Framework Laptop 12: An Upgrade-Friendly, Convertible 2-in-1 Linux Laptop
When taking the geometric mean of the nearly 200 benchmarks conducted in time for today's embargo lift, the Core i5 1334U raw CPU performance within the Framework Laptop 13 was roughly comparable to the Core i7 1165G7, the quad-core (plus HT) Tiger Lake design from nearly five years ago. Though not too surprising with the i5-1334U just having two P cores and the other eight cores being low-power E cores. And the Framework Laptop 12 has only single channel memory support. So from a raw performance aspect, it's not too exciting but is rather expected given the Raptor Lake U SoCs and single DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM. But when it comes to the power efficiency at least ends up putting it close to the AMD Strix Point:
For the Core i5 1334U CPU power use during the span of all the benchmarks conducted, the i5-1334U had a 14 Watt average and a 40 Watt peak. This is much lower than the similarly-performing Core i7 1165G7 that had a 19.8 Watt average and 51 Watt peak. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 (PRO) 360 within the ThinkPad T14s Gen6 at its default balanced power profile though had a 14 Watt average and 30 Watt peak, so comes out much ahead in overall power efficiency. The other AMD Strix Point SoCs too were delivering competitive performance-per-Watt but with higher power draw that is less optimal for a 12-inch 2-in-1 device. It would be interesting if Framework Computer ends up offering an AMD option in the future for the Framework Laptop 12.
For those doing light desktop/web-browser work and not too concerned about the raw performance, the Framework Laptop 12 is a nice 2-in-1 device. The only downside is the performance if you are wanting to run any moderately demanding workloads but for those looking at a well-built, upgradeable, and all-around dependable mini Linux laptop or convertible tablet that can run your favorite modern Linux distribution, the Framework Laptop 12 is another great addition to the Framework Computer family.
👁 Framework Laptop 12 running Ubuntu Linux
Thanks to Framework Computer for sending out this Framework Laptop 12 model for launch-day Linux testing on Phoronix. Stay tuned for more Framework Laptop 12 tests to come on Phoronix in follow-up articles over the days ahead. This offers nice out-of-the-box Linux compatibility at launch and is of nice build quality with a starting DIY price of $549 USD.
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