Framework Laptop 13 Pro Review: A Repairable Notebook At The Top Of The Class

Overview

Framework Laptop 13 Pro review: A repairable notebook at the top of the class

But the RAMpocalypse-inflated price makes it hard to recommend right now.

Details

No, honestly, have you seen the price of RAM right now?

Framework has spent the last six years showing the industry it's possible to build a modular and repairable laptop. But CEO Nirav Patel knows there's a ceiling to its ambitions it needs to smash if it wants to take its place among the giants of the industry. It needs to improve the look and feel of its machines, while boosting performance, to the point where a Framework product isn't seen as a compromise.

"The benchmark for us is the Mac Book Pro," Patel told me back in April. The Framework Laptop 13 Pro is his attempt to build a laptop as good as that, but for Linux and Windows users. It's one hell of a target, and I'm delighted to tell you that the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is the best Windows laptop I've ever used. It looks good, performs beautifully and feels amazing to touch. There's one downside: It arrived during the RAMpocalypse, which has unfortunately pushed the price far higher than anyone's wallet might want to bear.

From the moment you slide the laptop out of its paper sleeve, it's clear Framework is using this launch as a chance to polish its homework. Much as it's bound by the template the original chassis laid down years ago, there's still plenty of room for tweaks. The new machined aluminum body feels so much more solid, and the black (sorry, Graphite) paint job just suits it.

As a long-term Framework watcher, it's easier for me to spot the smaller details the company sweated. Gone are the flat angles, replaced with tidy chamfering. The rubber feet are now rounded over rather than squared off. The captive torx screws now have machined heads so their grooves catch the light. There's no visible seam between the input cover and the bottom case, making it look like a single piece of metal.

Let's be honest, the Framework 13 was never ugly, but its design was always a little more on the agricultural side. The panel gaps and boxiness was a consequence of the choice to focus on making a machine that you could repair and upgrade yourself. Here, the new color, paired with the higher quality materials, puts the Pro in the same league as a Think Pad or, yes, even a Mac Book.

Framework's mission was to build a single, 13-inch modular laptop that could be repaired and upgraded over time. The company's product line has grown since then, and the launch of the 13 Pro would be an easy chance to go back on its promise. Instead, it's held true to its principles, with every component more or less interchangeable with what's gone before. It's possible to take an original Framework Laptop 13 from 2021 and drop in the mainboard from 2026's 13 Pro.

Now, there have always been some caveats to this, insomuch that some parts work better with others. For instance, if you swapped your Intel mainboard for an AMD one, you'd also need to swap the Wi-Fi module due to compatibility issues. Given the raft of improvements found in the 13 Pro, you'll need to pick up a few extra bits if you are looking to upgrade.

For instance, the 13 Pro is equipped with a new 74 Wh cell, which isn't just more capacious, it's physically bigger than its predecessors. To make room, the bottom cover of the laptop has been redesigned with a shallower rake at the front. (Weirdly, despite making the laptop thicker, the change makes it look a lot nicer and less cheap than the older model.) So you'll at the very least need a new bottom cover and the new type cover if you're opting for the bigger battery.

Speaking of which, the new type cover uses the same 1.5mm chiclet keyboard found in every other Framework, although I could swear it's a little punchier than its predecessors. It's also the first to ship with a haptic touchpad. The company says it spent a lot of time working on this component in order to make a Windows/Linux laptop with a touchpad that rivals those found on the Mac Book.

The new bottom cover also changes the locking mechanism for the four expansion card slots. Previously, the Laptop 13 had a hold-down-and-pray button for unlocking the cards to swap them around. Here, you get the same latch method as found on the Laptop 16 and it's a neat quality of life improvement. As usual, you get four ducts with USB-C ports to connect to the mainboard, onto which you can connect any port of your choice, as well as the 3.5mm audio jack. And, as it's the intel model, there's no issue about which accessory goes into which port as all of them support Thunderbolt 4.

The company also added a 13.5-inch, 2,880 x 1,920 touchscreen display to the 13-inch series for the first time. As an upgrade, that just drops into every existing model of 13-inch Framework Laptop (barring the Chromebook). On the AMD side, the Framework 13 Pro can be specced with AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips which use old-fashioned DDR5 RAM. These are the same mainboards which I tested last year when they came to the Framework 13, so I'll not focus on them here.

And, of course, the advent of Intel's new Panther Lake chips means the Intel version of the 13 Pro requires LPCAMM2 RAM. If you're unfamiliar, LPCAMM2 is a removable format of the LPDDR5x RAM that would otherwise be soldered onto a machine's mainboard. It's a fairly new standard right now — one that's caused the price of this machine to skyrocket — but means you can, at the very least, upgrade your RAM down the line without having to throw away your PC.

As is custom, Framework sent me the mid-tier model of Laptop 13 Pro. It's equipped with Intel's Core Ultra X7 358H (with an Intel Arc B390 GPU), 32GB GB LPCAMM2 RAM and a 1TB SSD. Normally, this sort of hardware would cost around

The keyboard, as mentioned, is pleasantly crunchy and I'm a big fan of the haptic touchpad, which really does feel like it came from a Mac Book. The display seems entirely impervious to glare, even while I (briefly) tried to use it in the brightest of sunshine. The touchscreen is fine, and while I still don't understand the appeal of it on a machine that doesn't have a wraparound hinge (best it'll do is lay flat), I know some people like them.

Sadly, there are some parts of the 13 Pro that could still do with a little bit more love, such as the sound. I don't know how much you should expect from a pair of side-firing 2W speakers, but I'm just not sure the audio quality is as good as it could be. It shouldn't be the case that the Pro 13 sounds thinner and tinnier than the built-in speakers on my work-issue Mac Book Air. It's the same issue with the webcam, where the footage from the 13 Pro's HD webcam just looks grainy and desaturated by comparison. I suspect both of these will, in time, improve once enough people are able to fiddle with the software.

If Framework has an achilles heel, it's that the company has never quite solved its issues with cooling. The modular nature of its design means the mainboard, which holds the CPU, also has to hold the fans and heat pipes for that slice of silicon. Because it's not fully integrated with the machine that surrounds it, the fans have to work a lot harder to keep things cool. Put any Framework notebook under heavy load, and you'll rapidly be greeted by the sound of a wind tunnel lurching into life. Every year we'd hear about tweaks made to improve cooling, and every year we'd find the same noise.

There are two reasons why: For starters, Framework got some assistance, directly from Intel, to help improve cooling. Second, this thing is running one of Intel's new Panther Lake/Core Ultra Series 3 chips made with the company's brand-spanking new 18A process. The result is that the Framework Laptop 13 Pro runs more or less silently under normal conditions, and only if you put your ear on the laptop deck will you be aware of any noise at all. Even in a warm room during a heatwave, this thing ran without a peep while I wrote this review. If you're doing what I'll describe as general productivity work, you shouldn't expect to hear the fans spin up at all.

Even if you're looking to push this thing to extremes, you're still not going to get the fans to pipe up too much. Running a small local AI model (Google's Gemma 4 12b) via LM Studio and asking some basic questions did not push the fans to the max. They spun up, sure, but not to the point where it became distracting, even when I'd paused my playlist. In fact, the only time the fans reached their maximum was while I played Cyberpunk 2077 on the default settings. I'm sure it'll send gaming elites fainting into their chaise lounges, but it played perfectly fine on this 13-inch productivity notebook.

Framework has been dinged time and again for its battery life, and part of the reason it's had to (slightly) break compatibility with older models is to make room for a bigger 74 Wh cell. It made some pretty big promises, saying the Pro would stream Netflix in 4K for 20 hours and last for 17 hours of active web browsing. In our standard battery rundown, the Laptop 13 Pro lasted for 16 hours and 5 minutes. That's less than some Panther Lake machines we've seen — look at the 18:33 HP's Omni Book Ultra produced — but not by enough to matter. And, the winning response to any fussing about specific specifications is to remember that when most laptop batteries break, you'll need to buy a new laptop. When this laptop's battery breaks, you just need to buy a new battery.

Given the volatility in the components market right now, it's almost moot to talk about the price of a laptop. In the before times, you could expect a machine's RRP to hold at least somewhat stable for six months to a year. At the time of publication, you can buy the Core Ultra 5 325 version of the 13 Pro with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for

(In some ways, I'd like to test the base model Laptop 13 Pro just to see if the less powerful chip and smaller RAM is a compromise. I suspect, given the performance of these chips, that while it may not be as snappy as the mid-tier unit, it's no slouch. And while $1,600 is still a lot for the entry-level model, it might be a very good inducement to give Linux a try.)

In the run-up to the 13 Pro's launch, the company announced it couldn't fulfill pre-orders at the prices it originally quoted. Its supplier of LPCAMM2 RAM doubled its price overnight, and it had to pass that cost on to the consumer. Patel said, as much as Framework has tried to absorb the rises, swallowing this would put the company out of business. Anyone who is unhappy with the changes can get a full refund, with no questions asked, and either buy a different machine or wait for the prices to come back down (if they ever do). I admire the company for at least trying to do the right thing and being honest when they can't, and for laying out the reasons why. It's a quality rarely seen in far larger organizations we could mention.

If I was in the market to buy a new Windows laptop right now, I can promise you I'd spend my own money on a Framework Laptop 13 Pro. It looks great, works like a dream and I know that if something breaks a few years down the line, I can replace it for the price of the part. Sure, it's not as slim as some other machines currently available, and it's not perfect inside and out. But being able to pay for a chassis once and keep it at pace with the state of the art for as long as I want to is compelling. Framework has ironed out so many of the niggling flaws from the Laptop 13 that I hope we see the same care and attention brought to its other machines.

Of course, the big caveat here is that nobody in their right mind should be buying a brand new laptop right now unless their situation is dire. The RAMpocalypse has pushed this machine, and pretty much every new machine in its class, into a price tier best described as "unreasonable." Judged on its qualities alone, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is a fantastic piece of equipment. But until the price returns to something even close to normal (fingers crossed), it's hard to tell people to rush out and buy this, or any other laptop in a similar category.

Key Takeaways

• Framework Laptop 13 Pro review: A repairable notebook at the top of the class

• But the RAMpocalypse-inflated price makes it hard to recommend right now

• No, honestly, have you seen the price of RAM right now

• Framework has spent the last six years showing the industry it's possible to build a modular and repairable laptop

• "The benchmark for us is the Mac Book Pro," Patel told me back in April