I bought a Framework laptop - first impressions + 3 weeks later

I received my laptop a few weeks ago now. I made some observations at the time, but will also update with my opinion now after settling into it.

Mainly I'm doing this as I watched a lot of YouTube videos while waiting for my laptop to arrive, and some of the things I've noticed no one seems to mention in their videos. It also highlights how many of the people on YouTube received free laptops, as there are some glaringly obvious niggles which were not mentioned.

The wait between purchase and shipping felt long and quiet.

Then:

The shipping was quick when it got going, given it was coming from China, but man did that initial wait for it to ship feel long. In this world of next day deliveries, having to wait for something to be packaged up felt like a lifetime.
I ordered my laptop on Monday and it didn't ship until the Friday, which is fair as it said on the website dispatched within 5 days, but I wasn't expecting to hear absolutely nothing in between. An order confirmation, then nothing for almost 4 days man, it was hard.

Now:

I mean, I have it now so I don't care.

The unboxing was nice.

Then:

I'm not sure what I expected, as I had seen it happen on YouTube that many times, but it was still exciting to open and piece together. There's a lot of cardboard here.

Now:

I still have a pile of cardboard boxes I'm not sure what to do with. I swear half of my house is cardboard boxes. I will at some point open them up again to get the screwdriver out and look for stickers (I don't think it came with stickers).

The keyboard makes a weird squeak when I run my fingers across it.

Then:

This was one of the first things I noticed. This and it feels nice. It felt different to my previous keyboard, my dell XPS 9510, the keys seem to protrude a little further maybe, so I was curious as to whether it would prove decent or not.

Now:

I like it a lot. To be honest it's probably the best laptop keyboard I've ever used.

I've discovered things like the function lock (fn + esc) retains it's state, so if I flip it to f keys and restart the system, it is still f keys (which is great, because f media keys). The keyboard is backlit and can be set so the brightness alters according to how bright or dim the room is.

I've also discovered it is via compatible, so the whole keyboard is configurable via the Via website (it's a shame the website only supports chromium based browsers, or maybe firefox doesn't support the website, potato, potato).

Also it no longer makes a squeak, which is good.

The trackpad feels garbage.

Then:

This is one of those things that concerned me the most, and no one seems to mention. Especially Linus Tech Tips - maybe because they have investments in it? Come on tho it is trash. Maybe I'm spoilt as both my previous XPS and my MacBook Pro had glass trackpads with haptics, but this trackpad feels cheap.
It's a diving board style trackpad, so the part nearest to the keyboard is attached and used as a hinge, with the clicky part furthest from the keyboard. Man as I type this is it trash. If I click the trackpad I would click in the middle, which when I try it puts up a lot of resistance and feels like it's not meant to do it, because it's not. Anyway yeah, cheap and plastic-y, if they ever sell a better trackpad I'll be straight on it.

Now:

Well, at least I'd forgotten about this. I've developed a tendency to not click, just tap, which works perfectly fine. Apart from that, I mostly forgot or forgive it for being trash as multi touch and everything else works perfectly fine.

I found the bezel harder to put on than the videos guides show.

Then:

I kept trapping the left hand wire in the hinge, and had to search for images and whatnot to figure out where the wire was supposed to feed. Weird no one else had this issue.

Also the bezel on the store is like, £50. When you take the piece of plastic out the box there's nothing there. This is like a £20 item max.

Now:

Fuck me £50 is a lot for a little bit of plastic and a few magnets.

Hinge feels too stiff for a screen with this much flex.

Then:

The screen feels like I'm going to break it.

Now:

Not sure if this has loosened up at all but I don't notice this at all, it feels perfect.

I'm already concerned about stripping the captive screws.

Then:

The screws on the base are captive, which is nice and well thought out. The problem is they use the same star bit as my XPS and I've almost stripped a few of those screws and I've only opened it a handful of times.

Now:

I forgot about this, I'm not likely to open this for a while.

There's no heat spreader for the SSD.

Then:

Not sure if this is a big issue, my previous laptop had one.

Now:

Couldn't give a fuck.

Build was easy.

Then:

Common knowledge now, but I enjoyed it. The most difficult part was taking about my old laptop to use one of the hard drives from it.

Now:

I still need to clear my old laptop to give to the wife, I forgot about that.

It came with a nice right angled usb power cable.

Then:

I was a little disappointed that the power cable is modular, in that it is a slim kettle lead which plugs into a block, then a usb-c to usb-c cable from there to laptop. Not a big deal, but I won't be using this as my carry around charger as it's too cumbersome.

Now:

I guess it makes sense that it's modular, as you can replace the different parts.
The right angled usb-c cable feels like a fad, sure it's nice for charging my laptop but I mostly carry one usb-c cable around with me and use it for everything. charging my phone with a right angled cable feels wrong as it juts out sideways.

The screen is rounded, but not fucking evenly.

Then:

This annoys me when I think about it, but not as much as having a stupid Apple notch would.

Hopefully you can see from the photo, the top border radius at the top of the screen is larger than the one at the bottom. They don't mention this on the website, only that it's rounded - I can live with it being rounded but it looks fucking stupid. Bear in mind this is the 2.8k screen, the newer one; the old one does not have this problem.

Now:

This irritated me at first, but I had completely forgotten about it after a few days as when I'm running Ubuntu it's completely hidden.

The speakers face downwards.

Then:

On first impressions, they sound a bit trash.

Now:

After installing EasyEffects on Linux however and loading a profile, it sounds a lot better. They're not amazing, but they're good enough.

On reflection, after using it a few days, I like it. A lot.

Despite all my whinging, I like it a lot.
The keyboard deck bit where I rest my palms as I type feels good, the keyboard has a very nice travel, the touchpad - as long as I don't try and clickity click - feels nice and responsive.

The laptop feels lighter than my Dell or my MacBook, and as a result it feels overall a bit cheaper, but I'm paying for the repair-ability and the modular design. Put it this way, I don't feel ripped off by this laptop at all.
I enjoy using it and I don't think it's just because it runs Ubuntu flawlessly.

Also the battery life is not bad at all. I've not been spoiled by the new arm MacBooks, but it seems to last longer than my Dell.

> For anyone curious, I was getting about 40fps on Arc Raiders. You can likely get more if you mess with settings but this I did not.

Since I'm running linux now also, the more I use it the more I seem to enjoy it.