Mobile Frame 16 (RTX 5070) review: A dream come true

Between that and the potential $300 CPU upgrade you’ll want to get — the AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370 — the price of the laptop will start at $2,449, and will only go up once other components like memory and storage are added. To put things in perspective, the ultra-high-end Razer Blade 16 with an RTX 5070 is priced at around $2,300 (although it dropped a lot when on sale for under $2,000). With Framework Laptop 16, you’re paying extra for the ability to swap out parts in the future.

Fortunately, what you get in return is solid gaming performance. It’s good enough to give you the option to play at the original resolution in some games, e.g Cyberpunk 2077. All of the frame rates you see above were tested at the highest graphics preset without upscaling or ray tracing enabled, so you can get higher frame rates by dropping the settings. I like that there’s enough performance to allow players to choose smoother gameplay or sharper visuals depending on the game and play style. One of the games I tried Black Legend: Wukong It was the only title that couldn’t run smoothly at maximum graphics settings. The RTX 5070 only has 8GB of VRAM, which is the biggest shortcoming for AAA titles, unlike the desktop GPU of the same name, which has 12GB.

The tradeoff for adding a discrete graphics card is in battery life, though it’s not as bad as you might think. Despite having powerful graphics, the Framework Laptop 16 still has about 25 percent longer battery life than cheaper gaming laptops. In my testing, it lasted nearly nine hours in local video playback. This would equate to a much lower workload in real life, as I was getting closer to five hours at my typical day job. One unique feature of the system is that you can always remove the graphics module if you want to get a few extra hours of battery life while traveling, and don’t plan on gaming.

One of the impressive things about the Framework Laptop 16 is that it runs entirely off USB-C power. The 240W GaN power charger is no larger than a standard charger, yet it can power the entire system, including the graphics. Just be sure to use both sides of the included charger to get full performance.

Framework notebooks were designed and designed by Recent changes in laptop prices. You can now buy a great laptop for $650, and even less during big sales events. Unfortunately, Framework prices tend not to change, and the company does not sell through third-party retailers. But there’s an audience for repairable, sustainable laptops that are now even more powerful — whether you want them to be Run Linux Or Windows. Just be prepared to pay the premium.