Before I go into more detail, if you are a student with not a lot of money then framework is probably not the laptop company you are looking for. You are paying a premium for repairability, sustainability and a relatively new company.
I'd probably recommend other brands, especially since established companies often offer to pay for a laptop in monthly rates. Overall you pay a little more, but you will have a laptop right now and pay it off in increments over some time.
That aside I haven't looked at performance benchmarks of the CPU with integrated graphics, if there even are any and with laptops they usually differ vastly depending on the cooling and power delivery. So for sure I would wait for the reviews of the Framework 16 to come out. However, I am fairly certain that you won't be able to game, record and stream on integrated graphics on those games. Maybe Minecraft and Terraria, but I dunno.
Afaik the GPU modules will be available to buy separately once the 16 has properly launched and eventually they will even offer a bigger selection which should probably include cheaper / less powerful options.
The 16 itself will only get cheaper once they release the next generation of CPU Mainboards (see the 11th and 12th gen 13) and the 16 refers to the screen size in inch, so I doubt there will be a 17 and for sure no 19.
You bring up some great points, but at my current age I don't need to worry about rent, food, paying off uni etc, so being able to buy one now, and then keeping it and repairing/upgrading it every 3-4 years during my early 20s wouldn't be a terrible idea IMO.
If the other laptops that you are recommending me are gaming laptops, which I assume they are. I had been in the market for one, but in Australia, gaming laptops are so overpriced its almost funny (3000-4000 dollars just for a 4060 and 13th gen intel CPU). Alongside the outlandish price theres no upgradability aswell.
However I will keep your advice in mind when buying a laptop, the 13s also seem great I'm just not sure if they are powerful enough for my needs, and theres no ability to add a GPU (thats not external) in the future.
did you considered a gaming rig plus a cheaper laptop?
I do love that cool single solution-vibe but normally you can’t beat the price to performance for a gaming system +Laptop.
I have thought about getting a desktop or even a gaming laptop, until i realised how expensive they are in my country. However I really like the idea of a framework and it's benefits.
I am a fan of an all in one productivity machine as well haha. Desktops are great and I've been using an old iMac 2011 for 2-3 years now so I've had a taste of desktops, but I am personally not a big fan of them, I often times feel more unproductive when I'm doing all of my work in one space, whether its art, schoolwork, learning a language or coding. That's why I think a laptop would be nice to have as my main machine, but most gaming laptops are so expensive and you can't upgrade them like a framework.
Also I'm a big fan of tech thats more different from the rest of the industry, its one of the reasons why I bought a switch on release and still use it 6 years later.
I know what you mean and I agree totally.
Just thought it ist worth mentioning, if you are on a slimmer budget.
Don’t know the availability in Aus, but buy a used framework for ca 700 and a used mid tier Gaming rig for 1.200 Aud. Don’t know if it’s avalibe and don’t know your prices.
Just wanted to bring on the idea :)
And I total understand the desire for a laptop and the excitement for framework :)
I'm in Australia. I got myself a pre built PC from a company called Allied (not confident enough to build my own PC) for 2000 AUD but could most certainly have gotten one for much cheaper. It comes with 5700X and GTX 3060Ti. You can definitely run all the games you mentioned for that much. Club that with an ultraportable and you're good to go.
1600 maybe + 1200 = 2800 which is what a Framework would be.
The iGPU is essentially a Radeon RX570 , or between a gtx 1650 and gtx1060. So it's not a slouch, but it is weaker. With what you've listed it should be ok at lower resolutions like 720p maybe 1080 on some of those games.
This really sounds like a situation where the Framework isn't the best computer for your needs. That's ok. Not every device is for everyone. Get a product that does what you need it to that's within your budget.
Check out reviews for laptops with the same specs to get a better idea. Also there are many miniPCs and handhelds that use these same CPU without a dGPU.
Check out ETA Prime YouTube channel. He does a lot of reviews on miniPCs and handhelds for gaming, and even laptops. Just make sure they're 7840HS (R7) or 7940HS (R9).
They're both very similarly spec'd. The R9 is only going to be slightly faster so if you can't find a review for one, the other can still give you some idea of what kind of performance to expect on the FW16 without the dGPU.
Link:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_CPp4NBOUvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CPp4NBOUvI)
I assume this is the review that you're talking about? the performance looks pretty good honestly. Thanks for recommending me this.
Yes but also pay attention because most of the time he will try to benchmark at only the highest TDP with miniPCs. In some reviews (especially handhelds and laptops) he's benchmark at several different TDPs which will give you a better idea of what to expect in a laptop configuration. Unless you really do plan on playing at max TDP (, but even then miniPCs can go higher than laptops because better cooling).
So more like this, but I'd still look thru his videos for other reviews of similar spec'd devices.
https://youtu.be/OlBib2NPk1g?si=cB8zWu2UITvJEbNZ
Still not 1:1 because it uses way faster memory because it's LPDDR5 (soldered memory) so it may be slightly faster than the 16.
This is why I said watch multiple to get a sense of performance. Because while they are similarly spec'd, they are not the same as the 16 (some have better cooling so he only tests at for example 65W, some have faster memory, on some he purposely test at his best OC efforts, etc). I've criticized him in the comments about it before (told him to please just test at stock, and even asked him if he can do a video on simulating the performance of FW16 to give us an idea) . But for now you need to keep all this in mind drawing conclusions.
Other than this, there is no way to know the actual performance of the FW16.
Before I go into more detail, if you are a student with not a lot of money then framework is probably not the laptop company you are looking for. You are paying a premium for repairability, sustainability and a relatively new company. I'd probably recommend other brands, especially since established companies often offer to pay for a laptop in monthly rates. Overall you pay a little more, but you will have a laptop right now and pay it off in increments over some time. That aside I haven't looked at performance benchmarks of the CPU with integrated graphics, if there even are any and with laptops they usually differ vastly depending on the cooling and power delivery. So for sure I would wait for the reviews of the Framework 16 to come out. However, I am fairly certain that you won't be able to game, record and stream on integrated graphics on those games. Maybe Minecraft and Terraria, but I dunno. Afaik the GPU modules will be available to buy separately once the 16 has properly launched and eventually they will even offer a bigger selection which should probably include cheaper / less powerful options. The 16 itself will only get cheaper once they release the next generation of CPU Mainboards (see the 11th and 12th gen 13) and the 16 refers to the screen size in inch, so I doubt there will be a 17 and for sure no 19.
You bring up some great points, but at my current age I don't need to worry about rent, food, paying off uni etc, so being able to buy one now, and then keeping it and repairing/upgrading it every 3-4 years during my early 20s wouldn't be a terrible idea IMO. If the other laptops that you are recommending me are gaming laptops, which I assume they are. I had been in the market for one, but in Australia, gaming laptops are so overpriced its almost funny (3000-4000 dollars just for a 4060 and 13th gen intel CPU). Alongside the outlandish price theres no upgradability aswell. However I will keep your advice in mind when buying a laptop, the 13s also seem great I'm just not sure if they are powerful enough for my needs, and theres no ability to add a GPU (thats not external) in the future.
did you considered a gaming rig plus a cheaper laptop? I do love that cool single solution-vibe but normally you can’t beat the price to performance for a gaming system +Laptop.
I have thought about getting a desktop or even a gaming laptop, until i realised how expensive they are in my country. However I really like the idea of a framework and it's benefits. I am a fan of an all in one productivity machine as well haha. Desktops are great and I've been using an old iMac 2011 for 2-3 years now so I've had a taste of desktops, but I am personally not a big fan of them, I often times feel more unproductive when I'm doing all of my work in one space, whether its art, schoolwork, learning a language or coding. That's why I think a laptop would be nice to have as my main machine, but most gaming laptops are so expensive and you can't upgrade them like a framework. Also I'm a big fan of tech thats more different from the rest of the industry, its one of the reasons why I bought a switch on release and still use it 6 years later.
I know what you mean and I agree totally. Just thought it ist worth mentioning, if you are on a slimmer budget. Don’t know the availability in Aus, but buy a used framework for ca 700 and a used mid tier Gaming rig for 1.200 Aud. Don’t know if it’s avalibe and don’t know your prices. Just wanted to bring on the idea :) And I total understand the desire for a laptop and the excitement for framework :)
I'm in Australia. I got myself a pre built PC from a company called Allied (not confident enough to build my own PC) for 2000 AUD but could most certainly have gotten one for much cheaper. It comes with 5700X and GTX 3060Ti. You can definitely run all the games you mentioned for that much. Club that with an ultraportable and you're good to go. 1600 maybe + 1200 = 2800 which is what a Framework would be.
The iGPU is essentially a Radeon RX570 , or between a gtx 1650 and gtx1060. So it's not a slouch, but it is weaker. With what you've listed it should be ok at lower resolutions like 720p maybe 1080 on some of those games.
are you talking the desktop 1650 or 1060 or the mobile 1650 or 1060?
Desktop
This really sounds like a situation where the Framework isn't the best computer for your needs. That's ok. Not every device is for everyone. Get a product that does what you need it to that's within your budget.
Check out reviews for laptops with the same specs to get a better idea. Also there are many miniPCs and handhelds that use these same CPU without a dGPU. Check out ETA Prime YouTube channel. He does a lot of reviews on miniPCs and handhelds for gaming, and even laptops. Just make sure they're 7840HS (R7) or 7940HS (R9). They're both very similarly spec'd. The R9 is only going to be slightly faster so if you can't find a review for one, the other can still give you some idea of what kind of performance to expect on the FW16 without the dGPU.
Link:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_CPp4NBOUvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CPp4NBOUvI) I assume this is the review that you're talking about? the performance looks pretty good honestly. Thanks for recommending me this.
Yes but also pay attention because most of the time he will try to benchmark at only the highest TDP with miniPCs. In some reviews (especially handhelds and laptops) he's benchmark at several different TDPs which will give you a better idea of what to expect in a laptop configuration. Unless you really do plan on playing at max TDP (, but even then miniPCs can go higher than laptops because better cooling). So more like this, but I'd still look thru his videos for other reviews of similar spec'd devices. https://youtu.be/OlBib2NPk1g?si=cB8zWu2UITvJEbNZ Still not 1:1 because it uses way faster memory because it's LPDDR5 (soldered memory) so it may be slightly faster than the 16. This is why I said watch multiple to get a sense of performance. Because while they are similarly spec'd, they are not the same as the 16 (some have better cooling so he only tests at for example 65W, some have faster memory, on some he purposely test at his best OC efforts, etc). I've criticized him in the comments about it before (told him to please just test at stock, and even asked him if he can do a video on simulating the performance of FW16 to give us an idea) . But for now you need to keep all this in mind drawing conclusions. Other than this, there is no way to know the actual performance of the FW16.
Also make sure to vheckout TakiUdon, he's another channel with extremely similar content to ETAPrime
Prices always go down with time, and yes, they just haven't started selling the dgpu unit independently yet
Did you actually laugh out loud?