Framework Laptop 13 reviewed, again: Meteor Lake meh, Linux upgrades good

Would you believe that the Framework Laptop 13 is back again?

Framework’s fifth motherboard for the Laptop 13—which, in typical fashion, can be easily swapped into any existing Framework Laptop 13 of any generation—is mainly significant because it offers Intel’s Meteor Lake-based Core Ultra chips. But Framework likes to release its updates in batches, and this one also comes with a few designed to make the Laptop 13 a better system for Linux enthusiasts.

One of those changes is a redesigned keyboard, which is exactly like the older Framework Laptop 13 keyboard, except it has a Super key instead of a Windows logo on it. The second is a higher-resolution display upgrade, specifically chosen because it looks better in 200 percent scaling mode than the old screen; Linux still has problems with “fractional” scaling modes like 125 percent and 150 percent, which was what the old Framework screen usually looked best at.

As usual, we’ve run performance tests on the new Framework Laptop to show how it stands up to older models. But because so many Framework Laptops will include mixed and matched parts at this point, we’ve also re-run tons of battery tests on most of the older Framework Laptop motherboards to show how the screen resolution affects battery life (for some models, BIOS and driver updates have also affected battery life, but more on that in a bit).

The high-level summary is the same as it has been for our last few Framework Laptop reviews: This isn’t a perfect laptop, and Framework still has some trust to earn when it comes to software updates and extended support. Intel’s Meteor Lake is also an upgrade with a big asterisk next to it, with generally good news for battery life and graphics performance but mediocre and conditional gains in CPU performance. But the greatest strength of the Framework Laptop has always been that it gives you options, and now upgraders and new buyers have even more of them.

A new screen

The new 13.5-inch display panel that Framework is releasing alongside its Meteor Lake boards—available as a configuration option on both the Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen systems, plus as a separate $269 component for upgraders—is Framework’s third Laptop 13 display, after the original glossy 2256×1504 screen and the matte version with the same resolution that Framework introduced along with the 13th-generation Intel refresh last year.

The new screen’s 2880×1920 resolution isn’t a massive step up from the original screen, though its 120 Hz refresh rate is a more noticeable upgrade if you care about that sort of thing. According to Framework’s specs and our own colorimeter testing, it has roughly the same 1500:1 contrast ratio and color gamut coverage as the original, though with a marginally increased maximum brightness. It also has a matte finish—if you currently use a glossy Framework screen and were thinking about the matte upgrade anyway, this one is worth the extra money you’ll pay for the higher refresh rate and resolution.

One selling point Framework uses for this screen 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 perfectly fine) but important for Linux, where fractional scaling is usually labeled an “experimental” feature that will still break a bunch of apps. Most of our testing was still done in Windows, but the UI in Kubuntu (pictured, at the top of the article) was indeed more comfortable to use at 200% than it is on the original 2256×1504 screen. UI elements are still a bit large, but it’s better than it was.

Framework officially supports Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS and Fedora 40 on the Core Ultra Framework Laptop, and distros that exist downstream of those should also be fine. “Community support” is available for Project Bluefin, Arch Linux, and the gaming-focsed Bazzite distro. Whether other distros work largely depends on whether they have reasonably recent kernels; the 6.9 kernel and even the not-yet-finalized 6.11 kernel should include fairly major Meteor Lake performance improvements, so the newer the better.