I love getting a new laptop as much as anybody does but I got to say looking at
the kit to build my very own AMD powered framework 13 laptop investment in
framework disclosure I kind of wish I hadn't auctioned off my Intel one for
that BC Children's fundraiser it was kind of cool that it was my laptop of
thesis forever and I could keep putting new Hardware in it oh well such is life
let's unbox this thing I am looking at the framework laptop 13 DIY kit it comes
with with bezel oh ah purple bezel
that's a choice there's a keyboard now
with non shattered fingerprint sensor
power adapter don't need that that's optional you don't have to order that
that's one of the cool things about framework IO expansion modules we'll get
to those later and of course some memory and storage though similarly you can
simply Doo if you want to expand outside
of the range of options that framework provides to up to 64 gigs of DDR R 55600
memory and up to 8 terab of storage at
least at the present time if there are future ssds that are available in
Greater capacities there's no reason it couldn't support
them a bazillion more expansion modules
we really will get to those later the only tool we'll need to assemble this
and now the star of the show I was actually the first one to be Hands-On
with framework's ryzen 7000 series framework 13 but but since that Hands-On
time they have improved it in a lot of ways for one thing it doesn't blue
screen constantly it was pre-production at the
time for another they have upgraded the hinge now not only is it a little bit
heavier but it opens up 180° which I
mean when I was in university I actually used my laptop like that all the time we
didn't have smartphones and the screen is now available with a mat option
that's designed to be usable in basically any lighting conditions is
rated for 400 nits Peak brightness and we found it actually exceeded that
fairly substantially while we get this built which shouldn't take too long we
can talk about some of the speeds and feeds it's available with either a ryzen 5 or ryzen 7 processor so that's with
six or eight cores respectively and it's worth noting guys that this is ryzen
7000 so while these CPUs do have an npu
for AI Tom Foolery what they don't have is enough tops to be co-pilot ready uh
or to run features like Windows call whether that matters to you or not I
leave entirely up to you I've got to say I admire framework's dedication to sodm
memory upgrades they will run at a slower speed compared to soldered memory
but they will be upgradeable in the future which is pretty nice to see and
they're still running at 5600 which is actually not that bad even compared to
some gaming laptops that we've seen it's possible actually it's probable that we
will see future configurations that are AI ready I mean they've got a risk five
board coming did you see that ah that is so cool but at this time you will be
just regular intelligent since we're in here this is a good time to have a look
at our battery the two versions come with different capacities either 55 W
hours or 61 wat hours and both are rated
to have I think it's 80% of their total capacity after a th000 charge and
discharge Cycles pretty darn impressive you'll be using this thing for a very
long time and once you aren't using it anymore 1 2 three screws is all it takes
to rip it out and replace I guess I haven't really talked about the main
pitch for framework that was it that was
the build process this thing is incredibly serviceable and the storage
RAM and Wi-Fi card are all
interchangeable actually that Wi-Fi card is something that I would probably want
to take out AMD seems to have an agreement with all of their Partners to
use these mediatech Wi-Fi chipsets with their ryzen mobile processors and I'm
not a huge fan it's Wi-Fi 6C Bluetooth 5.2 which is fine I guess but I would
really rather have Wi-Fi 7 and probably an Intel chipset we've got 2 watt stereo
speakers a cooling solution that somehow
has managed to stand the test of time like that is darn impressive the way
that you've been able to upgrade these framework laptops Through the Ages here
and my friends that's it now all we got to do
is snap on our magnetic bezel cover
like that conveniently framework has little guides that you can access by
simply scanning these QR codes available
online pops on a little something like that oh my god did this just turn on
well cool close that real quick get this
screwed together uh yours won't do that of course because yours won't already
have been tested by the Labs team while we're closing it up the chassis is as
before made out of a single machined piece of aluminum giving it excellent structural rigidity and now is a perfect
time to have a look at our expansion cards they have so many options
available you can put a DisplayPort port on your laptop you can expand with
micro SD you can just put a little one tbte expansion thing you could have usba
a you could have USB-C you could put
fullsize HDMI port any combination you
want the framework 13 supports four of these expansion cards and the framework
16 supports up to six I think it is my
usual load out is 2 C's both of which can be used for charging
which is really can be neat you just kind of put them in wherever you want
and then I like to have an HDMI and I like to have a USB type A although these
other ones are very cool as well and I
will often carry around an extra oh yeah one of the ones I love there it is ah
yes my 2 and 1/2 gig Ethernet expansion
just slide that in a little something like like so and I have 2 and 1/2 gig L
baby and because they just use USB type-c
I can use this on anything it's not just a framework expansion card oh the 3 and2
mil Jack one is for the framework 16 cuz it doesn't come with a 3 and a half mil
Jack right yeah okay this one does have a 3 and half millim Jack by default
though let's get these expansion cards installed I like to have that on the
left because that way if I have a dongle for my mouse or I'm using a Wired Mouse
it's not going to interfere with my movements then I like my typ C's at the
back cuz I'm often using them for power and then my HDMI can go there so so
convenient so customizable that's honestly probably my
favorite thing about this laptop oh yeah and I guess that ignores the 3x2 display
it is great having a taller display like this for productivity and it's about to
get even better they have a 2.8k 120 HZ
version of the display coming what so I'm using the 60 HZ version like a pleb
we actually found that the matte display while suitable for any indoor
environment and most outdoor environments was not overly bright
overly color accurate or overly great for gaming which I wouldn't have said
was a concern on the previous Intel models because as you guys can see from
the performance numbers here the CPUs
and gpus and those aren't great for gaming but on the AMD model you can
actually play some real games on this thing so I would say that higher refresh
rate display is going to be a really big upgrade even if you only run it at you a
quarter of the resolution with uh integer scaling why did I even have my
toolkit out here coming soon to LTT Store.com but I didn't I didn't need it
that's it the whole thing is built it really is that simple and you don't have
to run Windows you can get a DIY version that's pre-loaded with absolutely
nothing and run a variety of Linux distributions on your framework 13 as
well I wish I had my old one in hand for a side by side comparison it seems like
they've changed the keyboard a little bit I don't remember this longer escape
and delete key I'm going to try that in a moment though with first this message
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code circuit for 20% off and free shipping let's try out this keyboard see
how it feels I've always been appreciative of how good framework's
keyboard feels considering um well you
know the fact that it's a boo laptop in
what is still a very reasonable thin form factor like you would think they
would have to give up somewhere but the keyboard
is not it they manage 1.5 mm of travel
which is pretty typical or even above typical in this size class and the feel
and sound is overall okay it's not the best keyboard
on the market but all things considered it is pretty darn good and what's cool
is it's available in a wide variety of configurations something that is not
necessarily an option on you know glued
together bolted together laptops like other manufacturers make built-in
Hardware privacy switches for both the 1080p webcam and the included microphone
allay last time I had a look at these I was pretty impressed by the quality of
the camera but that was before I saw any of the uh Snapdragon X Elite machines
it's still fine it's good enough especially when you consider that this
is pretty challenging conditions with a light right behind me like yeah these
are these are just generally very challenging conditions but the
expectations are going to change in a big way now that we've got the ISP built
onto those Snapdragon X Elite processors and they're going to be able to use more
similar camera modules to what you see in a typical smartphone I like the new
matte display it has some issues though we observed that the auto brightness
sensor causes the gamma and color accuracy to go kind of out of whack when
you over stimulate it um like it's to be
clear it's fine for daily use for an average consumer under a vast majority
of conditions but we just have observed a little bit of odd behavior and a
little bit of lesser performance in terms of color accuracy compared to the
glossier panel that was in our Intel framework laptop that we used for
comparison hopefully that's something they can get resolved in software or
firmware but one thing they won't be resolving is that it's not really
suitable for Creative work so maybe we'll see a difference when they
launched the 2.8k version that's one of the best things about these things
having ryzen in them now is you can actually flipping game on them this is
USB hey modern laptops only have USBC
I'm just kidding there we go I have any IO I want
I suck at Rocket League by the way please don't judge me but what matters
is the performance hey there we go now we're sitting at like 70 FPS 70 plus
very very playable even if you might want a little bit more if you're you
know a competitive player I didn't even notice how Bloody quiet this thing is
I guess I don't have any complaints especially if it comes with these performance benefits it not only
outperformed our Intel model and gaming it also outperformed our Intel model in
productivity at least creative productivity it won blender cin bench
and Puget bench but lost ul's office proon though not by a huge margin I
guess having more cores is still a good thing long as you don't want your
battery to last too long it also beat our Intel framework in battery life in
both endurance and in our stress test it's hard to tell exactly what to cover
and not cover with a device like this I mean yeah normally we would discuss the
weight which is you know kind of mid uh
we would discuss the you know chassis Flex kind of mid as well but these are
all things that haven't changed since the original framework I just can't take
for granted that you guys have watched that before we can listen to the
speakers those actually get really loud
uh quality is fine
they're really loud though if you're into that the trackpad continues to be a
trackpad It's Made of Glass it supports gestures it's about average size not the
biggest but also not restrictively small and I think that's pretty much it it's
time to start daily driving this thing and I'll let you guys know on the WAN
show if I have any additional thoughts but overall it seems like it's still a
framework they haven't lost track of their mission and as long as you're willing to pay a bit of a premium
because yeah they're not the cheapest devices to have something that you can
upgrade and repair and service as needed then they continue to serve that purpose
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