My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7, purchased some time in mid 2019. A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, - , = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent. Given my past experiences with X1 Carbon laptops breaking outside of warranty and the frustration that comes with replacing their components, I decided it was time to look for a replacement.
Unfortunately, buying a new X1 Carbon wasn't going to be an option: when it comes to displays you now basically have two choices: a subpar not-quite-2K IPS display, or a 2.5K (ish) OLED display. Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense. Knowing my luck I'd also run into OLED burn-in the moment the warranty expires. There are also some other issues with the X1 line in general, such as poor CPU cooling and the absolute nightmare that is opening them up to replace parts or clean them properly.
I looked at some other brands but it appears that in 2025 there's just aren't many good options for Linux users. I narrowed it down to two options:
Buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Macbook and run Asahi Linux Buy a Framework
I eliminated the use of Asahi Linux because of the following reasons:
The battery life doesn't appear to be all that better than conventional laptops when running Linux. This isn't entirely surprising because of a lot of the battery improvements on macOS are the result of the software and hardware integration, not just the hardware There seem to be issues with suspend not working as well (at least based on various comments I came across), and hardware support in general is a bit dodgy If something needs replacing I basically have an expensive paperweight, because everything is soldered together, assuming you could even find spare parts in the first place I'm not sure Asahi as a project will still be around in 5 years, but my laptop will be
In contrast, Framework laptops has many supposed benefits: they're upgradable, repairable, actively work on Linux and even FreeBSD support (or at least sponsor developers working on this), allow you to customize the keyboard using QMK/VIAL. In fact, on paper it sounds like the perfect developer laptop. In reality, I'm not so sure.
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Framework has three models of laptops: a 12 inch, 13.5 inch and 16 inch laptop. My X1 Carbon is a 14 inch laptop but I've always felt like I wanted something just slightly larger. I ended up buying the Framework 16 for two reason:
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