Andrew Cunningham
Would you believe that Framework Laptop 13 is back?
Framework’s fifth motherboard for the Laptop 13—in typical fashion, easily interchangeable with any Framework Laptop 13 of any generation—is particularly important because it hosts Intel’s Meteor Lake-based Core Ultra chips. But the framework likes to roll out its updates in batches, and it comes with a few designed to make Laptop 13 a better system for Linux enthusiasts.
One of those changes is a redesigned keyboard, which is similar to the older Framework Laptop 13 keyboard, with a Super key replacing the Windows logo. The second is a high-resolution display upgrade, chosen specifically because it’s 200 percent better than the old screen in terms of scaling; Linux still has problems with “fractional” scaling modes, such as 125 percent and 150 percent, which are generally better on older architecture screens.
As usual, we’ve run performance tests to show how the new framework laptop stacks up against older models. But since many of the framework laptops at this point include mixed-and-matched parts, we’ve re-run tons of battery tests on most older framework laptop motherboards to show how screen resolution affects battery life (for some models, BIOS and driver updates have affected battery life, but a little more).
The high-level summary is the same as in some of our past Framework laptop reviews: It’s not a perfect laptop, and the Framework has a little more to offer when it comes to software updates and extended support. Intel’s Meteor Lake is an upgrade with a big star next to it, generally good news for battery life and graphics performance but modest and conditional gains in CPU performance. But the greatest strength of a framework laptop is what it gives you optionsNow there are even more upgraders and new buyers.
A new screen
Andrew Cunningham
A new 13.5-inch display panel, the framework releases with its Meteor Lake boards—available as a configuration option on both Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen systems. A separate $269 component for upgradersFramework’s third Laptop 13 display with the same resolution that Framework introduced last year with the 13th generation Intel refresh, after the original glossy 2256×1504 screen and matte version.
The new screen’s 2880×1920 resolution isn’t a huge step up from the original screen, though its 120Hz refresh rate is a very noticeable upgrade if you care about that sort of thing. According to the framework’s specifications and our own colorimeter testing, it has roughly the same 1500:1 contrast ratio and color gamut coverage as the original, albeit with a slightly increased maximum brightness. It also has a matte finish—if you’re currently using a glossy framework screen and are considering a matte upgrade anyway, it’s worth the extra money you’ll pay for the higher refresh rate and resolution.
A selling point of using this screen framework is that it’s more comfortable to use at 200% scaling, which is less relevant in Windows 10 or 11 (where 125% or 150% scaling looks fine) but important for Linux, which has partial scaling. Usually labeled as an “experimental” feature, it still breaks some apps. Most of our testing was still done on Windows, but the UI in Ubuntu (pictured, top of article) was 200% more comfortable to use than it was on the original 2256×1504 screen. The UI elements are still a bit large, but better than it was.
structure Officially supported Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS and Fedora 40 and their downstream distros should be fine on a Core Ultra Framework laptop. “Community support” is available for Project Bluefin, Arch Linux, and the gaming-focused Bayside distro. Whether other distros work depends mostly on whether they have reasonably recent kernels; 6.9 Col And also The not-yet-finalized 6.11 kernel Meteor Lake should include performance improvements, so newer is better.
