The Framework Laptop 13 Pro is a fantastic laptop hamstrung by RAMageddon

Framework laptops always come with compromises in exchange for their unique DIY premise. Even though you pay extra for one compared to sleeker options from competitors, it’s easier to excuse minor flaws for modular ports, easy repairs, and an impressive range of upgradeable parts. So what happens when Framework goes “Pro”? We get a one-of-a-kind jewel among notebooks.

The 13 Pro corrects and improves many shortcomings of the regular Laptop 13. It has a bright and sharp touchscreen, the best haptic trackpad not made by Apple, and an impeccable build and feel. Take all that and marry it to a great Intel chip and cutting-edge user-replaceable LPCAMM2 memory — both of which help to better balance performance and extra-long battery life — and you’ve got something really special.

But what if this all happens in the throes of RAMageddon, with ever-increasing tech prices? Well, it’s now expensive as hell, of course. Our higher-end prebuilt review unit of the Laptop 13 Pro with a Windows license was meant to cost $2,299 when it arrived at my door, but after fresh memory price increases it’s now a nausea-inducing $3,099.

An $800 price increase before reaching a single customer. We’ve seen lots of recent sticker shock, but this one especially hurts.

The Laptop 13 Pro is an all-black machine with an exquisite matte finish. It actually looks black instead of some variation of dark gray, and it feels rigid and well crafted — far from the hodgepodge erector set of its bigger cousin, the Laptop 16, or the good but slightly lower-quality build of the standard Laptop 13. Inside the 13 Pro are new Intel Panther Lake chips with LPCAMM2 RAM, or it can be optioned with last-gen AMD processors and slower SODIMM DDR5 memory. Our prebuilt review unit has a 16-core Intel Core Ultra X7 358H CPU with a 12-core Arc B390 integrated GPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and four modular USB-C ports. Unlike other Frameworks, each port supports Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 2.1, and up to 140W charging so you can freely mount your modular expansion cards without any restrictions.

Everything here is really well put together. There’s no flex or give to the chassis or keyboard deck, even though everything’s easily disassembled with a handful of simple screws. The keyboard itself is great to type on. It maintains the nice 1.5mm key travel and tactility of the regular Laptop 13, but feels ever-so-slightly better thanks to a new one-piece aluminum frame. The 1080p webcam is a holdover from the regular model, maintaining its solid performance — it’s pretty sharp, if just a touch grainy in some lighting.

The big upgrades to the 13 Pro’s components are the new haptic trackpad and touchscreen LCD. This is the best non-Apple haptic trackpad I’ve ever used. It’s very responsive to “clicks” from corner to corner, and it feels and sounds just right. The new screen is still a 13.5-inch matte-finish 120Hz IPS panel with 2880 x 1920 resolution for that excellent 3:2 aspect ratio, but it’s brighter (700 nits) and touch-enabled. Until now, a touchscreen on a Framework was only found on the cheaper Laptop 12.

The 13 Pro’s audio comes from a pair of side-firing stereo speakers. The speakers were one of the weaker points of the standard Laptop 13, and they’re the 13 Pro’s biggest fault. The side-mounted orientation creates a tiny bit of a soundstage, but overall the speakers sound a little thin and treble-y with minimal bass. When I reviewed the Laptop 13, a savvy commenter pointed me toward open-source app FxSound to help with its audio woes. FxSound does help the 13 Pro sound noticeably better and fuller (with lots of EQ and boost options), but unfortunately for Linux users it’s Windows only.

The Intel chip and LPCAMM2 memory inside do a great job delivering on both performance and exceptional power efficiency. This newer style of compression-mounted memory is better for both of those factors, just like LPDDR5X, but without having to be soldered to the main board. The tradeoff for using LPCAMM2 is that it’s newer tech that’s generally pricier than DDR5 (gulp).

Thanks to this memory and the power sipping of Intel’s Panther Lake chip, the Laptop 13 Pro is a battery champ. Framework claims it lasts up to 17 hours during active web usage, but that’s with brightness at only 250 nits. Even at 80 to 100 percent brightness and keeping over a dozen Chrome tabs plus Slack and Signal open while occasionally streaming Apple Music, it took me around 10.5 hours to go from fully charged to 12 percent battery left in the tank. Compared to the Laptop 13’s AMD chip, the 13 Pro is outstanding.

Raw performance from the Ultra X7 358H is good too. While Framework bills the Laptop 13 Pro as “the MacBook Pro for Linux users,” it still doesn’t quite keep up with Apple’s much cheaper laptops. (At least on Windows. I’ll have to see about testing it on Linux in a potential follow-up like I did the Framework Desktop.) It’s not left in the dust, however, especially in graphics-heavy tasks like Blender. That’s where the 12-core integrated GPU, a major improvement over the regular Framework 13, shines brightest. I was slightly taken aback by its low scoring in the PugetBench test for Adobe Premiere, and I expected slightly faster rendering in our Premiere 4K export test (see our benchmark table below), but real-world usage hasn’t disappointed.

I was quite happy with how the 13 Pro handled Adobe Lightroom Classic. It took just over seven minutes to import a card full of nearly 2,000 66-megapixel RAW images (93GB of files), and about that long to render all the initial previews. It also performed well when bouncing around a large selection of those images and making various edits. I know firsthand that even a base M5 MacBook Pro is faster at this kind of stuff, but the Framework performed just fine.

While the Framework isn’t built specifically for gaming, running Windows 11 immediately gives it that strength over any Mac by default. And the 13 Pro’s potent integrated graphics are just fine for 1080p gaming at low to even medium settings — typically delivering 50 to 60fps on titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 6, and Helldivers 2 when using Intel’s XeSS upscaling. It could even push to the panel’s full 2880 x 1920 resolution in Cyberpunk and use frame generation to maintain 60fps (natively rendering 30fps, which is fine for a single-player game like that).

This laptop does get hot under load or when playing demanding games. The chassis is about the same thickness as a 14-inch MacBook Pro, though a touch lighter, and it can feel like it’s going to light your lap on fire when under full load. Your fingers thankfully don’t get toasted on the keyboard in either the home row or WASD positions, but just beyond that, near the hinge, I measured it briefly hitting 57 degrees Celsius / 135 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn’t stay that hot for long, but thermals might be a slight concern for people looking to work this laptop hard for lengthy periods.

As nice as the Laptop 13 Pro is, there’s no escaping its new astronomical price and the turmoil surrounding its launch. Framework has raised prices on all of its devices, and the 13 Pro isn’t being spared even before its launch. Just last week, Framework bumped some reserved preorders down from 32GB of RAM to 16GB and raised the price of new preorders by as much as $800. Browsing the Framework subreddit and seeing even the brand’s most hardcore fans saying they’re being priced out and canceling their orders feels grim. We’re already seeing other tech companies cancel devices or give up entirely on some markets because of skyrocketing RAMageddon prices, and the fear is how it might affect the long-term viability of niche tech products like Framework’s.

The slightly good news is that if existing Framework Laptop 13 owners like what the 13 Pro is offering, they can buy many of those parts a la carte and upgrade to the specific components they care most about — from the Intel mainboard with LPCAMM2 to the brighter touchscreen and haptic trackpad. That doesn’t make those upgrades cheap, but it beats buying a whole new laptop. And thus we’ve arrived at the whole point of Framework in the first place. Non-upgradeable laptops like the MacBook Pro may be the “better” buy for performance per dollar (even after Apple’s own price increases), but those computers always remain whatever configuration you bought on day one.

It’s hard not to love Framework laptops. (The hardware, specifically. The actual company is easier to have mixed feelings about.) The 13 Pro is the most complete Framework laptop yet — the one with the fewest faults to overlook in favor of all its cool and nifty DIY features. It’d be a great overall package even without upgradeability, those awesome modular ports, and easy repairability. Factor all that in and it’s one of my favorite laptops I’ve ever used. But then I look at the price.

Like other recent laptops I’ve reviewed, I’m left wondering what could have been if RAMageddon never happened. While I’d love to entertain the dream of the 13 Pro one day coming down in price after this storm is weathered, there’s no safe harbor yet in sight.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge