The author had hardware with known compatibility issues. They've decided to make some rather strange choices, including the use of NTFS as a file system for their data. I don't want to gaslight them or say their experiences aren't relevant. Someone with experience with Linux knows to do research before they buy hardware to avoid such surprises. Expecting NTFS to be usable and a great experience under Linux is also not a reasonable expectation overall. The choice of distribution matters a lot as well. Some are better and some are worse.
It's hard to understand how someone who claims to have a lot of experience with Linux would go back to Windows. They may have been in fact primarily a Windows user if they're willing to put up with Microsoft's spyware, SSD crashing bugs, dark patterns and ads.
The article itself appears to have been edited or written with an LLM. This article is even less relevant due to the apparent AI slop.
This device has planned obsolescence written all over it. The pen includes a built-in rechargeable battery. The device's battery is also not user replaceable. These are the same issues that the Remarkable Paper Pro has.
They use the Linux kernel and some GPL software. They've made a change with Remarkable Paper Pro to only allow SSH access once the user has put the device in "developer mode". The device is marked as compromised until it is restored to factory or something else is done to it. It's not clear to me how the device is restored to factory or restored at all.
They provide tarball dumps via https://github.com/reMarkable/linux-imx-rm instead of a proper git repository for the kernel. Why is it so hard to find people able to push a git repository to Github? These dumps are also rather useless if they still lack the source code for the frame buffer and the display. https://github.com/reMarkable/linux is the Linux kernel for the older remarkable 2 and the remarkable 1. The kernel code from the Github repository for my remarkable 2 wasn't the one they shipped in the latest version running on my device a few months ago. There was a newer minor patch version running on my device.
The devices are very tied to the cloud account and their application. You must have an account and you must use their application if you want to use this device fully, even offline. The network over USB feature makes it possible to back up/download/restore documents. EPUB document handling is abysmal without their application installed on the PC. They really want their customers to use their software, to have an account and to use their cloud services. It's a non-starter if you really don't want to be locked in. EPUB documents still have issues on my Remarkable 2 due to the bugs their USB based document transfer tool has. Many documents simply fail to transfer without any feedback. They probably only update the account-based software they force people to use to get as much money from subscriptions as possible.
Hardware repairs for these devices are also not looking good. You're most like out of luck if the warranty has expired for your device. They couldn't care less. They’ll gladly sell you yet another device which has to be recycled when the battery isn’t able to hold a charge for more than a few minutes.
I wouldn't recommend any product from this company. This company's good old days are over. They've taken money from investors. They want to charge their customers as much as possible. The en*****ification is almost complete.
It is indeed better than the Mac. It's still 1000 times worse than a regular desktop PC which lets people swap RAM modules, the CPU, add a dGPU and so on.
I'm aware of all the limitations they've brought up and how it was sold to the public. It's not as if someone forced them to build this product. They've chosen to build it this way.
This product goes against their principles of building products which are more environmentally friendly. They've done this for the laptops by not forcing people to buy a new laptop when their motherboard is dead or no longer fast enough for the software they run. It's also possible to replace the keyboard, the hinge, the battery, the RAM, the wifi module, the SSD, the touchpad, the case, the display and the expansion modules.
This Framework Desktop 1st gen can have the following components replaced: wifi, SSD, CPU fan, maybe the heatsink, some front panel IO modules, some decorative tiles on the front, the PSU and some parts of the case. A single broken regulator or failing memory chip forces the owner to replace the entire computer. One is forced to replace the entire thing if they have no option to get someone to find the relevant part, desolder the existing one and solder the new one on. This is also not an option for the CPU.
This means that any kind of damage forces the owner to buy another board with CPU and RAM soldered on it for about the same price as the entire thing with the case.
This Framework Desktop computer can be repaired just like most laptops with soldered RAM by replacing the entire motherboard with CPU and RAM. Why would I downgrade the desktop PC's repairability down to that of a laptop? The tradeoff isn't worth it for that price.
There's absolutely nothing repairable about this computer. The motherboard is the entire computer. Only the storage can be replaced.
Do you plan to make computers which can actually be repaired? How exactly is the Framework Desktop any better than what Apple is doing with the Mac? I prefer to build my own machines. Why would I ever choose such a product which can't have parts replaced over something better which enables me to repair and upgrade my computer?
I ask because you were on "Buy now!" which also tackles greenwashing. I fail to see how this product is any better than all of the disposable junk sold by other companies (soldered RAM, soldered CPU, no PCI-E, no second NIC, no expandability of any kind).
Do you plan to sell products with PCI-E ports for dedicated GPUs and other devices?
Has Framework's customer support improved? Do you plan to do something about that? I've read countless posts from people who state they didn't receive a reply from Framework's customer support or that their hardware problems were never resolved. Why should a new customer trust your company?
It seems that the Framework Desktop 1st gen has a 4x PCI-E port. That's not exactly useful for a GPU. I've learned this after watching the LTT video.
This is a cool product for people who want a lot of RAM for LLMs. Those like me who build their own systems would get better value out of a machine they've built.
The only parts which can be customized for this product are the presence or absence of a handle, the cooler's fan, the case's side and some front tiles. That's it. The m.2 SSD and the wifi are the only components which can be replaced.
This isn't the kind of product I wanted Framework to make. I was hoping they'd make hardware which can be repaired and which has components available for it. The motherboard has all the chips and everything else soldered on it. The most expensive part of the computer needs to be replaced if a voltage regulator or some other part found on the motherboard fails. There's no cheap $ 100-200 motherboard to replace in this product. It's the same problem as with Apple's Macs.
Can someone at Framework answer this question: what do the customers do with your Framework Desktop hardware once it breaks and you no longer support it? It's e-waste. What happens when the motherboard in my computer dies? I buy only a replacement motherboard while keeping the RAM, the CPU and GPU, unlike for Framework Desktop. What happens when the GPU I have is no longer useful or supported? I buy only a new GPU.
This board doesn't even have PCI-E for a GPU. This product is only good as long as the iGPU provides the required performance for whatever application is of interest. This is a weakness the Framework 13 motherboard shares. There's no way to remove the board from its case to use it with a PCI-E x16 GPU with the right PSU.
AMD is known to abandon their customers once they release newer dGPUs and SoCs with iGPUs. This can be easily observed if you review the countless reports for crashes with amdgpu on Linux. The amdgpu driver has various bugs which lead to crashes of the GPU or of the entire machine. They're also not good at shipping CPU microcode for consumer CPUs to address hardware bugs and CVEs.
As a side note, even the Framework AI HX laptops are extremely expensive for what they offer in terms of hardware. A laptop which goes above $ 2000 without RAM, an SSD, a charger and without any adapters for those bays seems to be a good deal? That's absurd. There are laptops with 32 GB of RAM, the same CPU, better displays, a 1 TB SSD, a charger and all the required ports present on the laptop for less than $ 2000 (including taxes).
I hope someone from Framework reads this. I want repairable products which can be upgraded without replacing a monolithic part which is the entire computer.
Other noteworthy things
- their site went down hard with a queue to see the site... downright absurd
- they haven't posted the specs of the Framework 12
- there are still no actual repair centers which repair their products, no physical stores or sellers which sell Framework products outside of their site
- there have been reports of people who didn't have their hardware problems with Framework laptops addressed, even LTT addressed such issues