To be honest its like with cars. Buying used is always going to be cheaper than buying new and while I love the framework it is a bit pricey for its stats. Now im a bit biased as I have often gotten family laptops for free so until my free laptop well runs dry I will be going with used.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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I had some similar concerns before buying my Framework 13. The community here helped me a lot to confirm that this is a great laptop. After 3 months of use I'm still in love with it (got mine on sale).
I had a Dell XPS 13 before that, and tested lots of mainstream brands over the years (Lenovo, Acer, Vaio... and dinosaurs like PB, Toshiba). All within a budget of ~$1200-$1500. They all did a decent job and the XPS13 was certainly the best, but they all end up going to the trash because of hardware failure after 4 years max.
I wanted to move to a company that cares about Linux and with Framework, hardware issues will not cause death of my machine anymore. I'll be able to have my machine longer, or upgrade it for a fraction of the price of a new laptop.
https://www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Framework13-1/ https://www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Framework13-2/
Also, along my research before opting for Framework, I've heard mostly about starlab, purism, tuxedo, and system76. There's obviously pros and cons for each brand as well as difference in opinions based on individual experience, but a common criticism for these (including Framework) less marketed brands is the price of their machines. Lots of people don't realize that there's reasons for a slightly high price.
Used to buy dell precision (with a couple of lenovo in between but switched back to dell because of crappy support experience). Replaced my precision last month with TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen10. Great specs for decent price. Running fedora on it. No remarks so far.
Distros. Pick something in the top 10 of https://distrowatch.com/ .
I use Debian or one of the derivatives of Debian.
I think i will try cachy first (ai support, gaming too and its arch based so the ASHA support will be maybe faster there, than on other distros.
I usually buy System76 laptops. Might look at a Framework one next go around. I like supporting the linux supply chain when I can. If money is the only concern, sure some repurposed thing is likely cheaper.
I looked into Pangolin 16 a while ago but decided framework would fit better back then.
Is there a better choice for me than FW13 ?
Yes. Especially if you want to game and dabble in local ML (which the 13 is unfortunately not great for, its NPU is too small and old to ever be useful).
But what's your budget, approximately?
My budget is something like 2k €, maybe more if it worth to save some more money for.
Oh, and one more thing. There's a sizable linux community specifically built around Asus ROG laptops. Look up 'linux rog' and you will find associated gitlabs and a Discord specifically built up around them. It's still a fantastic resource for my 2020 G14.
The Z13 is especially good for linux, as it has discrete-gpu-class performance on the IGP, so you don't have to fuss with a dual GPU setup on linux (which can be a tremendous headache, especially with Nvidia cards).
As for a distro, I adore CachyOS for ML stuff, and its well suited for gaming. But its really down to your personal experience and taste.
Ah, crap, you're in Europe.
So basically the only laptop worth anything for AI is one with the new Strix Halo AMD chips, and the closest to what you want is the Asus Z13: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Flow-Z13-GZ302EA-Convertible-Review-AMD-s-Strix-Halo-GPU-is-neck-and-neck-with-the-RTX-4070-Laptop.963266.0.html
https://shop.asus.com/us/rog/90nr0jy1-m00670-rog-flow-z13-2025.html?config=90NR0JY1-M00670
Specifically the 128GB version if you can save up, or at least the 64GB version. While most laptops are useless for ML, this one utterly blows my desktop out of the water: it's like an of magnitude better than the Frameowrk 13 at that.
Even more importantly, LLM devs are targeting the Strix Halo chips, so they will be well supported. You can spin up a vllm, exllama or llama.cpp-rocm image on them right now, whereas you will struggle to get things up and running on most laptops older IGPs.
Coincidentally, you won't find anything 13" that can game better either. Its a surface-like tablet too, and franky its cooling is way better than a Framework 13. It's perfect!
...Problem is, I don't know if you can even get it in Europe. But historically, I know Asus laptops tend to be proportionally more expensive than they are in the US for some reason, so even if you can, I'm afraid the 64GB/128GB versions would be cost prohibitive.
I only found asus rog z13 flow with 32GB here sadly.
I considered this one (https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-v3) earlier but 16GB is not good at all.
I heard of a new competitor to the z13 flow, but cant remember the name.
There is a 14" HP laptop with the same chip:
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/70442-amd-strix-halo-laptops/
And a handheld, heh: https://gpdstore.net/gpd-handheld-gaming-pcs/gpd-win-5/
There may be more.
TBH, it may be prudent to wait a month or two for more “AI Max” chips to show up in laptops. It’s pretty new; Asus is just super early with it like they usually are.
Okay, i think you convinced me to wait a few months and see what will pop up on the market with this new chipset.
Yep.
FYI, rumors suggest the AI Max/Strix Halo successor won't be coming out till H2 2027, aka nearly 2028 (as Strix Halo techically launched in January this year, but as you can see takes time to actually make it into laptops):
Anyway, what I'm saying is it won't go obsolete anytime soon, and it will be quite strong for many years to come if you get one.
I have the minisforum v3 with 32GB RAM and I am super happy with it. Seems to be unavailable in their store but you might want to check amazon etc. The device has really good price to performamce and it held up well so far.
what's the ASHA protocol? I doubt other distros would support it if mint (basically Ubuntu) doesn't support it
ASHA stands for Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids, a Bluetooth protocol which runs on BLE ( Bluetooth Low Energy)
IMO Fedora is the best current distro despite it being a GIANT PAIN to get it to do proper HEVC codec support these days. It has better hardware support than Mint for internals (although you will notice worse printer support if you print) and is pretty bleeding edge in terms of versions of everything
I ditched fedora, because of RedHat and co. My thinking was like.. if i switch from Windows, il go full linux with as many open source as possible for me. So i prefered Mint, openSuse, and arch based distros. But shure, i could give fedora a try.
pretty sure redhat is just an upstream consumer of fedora project. what's your beef?
mac m2 pro + asahi Linux fedora changed my life
I believe RedHat uses Fedora as a kind of guinea pig to test new stuff out they want to put in RHEL. That results in stuff being put in before it's actually ready even for a fairly bleeding-edge distro.
I dont like this whole thing:
Fedora Controversy Explained Briefly:
Fedora is marketed as a community-driven Linux distribution, but Red Hat (owned by IBM) holds decisive control over its development. Critics argue that Red Hat—whose employees dominate core decision-making—prioritizes corporate interests (e.g., aligning Fedora with RHEL) over true community autonomy, undermining open-source ideals. Despite public contributions, key technical and strategic choices remain heavily influenced by Red Hat, sparking debates about transparency and independence.
That sounds bad. Are there any examples?
I mean it would be easier to just say that fedora is american and suse is european. And thus, suse should be preferred.
Fedora is a great distro, what decision did IBM take/influence that makes it worse?
Opensuse is awesome but fedoras atomic ostree distros are amazing. Opensuse does not have such an amazing distribution channel afaik. There is no bazzite built with suse. And no other ublue project.
The controversy stems from a few things:
-
Surveillance Creep Fedora devs have suggested a Windows-style telemetry system. It was purposed as being anonymous and opt-in only, but the fear from the community was that it would slowly change over time (much in the same vein as how Windows telemetry system has done over the years).
-
Conflict of Interest Red Hat was purchased by IBM which led to the perceived conflict of interest it may then have. RHEL went closed source after this which has been a red flag to many people in the Fedora community.
-
Flatpak Fedora maintains its own flatpak builds (a lot of which don't work as they are outdated). Without clearly knowing what you are doing, there is a good chance you'll be installing outdated Fedora versions as it runs side-by-side with the non-Fedora.
-
Wayland This I don't see as an issue, but many users do. The community does mention sometimes that Fedora prioritizes bleeding-edge new over stability. If you combine that with #3 though, I don't put much weight in it.
I dont know much about this topic. I just had to choose a distro. So decided for a distro without controversy. xD
But i heared nice things about bazzite.
My plan was to test cachy first, didnt liked manjaro and endavour but ppl say cachy is nice.
I dipped a toa in Nix OS but this was too much of a learning curve for me.
distro without controversy seems like a unicorn to me....
https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-nixos-conflict-in-under-5-minutes
liking a distro is highly subjective and i'd recommend trying as many as possible to find the one that suits you and your workflow not the opinions/workflows of others.
Are you rowing back on your statement against redhat? Am I understanding this right?
As i said, dont know much about this. Thats just what i found, when i searched a distro for my desktop.