I have a 13 inch/11th Gen Intel from them. So far, I like it a lot more than my previous laptop purchases.

I do not use it for gaming and it is often hooked up to a dock with two displays using one USBC/thunderbolt 4 connection. It’s been stable and no complaints with it this way.

The complaints I have, though, are:

• trackpad is a diving-board style for button pushing (I prefer it to be stationary but the sensitivity is great and gestures with 3-4 fingers work great)

• I want a matte/anti glare screen (wasn’t an option when I ordered my device)

• battery life - but it’s never been a problem since it’s mostly plugged in and an older Gen CPU. The newer gen is better with battery life and you can get a more dense battery now than the one I was able to purchase

• case flexes when I pick it up quickly. It causes the trackpad to click and that has clicked on stuff before

My only complaint is when using the device on my lap or holding it with one hand from the front corners the trackpad likes to “click” due to flex in the chassis. This isn’t the only laptop that does this but it is super annoying.

I did not put this system together. It was a refurb 11gen that was pre assembled.

It doesn’t have buttons on trackpad like thinkpad.

My main complaint is the fans are loud and they seem to ramp up to full speed quite often.

That being said, I’d rather deal with noisy fans than thermal issues.

Consider a laptop out of the outlet store, if price is your issue

I don’t find it that expensive compared to other high end laptop, for similar specs it seems to me Lenovo Thinkpads or Apple products are more expensive.

For me the only problem is that I’ve been used to Lenovo Trackpoint in the middle of keyboard, and going back to a trackpad where you need to move your hand out of the keyboard when you want to use mouse is a big setback. So many non necessary hand an arm movements.

Weak speakers, simple cooling solution (a big issue on Intel models imo) and a dated design

2 main concern.

Firstly the battery is really not good as it should be for this price range. Do not expect the battery to power the laptop for the entire day.

Secondly, the framework is quite fragile. I mean, carry it in a good sleeves. Unfortunately even if you put tte laptop inside a good sleeves, you can easily bend it if it drops from a small height. I’m always careful when I carry my laptop.

The common ones I’ve seen are weak speakers, display hinges (much more infrequent), the case being made of a softer aluminum, display brightness (not quite sure why this pops up, but it does), trackpad quality, and battery life under Linux.

Consider it an investment, you’ll save money in the long run if you upgrade the hardware, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to repair. Fedora support isn’t that good according to their graph, but windows support is nice from what I’ve experienced so far with it. Maybe one criticism I have for it would be the lack of a touchscreen/stylus option? I used to own a surface and aside from the maddening hardware issues I had with it, I did enjoy stylus and touch support

• the optional ethernet adapter sticks out a bit (the RJ45 connector would be too large otherwise)
• the earlier models have a reflective screen
• having to use the Fn key for home end pgup pgdn is more of an annoyance than I expected coming from a ThinkPad with dedicated keys
• it’s sort of spoiled me for working on other laptops

For me

• The speakers are quiet, I quite often have to have my volume at max to be able to hear anything clear
• The speakers are poor quality, I wouldn’t listen to music on my laptop, or watch a movie through the speakers
• Battery life on Linux is poor, I can’t get through a work day without having to charge

A minor complaint is that I find the trackpad kinda mid. It isn’t bad by any means, probably the best non-apple trackpad I’ve ever used, but the Apple trackpad is better by a mile still

Mostly my personal points, but also some I do not personally care about. And only criticisms

• While FW goes further in Linux Support than most manufacturers, I would not say they are making sacrifices to Windows functionality in order to increase Linux compatibility or open-source-ness of the device (I like it that way, users using mainly Linux may not)
• The modularity of the outputs and modularity in general also brings with it negatives. In terms of power consumption, performance, compatibility (additional adapters involved for the outputs. While it should not be a problem, it still makes things more complex and by its nature prevents certain stuff, like the functionality of native HDMI outputs, DP++, power efficient USB-A outputs.) Early problems with power efficiency have been improved. It remains an open question for me how much of the remaining difference versus competitors is simply result of a not very specialized product (can run as desktop for example), the modularity or design experience. For example my device seems to wake up from Modern Standby so much more frequently than other Intel devices I have seen, causing higher sleep power consumption than seems necessary)
• a particular problem of the system design: device does not power up from hibernation if lid is opened (unlike when power is plugged in). Kind of needed when you lift the keyboard for disassembly, but far less convenient on Modern Standby devices that automatically switch from suspend to hibernation dynamically.
• fan grumbles at lowest speeds (you basically hear the motor in a really quiet room) and fan control has an audible step at that speeds that just pisses me off. Staying at higher speeds would be better. Less of a problem the more power efficient the CPU is. Intel CPUs seem to output enough heat in power saving modes and on desktop to necessitate running the fan at least on lowest speeds. So it is rarely completely off.
• The particular way the outputs are modular takes up a lot of space that limits the space the laptop has for other components
• still playing catchup with other manufacturers features: (small points, I would not have expected in early devices or on launch, but that could be available as upgrades)
  • HDR screen
  • auto-brightness of keyboard backlight instead of having it to do manually, auto-timeout so it won’t stay on forever for example when watching a video
  • BIOS supervisor PW does not apply to boot-order changes / boot-menu unlike EVERY other device I have owned. I’d consider this a security issue
  • no option to disable automatic booting of any BootROM behind USB4/TB
  • no ReBar support
• either unwillingness or inability to provide software updates (firmware, BIOS) in any acceptable amount of time. At least for older products. Includes some issues officially announced as security issues that are outstanding for almost a year now. They say they are improving and not silently dropping support for older generations. That improvement can not yet be observed and plans have not been detailed enough for me to trust in that improvement before I see it. What they stated makes it seem like they new they did not have the resources for doing software support for more than 1 device if at all. Who knows if the current plan will actually add enough resources to support all generations still being sold (which are still all of them)
• Remains to be seen, how much of the stated goal of producing longer lasting devices can be achieved, if there is no way for software upgrades over time, when the hardware is technically capable of it, without replacing the entire mainboard, the most expensive part, with a newer version. Their board design shows FW trying to think of a lot of things for future possibilities (non-notebook use on limited power, touchscreen support etc). But I think a longer lasting device can only reach its full potential with ongoing software support including some software feature additions like mentioned above. While I think they have a good record for making revised hardware available, fixing flaws / disadvantages compared to competitors, like the hinges, speakers, more rigid lid for what I think are fair prices, they have not done any of that for the BIOS/software. For example the simply nice-to-have GUI is tied to the 13th gen FW board and newer, requiring an upgrade of the entire board (just an easy example not sth. I care about. I’d much more care about the software points mentioned above). They have stated, that they don’t want to ship software feature upgrades. That, together with the questionable ability to even ship security updates, makes me estimate how long I am willing to stay on one FW device significantly lower than I initially hoped for.

The battery life isn’t great, but I’m pretty sure the issue with it discharging while off is fixed. But yeah battery life is probably my biggest complaint, but if you carry a good usb-c charger most places like I do it’s not a big issue.

Linux support is really good tho. Fedora specifically is officially supported (as well as ubuntu) but people have gotten all kinds of distros working great, usually with little to know issue at all.

The weak speakers is the biggest thing I’ve noticed. They just aren’t loud enough if you want to cue up a video and show it to a few people. They can’t cut though the background noise.

Sometimes if I bump it really hard, the trackpad registers a false click.

There are cheaper ways to get a laptop with the same specs as a framework, but the thing to consider is not just the upfront cost, but the long term cost of ownership. If something breaks or you want to upgrade, you can swap out the components instead of replacing the whole thing.
eg. instead of spending $1500 every 2 years on a new laptop, you can spend $2000 now, then $1000 every 2 years on upgrades.