it over about 50, unless 50% unless I was outdoors.
And even then, usually when I'm indoors, I have it at about 10 to 15% brightness.
I have pretty good eyes, so I don't have to worry about that too much.
So yeah, let me see what else I can think of to talk about.
Oh, noise.
It is quiet during normal use, but it can get pretty loud when you have it running some
sort of compilation or have it running some sort of arduous task.
It does get a little bit loud, it gets a little bit loud, it gets a little bit loud.
It's loud enough to where you would get noticed in a library type of situation, but it
isn't so loud that it's annoying.
It's just a nice little woosh, so it's no wine or anything like that.
It comes with the headphone jack, excuse me, my desktop locked on me.
It comes with the headphone jack.
The headphone jack works pretty well.
It can get a little noisy at times, especially if you're running like a compilation and
a few other like difficult tasks, especially if it has to do with video, if it also has
a lot of video and CPU usage.
The headphone jack can get a little noisy, but other than that, very happy with it, and
it actually ships with one, which is pretty nice.
You can't say that I bought a lot of laptops nowadays.
Let's think of some other things that I can talk about.
It's very, very nice and thin.
I have no problems with the weight or anything like that, but then again, you have to remember
that I'm coming from a T450 Thinkpad, and those weren't exactly light.
They were definitely on the older side, so take that with a bit of a grain of salt, but
I did use a MacBook from work for a while, and I would say that it and the MacBook are
pretty similar in weight.
If you have a MacBook right now, you're not going to be too unhappy with the weight of the
machine.
In terms of ruggedness, let's talk about ruggedness, because I don't think this has talked about
a lot for various laptops.
I carry my laptop with me everywhere every day, but I do baby it.
That being said, I have dropped it.
It's gotten scratched up a bit, and it definitely takes about as much as you would expect a Thinkpad
to take.
I don't think I even notice a dent from any of the drops.
I can notice a few scratches on some of the corners, other than that.
It's in pretty good shape.
I would imagine if you're really worried about it.
I'm pretty sure Debra and has some cases that you and I think they call them skins, that
you can put over the framework if you're really worried about scratching the metal underneath.
That being said, because it's a framework, you can just replace it.
If it gets too scratched for you, you could just buy a replacement and replace it.
Let's talk about it that.
One of the big things about the framework is its repairability and how easy it is to
get into and replace parts.
I've had to replace the bezel, but the bezel is probably the easiest part to replace.
You don't even need to open up the laptop to replace that part.
I just pushed the screen back to where it was flat on the surface, so the bottom part
where the actual motherboard is and the screen are sitting flat on the surface.
You just peel up the bezel and you put the new one on.
That's it.
That being said, I've been in and out of the framework a few times.
Not for any repairs or anything like that, just because I can't leave my damn machines
alone and I have this need to open them up every once in a while, no idea why.
It's a blast, actually.
I'd almost call it fun.
It's not difficult.
I didn't have any problems opening up or anything like that.
Overall, very happy with its repairability.
Let's see what else I can talk about.
Battery life.
I think battery life on the 13-inch laptop is probably where it tends to fall short.
I get about three hours of battery life with minor usage and I could find that it could
be one and a half to two hours of intense usage.
This intense usage is usually programming with a lot of compilations, long running compilations.
Otherwise I find that the battery life is pretty reasonable.
I don't think that it's bad or anything like that.
I think that you should temper your expectations.
You're not going to be getting any sort of crazy long battery life out of it.
You're going to get, I'd call normal battery life.
That being said, normal battery life for modern laptops is a whole lot more than what it was
at the time that I was using my T450.
Two to three hours is about what you could expect from a laptop like that.
Maybe it's not that great from a modern laptop perspective.
I did have a large gap in between there, so take that as you may.
I think that's pretty much it for my experience with the framework.
It's very open, very usable.
For more updates come from FWUP-D, so if you're using Linux, for more updates are very easy
to install, but keep in mind.
When you do a firmware update on the framework, it removes all of your UEFI variables, which
means that you'll have to set up your bootloader again.
I don't know how often this happens.
The framework 13-inch, specifically this Intel one, has only had one update, I think, from
of the UEFI bootloader, so take that as you may.
Otherwise, yeah, I think that's it.
Please remember, HPR is made by listeners like you.
If you ever are listening to someone, and think, hey, I might have a response to that.
Go ahead.
It doesn't take much, even just your laptop microphone would do just fine.
Our expectations are not high here.
Anything we can get we will take.
So yeah, that's it.
Thank you for listening.
Oh, actually, no, that is not it.
Sorry, it didn't mean to, it didn't mean to swindle you there.
The microphone and the webcam, I have never used them on the framework.
So I cannot actually tell you how good they are.
I've never had to use them.
As far as I know, they seem to be fine.
This is just going off of what other people's reviews are.
They're fine.
Don't expect greatness from them.
Okay.
I think that's it from what I have to talk about the framework.
Thank you for listening and please contribute.
HBR always needs contributors.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
Today's show was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording a podcast, click on our contribute link to find out how
easy it really is.
The hosting for HBR has been kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the internet archive
and our syncs.net.
On the Saldois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International
License.