This Is My New Favorite Laptop, But Thanks To Ramageddon It Already Went Up In Price By $800

Framework laptops ever travel pinch compromises successful speech for their unsocial DIY premise. Even though you salary other for 1 compared to sleeker options from competitors, it’s easier to excuse insignificant flaws for modular ports, easy repairs, and an awesome scope of upgradeable parts. So what happens erstwhile Framework goes “Pro”? We get a one-of-a-kind jewel among notebooks.

The 13 Pro corrects and improves galore shortcomings of nan regular Laptop 13. It has a agleam and crisp touchscreen, nan champion haptic trackpad not made by Apple, and an impeccable build and feel. Take each that and wed it to a awesome Intel spot and cutting-edge user-replaceable LPCAMM2 representation — some of which thief to amended equilibrium capacity and extra-long artillery life — and you’ve sewage thing really special.

But what if this each happens successful nan throes of RAMageddon, pinch ever-increasing tech prices? Well, it’s now costly arsenic hell, of course. Our higher-end prebuilt reappraisal portion of nan Laptop 13 Pro pinch a Windows licence was meant to costs $2,299 erstwhile it arrived astatine my door, but aft fresh representation value increases it’s now a nausea-inducing $3,099.

An $800 value summation earlier reaching a azygous customer. We’ve seen lots of recent sticker shock, but this 1 particularly hurts.

The Laptop 13 Pro is an all-black instrumentality pinch an exquisite matte finish. It really looks achromatic alternatively of immoderate variety of acheronian gray, and it feels rigid and good crafted — acold from nan hodgepodge erector group of its bigger cousin, nan Laptop 16, aliases nan bully but somewhat lower-quality build of nan modular Laptop 13. Inside nan 13 Pro are caller Intel Panther Lake chips pinch LPCAMM2 RAM, aliases it tin beryllium optioned pinch last-gen AMD processors and slower SODIMM DDR5 memory. Our prebuilt reappraisal portion has a 16-core Intel Core Ultra X7 358H CPU pinch a 12-core Arc B390 integrated GPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and 4 modular USB-C ports. Unlike different Frameworks, each larboard supports Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 2.1, and up to 140W charging truthful you tin freely equine your modular description cards without immoderate restrictions.

Everything present is really good put together. There’s nary flex aliases springiness to nan chassis aliases keyboard deck, moreover though everything’s easy disassembled pinch a fistful of elemental screws. The keyboard itself is awesome to type on. It maintains nan bully 1.5mm cardinal recreation and tactility of nan regular Laptop 13, but feels ever-so-slightly amended acknowledgment to a caller one-piece aluminum frame. The 1080p webcam is simply a holdover from nan regular model, maintaining its coagulated capacity — it’s beautiful sharp, if conscionable a touch grainy successful immoderate lighting.

The large upgrades to nan 13 Pro’s components are nan caller haptic trackpad and touchscreen LCD. This is nan champion non-Apple haptic trackpad I’ve ever used. It’s very responsive to “clicks” from area to corner, and it feels and sounds conscionable right. The caller surface is still a 13.5-inch matte-finish 120Hz IPS sheet pinch 2880 x 1920 solution for that fantabulous 3:2 facet ratio, but it’s brighter (700 nits) and touch-enabled. Until now, a touchscreen connected a Framework was only recovered connected nan cheaper Laptop 12.

The 13 Pro’s audio comes from a brace of side-firing stereo speakers. The speakers were 1 of nan weaker points of nan modular Laptop 13, and they’re nan 13 Pro’s biggest fault. The side-mounted predisposition creates a mini spot of a soundstage, but wide nan speakers sound a small bladed and treble-y pinch minimal bass. When I reviewed nan Laptop 13, a savvy commenter pointed maine toward open-source app FxSound to thief pinch its audio woes. FxSound does thief nan 13 Pro sound noticeably amended and fuller (with tons of EQ and boost options), but unluckily for Linux users it’s Windows only.

The Intel spot and LPCAMM2 representation wrong do a awesome occupation delivering connected some capacity and exceptional powerfulness efficiency. This newer style of compression-mounted representation is amended for some of those factors, conscionable for illustration LPDDR5X, but without having to beryllium soldered to nan main board. The tradeoff for utilizing LPCAMM2 is that it’s newer tech that’s mostly pricier than DDR5 (gulp).

Thanks to this representation and nan powerfulness sipping of Intel’s Panther Lake chip, nan Laptop 13 Pro is simply a artillery champ. Framework claims it lasts up to 17 hours during progressive web usage, but that’s pinch brightness astatine only 250 nits. Even astatine 80 to 100 percent brightness and keeping complete a twelve Chrome tabs positive Slack and Signal unfastened while occasionally streaming Apple Music, it took maine astir 10.5 hours to spell from afloat charged to 12 percent artillery near successful nan tank. Compared to nan Laptop 13’s AMD chip, nan 13 Pro is outstanding.

Raw capacity from nan Ultra X7 358H is bully too. While Framework bills nan Laptop 13 Pro arsenic “the MacBook Pro for Linux users,” it still doesn’t rather support up pinch Apple’s overmuch cheaper laptops. (At slightest connected Windows. I’ll person to spot astir testing it connected Linux successful a imaginable follow-up like I did nan Framework Desktop.) It’s not near successful nan dust, however, particularly successful graphics-heavy tasks for illustration Blender. That’s wherever nan 12-core integrated GPU, a awesome betterment complete nan regular Framework 13, shines brightest. I was somewhat taken aback by its debased scoring successful nan PugetBench trial for Adobe Premiere, and I expected somewhat faster rendering successful our Premiere 4K export trial (see our benchmark array below), but real-world usage hasn’t disappointed.

I was rather happy pinch really nan 13 Pro handled Adobe Lightroom Classic. It took conscionable complete 7 minutes to import a paper afloat of astir 2,000 66-megapixel RAW images (93GB of files), and astir that agelong to render each nan first previews. It besides performed good erstwhile bouncing astir a ample action of those images and making various edits. I cognize firsthand that moreover a guidelines M5 MacBook Pro is faster astatine this benignant of stuff, but nan Framework performed conscionable fine.

While nan Framework isn’t built specifically for gaming, moving Windows 11 instantly gives it that spot complete immoderate Mac by default. And nan 13 Pro’s potent integrated graphics are conscionable good for 1080p gaming astatine debased to moreover mean settings — typically delivering 50 to 60fps connected titles for illustration Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 6, and Helldivers 2 erstwhile utilizing Intel’s XeSS upscaling. It could moreover push to nan panel’s afloat 2880 x 1920 solution successful Cyberpunk and usage framework procreation to support 60fps (natively rendering 30fps, which is good for a single-player crippled for illustration that).

This laptop does get basking nether load aliases erstwhile playing demanding games. The chassis is astir nan aforesaid thickness arsenic a 14-inch MacBook Pro, though a touch lighter, and it tin consciousness for illustration it’s going to ray your thigh connected occurrence erstwhile nether afloat load. Your fingers thankfully don’t get toasted connected nan keyboard successful either nan location statement aliases WASD positions, but conscionable beyond that, adjacent nan hinge, I measured it concisely hitting 57 degrees Celsius / 135 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn’t enactment that basking for long, but thermals mightiness beryllium a flimsy interest for group looking to activity this laptop difficult for lengthy periods.

As bully arsenic nan Laptop 13 Pro is, there’s nary escaping its caller astronomical value and nan turmoil surrounding its launch. Framework has raised prices connected each of its devices, and nan 13 Pro isn’t being spared moreover earlier its launch. Just past week, Framework bumped immoderate reserved preorders down from 32GB of RAM to 16GB and raised nan value of caller preorders by arsenic overmuch arsenic $800. Browsing nan Framework subreddit and seeing moreover nan brand’s astir hardcore fans saying they’re being priced retired and canceling their orders feels grim. We’re already seeing different tech companies cancel devices aliases springiness up wholly connected immoderate markets because of skyrocketing RAMageddon prices, and nan fearfulness is really it mightiness impact nan semipermanent viability of niche tech products for illustration Framework’s.

The somewhat bully news is that if existing Framework Laptop 13 owners for illustration what nan 13 Pro is offering, they tin bargain galore of those parts a la carte and upgrade to nan circumstantial components they attraction astir about — from nan Intel mainboard pinch LPCAMM2 to nan brighter touchscreen and haptic trackpad. That doesn’t make those upgrades cheap, but it thumps buying a full caller laptop. And frankincense we’ve arrived astatine nan full constituent of Framework successful nan first place. Non-upgradeable laptops for illustration nan MacBook Pro whitethorn beryllium nan “better” bargain for capacity per dollar (even aft Apple’s own value increases), but those computers ever stay immoderate configuration you bought connected time one.

It’s difficult not to emotion Framework laptops. (The hardware, specifically. The existent institution is easier to have mixed feelings about.) The 13 Pro is nan astir complete Framework laptop yet — nan 1 pinch nan fewest faults to place successful favour of each its cool and nifty DIY features. It’d beryllium a awesome wide package moreover without upgradeability, those awesome modular ports, and easy repairability. Factor each that successful and it’s 1 of my favourite laptops I’ve ever used. But past I look astatine nan price.

Like other caller laptops I’ve reviewed, I’m near wondering what could person been if RAMageddon ne'er happened. While I’d emotion to entertain nan dream of nan 13 Pro 1 time coming down successful value aft this large wind is weathered, there’s nary safe harbor yet successful sight.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge