Framework 13 inch 7640 six months impression

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

I've had my Framework 13 inch with AMD 7640U and I wanted to share my experience, and leave documentation for the future me.

 

My use case is:

• Something that I can use on the bus, plane, or when away.
• Shouldn't get hot like an HP laptop. Shouldn't sound like a HP laptop taking off a runway.
• Battery should last at least 4h of heavy use
• No gaming, i have the steam deck for that
• Some measure of GPU acceleration to run LLMs
• Easy to open up

TLDR

Overall I'm really happy with the Framework! Good performance and battery, good build quality and feel. There is AMD driver jank and propietary firmware jank going on, issues here and there, but I'm savy enough that with the repairability and support I got it working flawlessly. It's definitely the right laptop for me, I'd rather have something I can fix when something goes wrong.

 

The embedded dongles are SO satisfying! I can change the side where I charge the laptop, take out an USB and add an ethernet to connect wired and change side to that, I can add HDMI and make a presentation. I love it!

 

The front frame has optical switches to turn off the camera andsensors, and I love it!

 

Estimate price/Performance

 

Order (flawless)

 

I love the configurator, I wish all configurators were as good. At 1370€ my configuration is on the expensive side, but it also has a nice feel and works well, if the reparability promise holds true, it should shine once I upgrade/repair it. Order arrived in a week. There is a forum where I can ask for help, and you get answers. And I had troubles immediately, so it's good it seems support is there. I'll like the forum posts where I found support.

 

Assembly (didn't work out of the box)

 

I got the DIY edition, honestly not a lot of DIY needed to assemble it. Still,it gave me a black screen. It's a good thing that the laptop is really easy to open up, because I had to do it immediately, the solution was to use the HDMI dongle and disconnect the integrated monitor, it was an issue where on power on it would not output on the only screen it had. It took some time to figure out. There are also anti tamper switch that prevents the laptop from powering if it's open, it's good because you might have dangling wires, but it made it a pain to open, disconnect, close, try, and redo it to reconnect the screen cable.

 

 

I want to stress it's really easy to open and close, it's five screw all the same size! An HP laptop you need dozens of screws of different size.

 

The right side embedded dongle were stuck... I had to use lot of force pushing down to make the rail and now they slot really nicely. i think it was a tiny tolerance issue on the rail in my unit.

 

Operating System

 

I installed windows, but was not able to detect the wifi card, or LAN expansion slot, I forced windows to install without connectivity (I would have done it anyway) and once in windows I used a USB key to transfer the framework driver package, and it worked flawlessly after.

Cinebench R23 Multicore

Timespy

10503

1527

More use

 

I used it for two months with no issues, the battery lasts me the daily travel time easily, and the laptop feels really nice to use. The heaviest workload is using local LLMs. I'm very happy with the performance.

 

Steam Deck Charger (not charging)

 

I used it for my first long range travel by air, and I brought with me the steam deck charger since I also had a steam deck. only to find out the Framework didn't charge with the steam deck charger. It turns out it was a firmware issues. And I couldn't update the firmware while abroad because you need it to be under battery power to do so. I discovered that if you plug in the usb-c at an exactl moment when you close the lid while powered down it charges, but i couldn't update the bios like that. I wasn't amused, I really needed the laptop to charge... Part of it is on me, I should have tested the steam deck charger on the framework, I was so sure it would work that I didn't.

 

Once back at home, I used the provided charger, updated the firmware, and now it charges with the steam deck charger.

 

 

More use

 

I have used it two months, and i had issue with Adrenaline AMD drivers and LLM, sometimes the GPU acceleration for the LLM stops working and I have to manually update adrenaline and restart. But this is mostly on AMD, not on framework.

 

I have an issue I haven't figured out where some applications detect the screen at a much lower resolution, this too i think it's an AMD APU issue and application issue, and not a Framework issue.

 

Linux (NOPE!)

 

Swapped NVME to try linux ubuntu 22.04 LTS and got a SBAT error... Back to windows!

 

Skin

One minor issue with the Framework is that metal is cold, so when I take it out the morning, it's cold to the touch. With the skin I can rest my hand on the laptop without feeling cold. Got the skin for my Framework from https://www.slickwraps.com/ (D Brand doesn't offer custom skins!) I made the pic with Stable Diffusion, and I'm really happy how it turned out!

 

 

Wishlist

• I would have liked more embedded dongle slots, or more ports per dongle. Four is enough most of the times, but not always. Rarely, I need five slots.
• The embedded dongles should have been wider, and accomodate two USB-A ports by design.
• I wish AMD drivers were as reliable as Nvidia drivers. They almost always work, but I can't help but compare with my PC where the Nvidia drivers NEVER let me down.

 

[igormp]

44 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I installed windows

For some reason I thought you were a linux user, and opened this thread expecting to see a linux review on it lol

 

Got review nonetheless, if I were to buy a laptop NOW I'd likely buy a FW13 as well (I actually tried, but FW refused my 2 of my cards while I was on the UK )

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

18 hours ago, igormp said:

For some reason I thought you were a linux user

I use linux on my robots, I wouldn't trust linux for my everyday machine. Almost everything I do on the laptop could reasonably work flawlessly on linux, except the LLM acceleration and GPU drivers. If there are issues with windows on framework, i can't imagine what the experience is like with linux.

18 hours ago, igormp said:

if I were to buy a laptop NOW I'd likely buy a FW13

I waited for an AMD 13 inch version, and I'm really happy with it. It's the best laptop I have owned so far. It compares favorably with a M1 laptop, I really like the unified memory and the APU, it is limited by bandwidth and compute but has no problem loading large models.

 

The 16 inch version I don't like, and it sounds from the review that it has more teething issues going with it. Even if I really like the swappable GPU design.

 

My first upgrade would be for a CPU that has strong NPU acceleration and support a few years down the line, I just love running local LLM s on my machines. I'll report back when i do an upgrade, or need to repair the laptop, but having opened it already twice, i can tell it's really easy to repair, as long as parts are available, I have no doubt it's the easiest laptop to maintain in a working state.

 

I have nightmares over replacing the HP CPU fan. It took hours and I had to literally dismantle it with dozens upon dozens of different screws. And it was SO loud, and SO hot on the keyboard...

 

[igormp]

5 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

except the LLM acceleration and GPU drivers.

AFAIK stuff like LLMs and ROCm is easier to get running on Linux than on Windows, but I have no hands-on experience with AMD and LLMs (the reason I switched from red team to the green team some years ago was exactly because I started to work with machine learning stuff lol).

5 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I waited for an AMD 13 inch version, and I'm really happy with it. It's the best laptop I have owned so far. It compares favorably with a M1 laptop

Between the time my last purchase got refuse and now, I'm mostly using my work's MBP 14" M3 Max with 36GB. Battery is kinda meh, but performance is cool and I can also run local LLMs without much issues. Far from the perf I get with my 2x3090s, but nothing to scoff at either.

It's not as lightweight as my personal LG Gram (which I'm barely using nowadays), but not that awful either. A FW13 would be better in this regard, nonetheless.

 

Only downside for a FW13 IMO is the "small" battery. My Gram was a 72Wh battery, and the MBP has a 70Wh one. A 70Wh+ on the FW (instead of the upgraded 61Wh) could give it an extra couple hours of usage.

5 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

it is limited by bandwidth and compute but has no problem loading large models.

Only part that may solve this is AMD's Strix Halo, but I don't think we'll be seeing those in ultraportable 13" models, sadly.

5 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

The 16 inch version I don't like

I'm not a fan of large laptops, I like having something portable and with a long-lasting battery, I can always remote into my desktop or other cloud computer if I ever need more oomph anyway.

5 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

My first upgrade would be for a CPU that has strong NPU acceleration and support a few years down the line, I just love running local LLM s on my machines. I'll report back when i do an upgrade, or need to repair the laptop, but having opened it already twice, i can tell it's really easy to repair, as long as parts are available, I have no doubt it's the easiest laptop to maintain in a working state.

I don't think NPUs are going to be that useful for larger models, and you'll be constrained on the memory bandwidth anyway. Maybe if FW ever releases a Strix Halo motherboard option, this would be a great update with more than 2x the memory bandwidth (it's going to have a 256-bit LPDDR5 bus, downside is no upgradeable RAM).

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

Tried linux on a different NVME drive to test it, and got a SBAT error, something to do with TPM I guess?

 

There seems to be a solution, but i can't risk my windows nvme not booting up... So I'm giving up on linux on the framework for now.

 

https://community.frame.work/t/sbat-verification-error-booting-linux-after-windows-update/56354/4

 

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

Just got the skin for my Framework from https://www.slickwraps.com/ I made the pic with Stable Diffusion, and I'm really happy how it turned out!

 

I looked into D Brand to use the LTT affiliate link, but to my surprise they don't make custom skin. It always surprises how me custom skins are not more popular in the PC building community.

 

One minor issue with the Framework is that metal is cold, so when I take it out the morning, it's cold to the touch. With the skin I can rest my hand on the laptop without feeling cold. I'm sure Elijah would appreciate the image.