Framework announced the Framework 13 Pro including full Linux support right from the beginning.
Some quick information about the Device:
- will use Intel Core Ultra 300 (Panther-Lake)
- updated Battery Design with (up to) 20h Battery life
- custom designed Display Panel with Touch support (keeping the 3:2 aspect ratio)
- LPCAMM2 for upgradable/replacable RAM without compromising on Speed/Low Power of LPDDR5X
- milled Aluminium Unibody chassis
- Full Linux support right from the start (including Firmware update via LVFS, Fingerprint Reader, etc.)
- Haptic Touchpad
- and all the repairability features Framework is known for
You can watch their YouTube Video for a quick summary:
I was looking for a new laptop to replace my old Lenovo Yoga 370 and initially disregarded the Framework 13 because of some downsides (low Battery Life, bad Camera, etc.) and was looking to go with one of the following devices:
- HP Elitebook X g1a
- the new Dell XPS 14
- Asus Expertbook PM5 G2
or also a MacBook pro. I am using Linux since more then 10 years and never touched MacOS at all. So I was not sure if MacOS would work for me.
But this announcement made it easy: It will be a Framework 13 Pro with Intel X7 358H!
20 hours is optimistic, I have done a lot of observations on different workloads in mobile Lunar Lake on Lenovo with throttling and other tunings applied:
3 watts static content with minimal CPU/GPU usage at min brightness -> 24 hours
4-5 watts in code editors with some plugins and hardware acceleration / basic web browsing -> 15 hours
6-8 watts on video playback (YouTube at 1080p) -> 9.5 hours
10-11 watts at about 50% utilization in medium tasks like exploring the (new 2.5d) Google Maps -> 7 hours
Framework may perform better or worse. Considering Apple makes power optimizations by doing the opposite of what Framework does - they are probably worse at it. Also keep in mind that Linux support takes a while.
I’m assuming they’re talking about 720p video playback at low brightness to get 20 hours.
Also if you have battery care enabled (stops at 80%) and charge at 10% then you only really get 70% of the expected battery life.
On the blog, they say 20 hours is from 4K Netflix streaming. Mighty impressive, that! https://frame.work/blog/framework-laptop-13-pro-and-highlights-from-the-framework-next-gen-event or https://frame.work/blog/introducing-framework-laptop-13-pro
They say it's slightly longer than a 14" Macbook Pro M5, interesting