Framework Laptop 12 review
139 comments
·June 18, 2025Lammy
I really love the lavender — VAIO-core! I do wish I could get the other modules in lavender too, but I understand why they wouldn't want to fractally-complicate their stock keeping for those items.
> the Laptop 12 can only fit a single DDR5 RAM slot, which reduces memory bandwidth and limits your RAM capacity to 48GB
According to this post from a Framework team member, a single 64GB SODIMM will work too and just didn't exist yet at the time Intel wrote the 13th Gen spec, so they only advertize 48GB: https://community.frame.work/t/64gb-ram-for-framework-12-sin...
> Old, slow chip isn't really suitable for light gaming
I wish the reviewer would specify what phrases like “light gaming” mean to them. My FW12 is in a later batch that won't ship for a few more months, but I'm coming from a ThinkPad T470s where I already do “light gaming” (mostly TBoI Repentence and Team Fortress 2 with mastercomfig medium-low). I can't imagine the 13th Gen graphics would be worse in that regard than my old laptop's 7th Gen.
Not having Thunderbolt seemed like kind of a bummer to me too, but then again my T470s has it and I can't think of a single time I ever actually used it for anything. I tried one of those external GPU enclosures once, and it was kinda cool just to see that such a thing was possible, but I've never been one to want to tether a laptop with a thicc cable lol
nrp
TF2 will absolutely run smoothly. I’ve been playing Persona 5 on my Framework Laptop 12.
mananaysiempre
> a single 64GB SODIMM will work too
Wait, are 64GB DDR5 SODIMMs finally out? I’ve been monitoring that for ages but almost lost hope.
ItCouldBeWorse
> A good laptop, but not a good value
One of my mentors had the great sentence: "I dont buy laptops- they suck, because they are tailored to transport. I buy desktops- and connect them via internet to flat transportable terminals. And desktops can be upgraded, merged, reused and send to the closet as server at the EOL-"
And he was kind of right. For almost all purposes, even for gaming in a way- a remote desktop is kind of superior. Yes, stadia is dead- but for everything else- this shall do.
UncleOxidant
From the pics there this laptop does not have a matte surface on the screen? Looks like a glossy screen. One would hope matte is an option.
EDIT: Yes, it looks like matte is an option and they don't charge extra.
criddell
Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make a laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1? I get that Framework focuses on making repairable machines, but does that prevent them from making a fanless, hi dpi, good performing, long battery life machine?
I wouldn’t expect parity with an M4 machine, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think they should be competitive with the much older M1.
I have the same complaint with Lenovo (I usually buy ThinkPads). Where are the fast, fanless, hidpi, long battery life laptops?
mhitza
> Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make a laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1?
Kind of unreasonable. I mean which Intel or AMD cpu can be run fanless and perform well?
On the topic of displays, my understanding is that they "kind of use what they can get". That's how there can be a 13 display with rounded corners in a straight edge case.
What you're asking are the things I'm looking for, though still every time I go into their forum I see enough thermal, fan noise issues and AMD firmware bugs, that I'm still on the fence on buying one.
I wish them luck with the 12, for me sounds like a model for "true believers" because it doesn't seem to compete well enough with run of the mill chromebooks (or an Air) that are more established in the students segment.
AnthonyMouse
It isn't the chip which determines whether it's fanless. Basically every modern chip supports power capping and then the power cap is determined by how much heat the machine can dissipate.
What that really determines is multi-thread performance. Fanless laptop that can dissipate the power of one core? No problem. Fanless laptop that can dissipate the power of all the cores? For that you have to lower the clock speed quite a bit. Which is why you see AMD chips on older TSMC process nodes getting better multithread performance than Apple's fanless ones.
The cost/benefit ratio of adding a fan is extremely attractive. The alternative way of doing it is to add more cores. If you have 8 fanless cores at 2 GHz, how do you improve multi-thread performance by 50%? Option one, clock them at 3 GHz, but now you need a fan; cost of fan ~$5. Option two, get 16 cores and cap them at 1.5 GHz to fit in the same power envelope, but now you need twice as much silicon, cost of twice as many cores $500+.
The number of people who pick the second option given that trade off is so small that hardly anybody even bothers to offer it.
Apple continues to do it because a) then they get to claim "see, they can't do this?" even when hardly anybody chooses that given the option, and b) then if you actually want the higher performance one from them, you're paying hundreds of dollars extra for more cores instead of $5 extra for the same one but with a fan in it.
lukan
"The cost/benefit ratio of adding a fan is extremely attractive."
Depends on your metric. A fan makes noise, attracts dirt that needs cleaning, needs more space ...
I really love my fanless devices, even though they never will reach the speed of activly cooled ones.
solardev
Doesn't this miss differences between CPUs in their per-core efficiency?
fweimer
Intel's T variants in the Core series can be passively cooled. They have pretty good burst performance in case you need it. I don't know if there are laptops using them (I only have fanless desktop systems with these CPUs).
nextos
Besides, at least in Linux, lots of kernel options can tweak Intel/AMD CPUs to make them mostly silent.
The problem is that manufacturers don't put much thought into building good cooling systems.
Lenovo, for instance, has so many SKUs that it's really random. A few are great, but some sound like a hairdyer or rev up too aggressively.
Apple gets this. By having a small product line, they usually polish all those details.
criddell
> I mean which Intel or AMD cpu can be run fanless and perform well?
I don't follow CPU news and have no idea what lake they're at now, but I'd be surprised if Intel and AMD didn't have a chip competitive with an M1 by now.
When I google "fanless amd intel laptop cpu" I find this old thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31142209 which does suggest some fanless machines exist. That's from 3 years ago so surely there are even more options today, no?
eloisant
To put it simply, I don't think we'll get anything closer to the M1 on the x86 architecture.
You'll have to wait for Framework to offer a Snapdragon instead of Intel/AMD but they haven't announced anything yet.
perching_aix
> but does that prevent them from making a (...) hi dpi (...) machine?
It pretty much has that though? 1920x1200 at 12.2" is 185.59 PPI. Standard DPI (PPI) is 96. HiDPI to my knowledge isn't properly defined, but the usual convention is either double that or just more than that - the latter criteria this display definitely clears, and the former (192 PPI) is super super close, to the extent that I'd call it cleared for sure.
It's pretty hard to not clear at least the latter criteria on a laptop anyways. You'd see that on 720p and 768p units from like a decade or two ago.
chrismorgan
The baseline of 96ppi is nominal only. Form factor and intended distance from screen matters a lot. In the laptop form factor, you’re aiming for more like 110–125 as 1×. Apple laptops range from 221–254ppi as 2×.
186ppi is designed for 1.5×, an uncomfortable space that makes perfection difficult-to-impossible, yet seems to have become unreasonably popular, given how poorly everything but Windows tends to handle it. (Microsoft have always had real fractional scaling; Apple doesn’t support it at all, downsampling; X11 is a total mess; Wayland is finally getting decent fractional scaling.)
cosmic_cheese
Yeah the focus really should be on multipliers. Is it a clean multiple of the typical “normal” DPI resolution for that screen size? You’ve got a great screen. No? It’s a compromise. Simple.
1.5x looks ok mostly (though fractional pixels can cause issues in a few circumstances), but across platforms nothing is handled as well as 2x, 3x, etc is. I have a 1.5x laptop and wish it were either 1x or 2x.
perching_aix
There's PPI and then there's PPD. If they want more PPD (which is what's field of view and thus viewing distance and display size dependent), that's fine, but then it's not PPI they should be complaining about.
This might sound like a nitpick but I really don't mean it to be. These are proper well defined concepts and terms, so let's use them.
Gracana
Windows' "real fractional scaling" gives me clipped window borders, maximized windows bleeding onto other screens, and fuzzy-looking applications. I'm curious if Apple's downsampling method works better, because I am not impressed with Microsoft's method.
f1shy
Exactly that is what I think, and I do think it is just not possible.
I’m searching for a new laptop, I want unix, so either linux or macos. I was looking at framework, system76, tuxedo and slimbooks, and mac air. I want an ANSI keyboard, which seems an oddity in Europe (there is English iso, which viscerally hate)
If you want thunderbolt ports, and some good specs, mac air is cheaper. And I’ve heard with arm processors you can tun linux at almost native speeds… I’m almost decided for Mac Air…
If somebody wants to add something to make me change my mind, you are more than welcome.
BTW I’m replacing a 2016 Macbook pro, which was buggy as hell, and I learned to really hate it. Also I’m not a fan of MacOs… but !4$ I cannot beat it.
hu3
I'm confused.
The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU benchmarks.
Their office suite benchmarks puts it at almost 10 hour battery.
See Framework 13 Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.
To me, being able to run native Linux alone is worth its weight in gold, even if it was slower.
coder543
> The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU benchmarks.
Every single chart in the article showed the M4 MacBook Air beating the Framework 12 by a large margin.
I don't know what charts you were looking at.
adolph
I think the parent comment is referring to its parent's question "Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make a laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1?"
That the Framework 12 is not extremely lagging behind the M4 (subjective comparison) might lead one to believe that it would be competitive with an five year old M1 Air. Taking a quick look at "Cinebench R23" from 2020 [0], Macbook Air M1 comes in at 1,520 and 7,804, which compares favorably to 2025's "Cinebench R23" in which the Framework 12's i5-1334U scores 1,474 and 4,644.
The answer is it isn't competitive performance-wise. Given the M1 seems to have some native Linux support through Ashai, the Framework's advantages over the 5 year old MBA M1 seem to be user accessible hardware changes, touchscreen and longer hinge throw.
0. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/hands-on-with-the-ap...
femiagbabiaka
They didn't describe the full specs of their test rigs (that I saw) but a similarly spec'd Macbook Air is going to get better battery life than the equivalent Framework 12 or 13 based on the 10 hours they quoted for the 12. (The 13 gets even less). And saying that the best possible CPU framework offers in a 13 inch format beats the consumer line of Macbooks.. sometimes.. you would really need to like/need Linux. At which point, get the cheapest Macbook Air M4 you can and then just use the money you save to get a decent NUC.
hu3
Why would I get Air M4 if I want to use Linux?
nico_h
You may have confused the lower/higher is better? I think the Air is missing from a few charts though.
renewiltord
This is why humans can't be trusted to read article. Often they produce hallucinations. Use LLM. Much more reliable.
throwaway63467
Lenovo X9 Aura is pretty great. 80 Wh battery which gives you 6-10 hours of usage, 15’’ 120 Hz 3k OLED screen, new 3 nm Intel CPUs. Only half as fast as my M4 but less than one third the price, with an upgradable SSD and a customer-replaceable battery. My only gripes are the soldered 32 GB of RAM and that they only put one USB C connector on each side, otherwise a tremendously good machine for that price. I think it has a fan, haven’t noticed it yet though.
benoau
They don't make the CPU or the hardware.
And M1 laptops are what about three years from the vintage list? They'll be e-waste at the end of this decade even while other laptops fail to match it.
j_w
How is a device that is still functional e-waste? I have an M1 which I got near launch and don't see myself throwing it out by the end of the decade.
benoau
It's lifespan is practically defined by how long it gets security updates after Apple obsoletes it, and your ability to install other operating systems - there is only Asahi Linux, and Asahi is still figuring out M1 support.
codethief
> Where are the fast, fanless, hidpi, long battery life laptops?
Does the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition not meet these requirements? (It does have a fan but runs fairly cool according to reviews.)
femiagbabiaka
Competitive along which lines? Performance, yes, impossible. Battery life? Yes, impossible. Anything else? Definitely!
lukan
Hm, aside from it working reliable, performance and battery are my top priority, though.
femiagbabiaka
IMO the Desktop is their real "killer app." Apple comes nowhere close to competing with it on a price/performance perspective.
butz
We need more 10"-12" sized laptops. I regret selling my netbook in hopes a device with a bit better specs would come.
GardenLetter27
The pricing is crazy, they need to halve the prices to be competitive with Apple and Lenovo on the high-end and ASUS on the low-end.
adityamwagh
I guess that’s just the cost you have to pay for repairability and extension.
libraryatnight
I've been using my framework 13 for a while now and it's been a great laptop - part of what pushed me over was their mission of making devices lives longer, my hope is and was that maybe the vote of confidence they survive long enough to build up to a model the Apple fans here would want or at least not complain about.
MostlyStable
I'm not sure that will ever happen. I own a Framework 16 (and am pretty happy with it), because I value repairability a lot. But the level of repairability and modularity that Framework is targeting comes with tradeoffs. This is simply the reality. Size, build quality/sturdiness, thermals, and more are going to take a hit when you have the extreme level of repairability and modularity. Framework laptops are probably never going to be the right solution for every kind of customer. And Macs are probably close the furthest thing on the opposite of the spectrum. Every choice is designed to tweak the design, aesthetics, battery life, etc. almost always at the expense of repairability. Someone who likes the part of the pareto frontier that Macs operate on is almost definitionally never going to be a Framework fan.
For me, they are great, and I plan to continue to support them. But not everyone is interested in the tradeoffs inherent in their philosophy, and that's also fine.
moffkalast
How has the build quality stood up so far? My concern with these has always been that laptops do generally get banged up a bit when travelling around, and if half of it is snap fit and designed to detach instead of being all glued together like typically, then it has a higher likelihood of falling apart when you really don't want it to.
Might still be worth it if they keep producing spare parts for a decade or more, every single time my laptop's battery goes dead it's a after the manufacturer has stopped production of that model entirely and it becomes impossible to buy a new one lol.
9283409232
I plan on buying one of these for my dad. He is older and isn't really technical. Having a machine I can easily repair for him is worth the cost.
WillAdams
As much as I like the ideals Framework is espousing, I'm seriously considering just making a folding shell for a Raspberry Pi 5 (maybe Pi 500) and a second gen Wacom One 13 (stylus w/ touch screen) and a battery.
GardenLetter27
Unless you're working with MCUs etc. and want the GPIO pins, you'd get far more value out of a reasonable ASUS or Lenovo model.
The SD card is a big bottleneck on the Pi.
dmicah
There is an M.2 hat for the Pi 5 that allows using an NVMe SSD instead of the SD card.
dale_huevo
Like dropping a racing engine into a Hindustan Ambassador. Makes no sense.
moffkalast
Just saw a kickstarter for something like that recently, a laptop built around a CM 5 with even GPIO broken out. Argon 40 something.
nrp
You should! That sounds like a great project.
daft_pink
it’s really hard not to just buy a MacBook Air at this price level.
2OEH8eoCRo0
Linux support
throw0101d
Depending on the features you need, you can probably pick up an M1/M2 for a decent price nowadays that could work well enough:
* https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overvie...
dale_huevo
The market doesn't profitably support running desktop Linux on a laptop outside of a business/development setting, in which case it's the IT department buying the laptop and I don't get to choose. Which means "this Dell or this Thinkpad". Chromebooks don't count because they are just Google data-hoovering appliances not real laptops.
weird_trousers
Sorry but this is not a real value for certain people.
nrp
We saw that there was a gap in the market for laptops that treat Linux as a first-class OS target, and we design our products with that audience in mind. That there are other people in the world who don't need Linux is totally ok.
9283409232
> The Core i5 version of the Laptop 12 lasted around 10 hours in the PCMark Modern Office battery life test, which isn't stunning but is a step up from what the fully specced versions of the Framework Laptop 13 can offer. It will be just fine for a long flight or a full day of work or school.
This is the key. Framework 12 is a model aimed at schools and corporations. I wouldn't be surprised to see a ChromeOS version of it appear for schools. Which is great if they can tap into that market.
cjcenizal
I love the Galvatron color scheme! Feels techy yet nostalgic.
null
> A good laptop, but not a good value
Where "value" is purely monetary, I think that pretty succinctly sums up my experience/views on the Framework product line.
They make good laptops, but you can generally get more for fewer dollars. If you're shopping on price, you can probably just skip right over their entire product line.
That doesn't mean that their offering doesn't have value. It has value has a vote with your wallet for sustainable, repairable products. It has value as an easily repairable and customizable laptop. It has value in some esoteric use cases it can be customized into (e.g., 4xM.2 NVME slots).
Would love to see some reviews just get this out of the way up front and spend more words on the product itself.
Personally, I'm glad there's a company out there serving a market niche besides being the lowest cost, most value-engineered product. I don't mind paying a bit extra for that in exchange for the other value I get out of it.
(And all that said--at the high end specs their prices get a fair bit more competitive. The price to upgrade a laptop from 16GB -> 128GB on Dell's site is _more than an entire FW16 w/ Ryzen 9 + 96GB RAM_.)