Technology

This will be my first Framework, already preordered a few weeks ago.

They finally offer a 120 Hz display, and while it has slightly rounded corners which isn't ideal, but I'll take the 120 Hz with VRR and higher resolution over perfect corners. They explained they had to use a panel that was already on the market because they don't have enough volume that they can afford to order a custom display and with the Framework 13 using a 3:2 aspect ratio options were apparently very limited.

They also offer a keyboard with the Super key having a neutral label (not a Windows logo) now.

The new webcam is apparently quite a lot better, but I don't care too much about that.

I went for the i5 125H model, I think the difference of almost 400,-€ to the i7 155H isn't worth it for most use cases, as you only get 2 more P cores (with all other core clusters being identical, I think 4+8+2 vs. 6+8+2) and 8 instead of 7 GPU CUs. I feel the difference will be negligible for my use case as soon as it hits power/thermal limits anyway. This also seems to be the stop-gap generation of CPUs, with both AMD and Intel appearing to make noticeable steps forward in the generation.

There's also the AMD model which is great and got most upgrades the Ultra model did (new display, webcam and keyboard options), only missing out on a slightly improved cooling system. Between the i7 and R7 I probably would've gone for the Ryzen 7, but I feel the i5 is the better choice compared to the Ryzen 5, primarily because the iGPU is stripped quite a bit compared to the R7. Intel is also less restrictive on which expansion slot supports what, with every port supporting full USB 4 including DisplayPort. Not a big deal as there are still enough fully-featured slots on the AMD model, but it's a bit more convenient to just plug in any card anywhere and it works.