The bad news for my American friends is that due to the ongoing tariff
situation, some base models of the framework 13 are not shipping to the US
for now. But there is good news. This fully loaded model with the AMD Ryzen
AI9 HX370 is because, as Framework
explains, higherend models are more profitable and therefore easier to
absorb the margin hit on. Thanks for the transparency, Framework. Breaking news.
Between filming and releasing this video, tariff announcements have changed
again. That means that base model framework 13s are again available for
order. But do note that pricing has changed for some of the available modules and configurations, though not
everything. So, make sure to check out Framework's website for the latest info.
Uh, bye. Speaking of transparency,
Framework investment disclosure. And thanks for the transparency on this
machine. I am super excited to see their new transparent bezels. We'll get to
that in a minute after we have a look at the included accessories, which as
always with the framework are kind of up to you. You can buy a power adapter.
Their GAN power adapter is super awesome. This thing is 60 W and it fits
in the palm of even the smallest of hands. You also get a nice 6 ft USBC to
C power cable. This has multiple benefits. One, it's detachable, meaning
that a broken connector on one side is never going to mean that your power
brick is useless. And number two is it's got this nice right angle cable on one
side. So depending on what's more ergonomic for your setup, you can put
that on either end you want. You also get a little Mickey Mouse connector for
the other end or you can just get nothing and use your own. You'll also
get any of the IO modules that you purchase, which the Labs team has
helpfully opened all of them for me. And this really is one of the coolest things
about using a Framework laptop. Whether you want DisplayPort, HDMI, USBC, USBA,
Ethernet, I'm going to get this out of here at some point. All you got to do is
slide that into your laptop and you're good to go. Oh wow. These new
transparent ones look so cool. Check
this out. That color, that's my childhood right there. Well, not quite.
This is not the N64 green, but still translucent colored plastic gets me
right in the feels. And IO modules aren't the only thing that's available
in translucent now. Oh, sick. Check that
out. translucent green front bezel.
Dang. And because this is the framework 13 we're talking about here, you can
take that translucent bezel, which by the way is available in lots of
different colors, and install it on any machine you want, the brand new one you
just purchased or one that you've already been using for years. There's a
couple more accessories to look at. If you get a DIY kit, you'll find it loaded
up with your RAM, SSD, the one
screwdriver that you will need with a swappable bit to assemble your machine.
We won't need this cuz our machine was preassembled, but hey, just cuz it's
preassembled doesn't mean we can't take it apart. Right now, let's take a look at the latest Framework 13. This is such
a critical feature that they've done such a good job of supporting. Windows,
Linux, whatever you like, Framework is here to support it and deliver a great
computing experience at the same time. I mentioned that this has a Ryzen AI 9 HX
370 processor, but I haven't talked about what exactly that means. It means
12 Zen 5based cores, four of which are
full fat Zen 5 and can turbo up to 5.1 GHz, while eight of them are Zen 5C, the
more compact, power efficient ones. You also get support for up to 96 GB of DDR5
memory, which happens to be exactly what this machine is configured with. On the
top, we get the traditional framework logo, and I'm really excited for this.
Pre-installed on our machine is the purple bezel along with their new
2.8K 120 Hz matte display. As always,
disassembling your framework 13 is as simple as undoing the screws on the
bottom and then getting good. There we
go. We just got to detach this ribbon
cable for the keyboard and trackpad. By the way, the keyboard has been
re-engineered for this model. It apparently retains the 1.5 mm travel
that we've come to know and love while reducing resonance caused by the
speakers. And as always with Framework, the best part is you don't have to get
the new model to get it. You can just buy this keyboard and huck it onto your
old framework. I don't believe the touchpad has changed. Neither has the
fingerprint sensing power button. So, we're going to put that aside and have a
look at the internals. That is a big
difference. And by big, I mean big. They've gone from two 5mm heat pipes to
a single 10 mm heat pipe in order to handle the additional thermal output of
this Ryzen 9 processor. Oh, there's that RAM I was talking about. Look at that.
96 GB of DDR5 5600 megat transfer per
second and it's on so dim modules.
So if you ever needed to upgrade that then you could or more likely if you
wanted to configure your framework 13 with a lower amount of memory today and
then upgrade it to a big fat 96 gig configuration in the future you could do
that. We've got our 1 TB SSD. You can configure it with up to 8 terab. And
where's our Wi-Fi module? Ah, there it is. MediaTek. Okay. I haven't had the
greatest experiences with them every time in the past, but they have been a
little bit better lately. But what I'm more excited about is that it's Wi-Fi 7
now. Dude, Wi-Fi 7 is ripping fast, and
I freaking love it. And with all the Steam games you're going to be
downloading on this thing, thanks to its Radeon 890MG GPU, you're going to be
pretty happy you've got that. Since we're in here, we can talk about some stuff that's not new, but is really nice
about the Framework 13, like the QR codes that are included on all the main
components that show you how to read and read them in the event that you need to
perform a repair. They include extras of all the screws that you might need in
case you accidentally lose a screw during one of those repairs. We've got
the same 61Wh battery that we've come to know and be mostly okay with. It managed
about six hours in our battery life test, which would have been pretty good,
you know, a couple of years ago before Intel's latest superefficient processors
came out, but uh did not hold up to our
comparison machine, the Dell4 Pro
Premium, whatever order it's in, whatever. A really nice Dell machine
that managed almost 16 hours in that same test. While I'm snapping in these
modules at the back, is a perfect time to talk about how not all of them are
made quite equal. Framework has this handy dandy little chart that you can
consult if you're not sure which modules go in which slots. But what it boils
down to is that the back two are capable of USB 4. All of them are capable of
DisplayPort, though not at quite the same bandwidths, and all of them are
capable of being used as a power input for charging. So dayto-day you won't
really have to think about it. You'll only have to really think about it when
you are reconfiguring your IO depending on, you know, whether you like to have a
USBA mouse dongle and you like to have it on the other side so it doesn't
interfere with your mouse hand or whatever the case may be. That's honestly one of my favorite things about
dailying the framework is you can just put your IO on whatever side you want.
Think I already said that, but you know what? I think it bears mentioning twice.
I do think that framework at a certain point here is probably going to be able
to just kind of go, "Yeah, I think we gave a lot of life to the people who
bought the original 13. We could uh we could probably update it a little bit,
but apparently it is not this day." It's incredible to me that they've taken this
many generations of CPU and made them work in this chassis. It's also cool how
I managed to fit this segue to our sponsor, Secret Lab. Now, it's true that
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look pretty cool, too. So, click our link in the video description to pick up
yours today. Beat the tariffs with the shiptorm sale event at ltdstore.com. We
are offering free shipping on any order worldwide, over
$150. So, it's a great time to pick up a commuter backpack, a precision
screwdriver, or a stylish framework hoodie. Oh, I took it off to put on this
jacket. The point is, we've also got never-before-seen pricing on our MCM
Essentials bundle. Don't miss it. We'll have it linked down below. All right,
let's fire this thing up. I want to try
out this keyboard because it's all fine and good for them to say that it's
really great, but I need to try it for myself. Oh, and I also want to try out
swapping the front bezel. I didn't show you guys this, but swapping it out is as
simple as just opening it up nice and wide, pulling off the magnetic bezel
piece, and boom, now you're green with
envy, cuz I just swapped my bezel. Not everyone's into this sort of
personalization, but if you are, how cool is that, right? Oh, they include
hardware switches for both the webcam and the integrated microphone. Always
nice to see. And as I always appreciate, the hinge opens up completely 180°,
which can be super handy if you're using your laptop on the go and referring back
to it rather than just using it sitting in your lap or on the desk. Oh, yeah.
Hey, look. This particular version of the keyboard has a framework key which
works in Linux or Windows or whatever
you like. And because the keyboard is modular, you can get all kinds of cool
variants, including that transparent one that looks sick.
That's a nice keyboard. No complaints about the trackpad either, though I
wasn't expecting any. Let's talk about the display because this was not a
particularly bright spot in our testing. Not because it wasn't bright. It reached
the about 500 nits that Framework claims, which for a nonHDR display is
perfectly acceptable. And you got to love that matte finish. Look at this.
Even in the studio lighting glare, like that's not bad. Okay, here here for
context. Hold on, hold on. Here's an iPhone pointed at that same light. All
right, look at that. Ah, so that's
pretty cool. I'm also loving the improved resolution. It is now 2880 by
1920 and looks flipping sharp. The only issue is that when we were looking at
color accuracy in our testing, we found that there was a green shift to the
colors that would make it not really suitable for color sensitive work, at
least not without further manual calibration. We'd like to see that be a
little bit better. The good news is that
their lower-end 60 Hz lower resolution
display did not have the same issue and would be okay for some light Photoshop.
So, I guess you can save your money. Also, coming back to bad news, neither
of them is a touchcreen, and that is still not an option that is available
for the Framework 13. For that, you'll need the Framework 12, which doesn't
come with the same kind of high performance internal hardware. Speaking of high performance, let's fire up some
games, shall we? Oh, they apparently retoled the fan curve to make it more
better. I can definitely hear it. Is that with Cyber Punk running in the
background? Oh, no way. Oh, whoa, it's
really quiet. Oh, dude, that's awesome. Check this
out. That's with Cyberpunk running. I
mean, it might not have reached full saturation yet, but like, dang. I don't
think I have a single other resolution to choose from. I would have to set up
some custom resolutions with like CRU or
something like that. So, all right, screw it. We're going for
native. That's a lot of resolution. Um,
oh boy. Yeah, I'm getting like 15 FPS or
something like that. Barely. I'm going to set it to
ultra performance FSR. That'll turn down
the effective resolution. Okay, that's somewhat playable now. We're probably getting more like about 20 to 25 FPS. I
guess I could open up frame view. Oh, yeah. 20. Damn, I'm good. 22 frames per
second. The 1% lows are a little lower,
but uh I'm still giving myself credit for that one. Oh, what the heck? I can't
believe I didn't talk about this before. This panel has rounded corners in a
square frame. What the heck? My F is cut
off. Now, I understand why because Framework doesn't operate at the kind of
volumes that someone like an Apple or a Dell does. They can't exactly run around
making their own custom panels. So, they're sort of at the mercy of whatever
exists on the market. But, that along with the color accuracy is definitely a
compromise of the 120 Hz display. All right, let's try running something a
little less demanding, shall we? Is this GPU supposed to be running at only about
1,000 MHz? Uh, you're probably limited based on the
wattage. Is it in power saver mode or anything right now? Best power
efficiency. Gosh darn it. Okay, well that might be that might be part part of
our problem. Oh, there goes the fans, too. All
right, here we go. Okay, the fans
definitely get a little louder. That was my bad. Well, sort of. I mean, it was
configured like that when I got it. So, yeah. Now, we're getting about 25 FPS
average. This is playable now. Definitely louder, though. Oh, yeah. I
never showed. See? Louder. There you go.
Since we're talking about gaming, I guess now's as good a time as any to put up some graphs, which were a bit of a
surprise to me. While obviously AMD's Ryzen 300 series is competent when it
comes to gaming, Intel, aside from that bug that resulted in a do not finish cuz
the VRAM was reported incorrectly, put up a shockingly good fight. And the Core
Ultra 7268V not only has a slightly less
convoluted name, but actually better gaming performance than the Ryzen 9 AI
chip that we're using here today. So, uh, that's pretty cool. Does Framework
have a a Core Ultra 200 series yet? No.
Okay. Well, hopefully they're working on that then. Let's play around with the webcam. Yeah, the Framework webcam was
pretty outstanding when it first arrived on the market, but now that we've seen
the really incredible webcams on some of those uh especially Qualcomb based
machines, it is still fine, but it just
isn't really anything special by modern standards. I mean, the fact that it
handles this light directly behind me at all is is good. It's just not really
amazing anymore, and they haven't made huge strides with it since the original
Framework 13. What about the speakers? I mean, there's supposed to be less
resonance or whatever, right? Where's my crab ray
at? I mean, they still have no grills, so you know, they sound fine. Not on par
with the best that you'd get from someone like an Apple or a Dell, but
perfectly chromulent. What's a little less chromulent to swallow is the price.
This machine, as configured, is about on par with that Dell that we benchmarked
it against. Now, obviously, the Dell doesn't have the same upgradability,
repairability, modularity, but what it does have is incredible battery life
compared to the Framework 13. So, the conclusion is the same as always. If
what you're after is something like a framework, something that you can spill
your coffee all over the keyboard and quickly and easily order replacement
parts and throw them on yourself, there is nothing quite like it on the market.
But if you just want a machine that is a cohesive package that ultimately when
you're done with you're simply going to throw in the waist bin, then it might
not offer the best bang for the buck. You know what's great bang for the buck
though? Subscribe to ShortCircuit. It's free.