Quoting: grigi

Quoting: sarmad

Quoting: cameronboschFinally an option with an ANSI keyboard layout. Though it comes too late for me, as I already got a Framework Laptop 16...

How is the Framework laptop? Is the build quality good enough? I have a feeling that given it's customizable nature that it won't feel as sturdy as regular laptops.

Mine feels sturdy enough. Reviewers were complaining about flex, but it has less flex than my previous notebook (MSI).
What I like is that I already recieved firmware updates through fwupdmgr, and bugs reported to them end up at the right linux/mesa core developers to fix it.
Been a pretty solid experience for me.

Battery life isn't amazing, but I get 8+ hours on battery easily, which is good enough for me.
There is work ongoing re improving that as well. But the modular nature does get in the way there as well.

There has been less flex than many Linux first laptops and even compared to some of my other older laptops. Mine feels much more sturdy than reviewers engineering samples, which definitely don't seem to be representative of my unit.

Fwpud also worked well on my unit. I did the recent BIOS update through the command-line with no issues.

As for battery life, 8 hours of battery life already beats out most similarly powerful Windows laptops, which struggle to hit even 5 hours of battery life.

I do hope there will be more GPU options soon, because 8 GB of vRAM is going to be an issue very soon, especially at higher resolutions or once ray-tracing is usable. In Cyberpunk 2077 with the built-in benchmark at 2560x1600 at high graphical settings and FSR 2.1 set to quality mode for example, I got 64 fps on average with minimum frame rates at 54 fps, so quite impressive. (No FSR 3 support.)

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Unfortunately, I don't think either of these Tuxedo laptops are all that impressive for a few reasons, especially when compared to Framework's offerings:

1. The Tuxedo Sirius 16 is stuck with a highly outdated 16:9 aspect ratio screen when most of the rest of the laptop world has moved to 16:10. Heck, Tuxedo has a 16:10 screen on their Pulse 14, Framework has a 16:10 screen on their 16 inch model that competes with the Sirius 16 and their 13.5 inch AMD Ryzen model that competes with the Pulse is even better at a 3:2 aspect ratio. It is lower resolution on the Framework Laptop 13.5 compared to the Tuxedo Sirius 14, but the 3:2 aspect ratio is much more desirable in my opinion. Even though the Pulse 14 does have a 120 hz screen, good luck having games hit above 60 hz on the Radeon 780M iGPU. Also, both of the Tuxedo laptops are dimmer than the Framework Laptops (both Framework Laptops hit 500 nits of brightness at maximum brightness compared to 400 nits on the Pulse 14 and 300 nits on the Sirius 16). The Tuxedo Sirius 16 screen on the other hand is worse in every way compared to the Framework Laptop 16; it is 16:9 versus 16:10, it is dimmer like I already mentioned, and it also has only a 100% sRGB color gamut coverage compared to 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage on the Framework Laptop 16.

2. Framework supports Ubuntu LTS and Fedora, two very popular Linux distros officially. If you're willing to install Linux, it's not a huge deal to install a Linux distro on either, but Tuxedo OS, the distro preinstalled on Tuxedo computers, doesn't even have KDE Plasma 6 yet (neither does Kubuntu or Ubuntu Studio), while Fedora 40 does! The TL;DR on this point? Both support Linux offically.

3. The Tuxedo Sirius 16 has a fingerprint reader that doesn't work with fprintd in Linux. The Tuxedo Pulse 14 only has an IR camera which as far as I know isn't supported in Linux at all. Both Framework Laptops do have working fingerprint sensors in both Windows and Linux (via fprintd, in GNOME's settings, or in KDE Plasma 6 and later's system settings).

4. The Tuxedo Laptops are pretty much DOA outside of the EU and the UK, as they only offer ISO layouts, while the Netherlands and everywhere outside of the EU and the UK use ANSI, which Tuxedo does not offer on these laptops. Not to mention how expensive the shipping costs are outside of Europe, so they may as well not exist outside of the EU.

5. While the Framework Laptops do ship with a slightly worse MediaTek 7922 Wi-Fi 6E & Bluetooth combo card (I have had issues with their Wi-Fi 6 and earlier cards, but not their 6E cards), it's like $20 to get an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E card and because it's Framework, the replacement can be done rather easily if need be. So I wouldn't make a buying decision based on that alone.

6. The Framework Laptop 16 has a replaceable GPU, the Radeon RX 7700S, that is very similar in terms of performance to the Radeon RX 7600M in the Tuxedo Sirius 16. And the Ryzen 7 8845HS is basically the same as the 7840HS in the Framework Laptop 16 and very similar to the Ryzen 9 7940HS; the only benefit with the Ryzen 7 8845HS is the better NPU, which is kind of useless on Linux at the moment. Again, the Framework Laptop 16 can have its GPU upgraded in the future while the Tuxedo laptops cannot. And Framework has shown their long-term drop in upgrade support with the main boards, allowing for four different CPU options spanning three Intel CPU generations on their 13.5 laptop as well as an AMD Ryzen 7040U option. I have no doubt that this will continue with Intel Meteor Lake and Ryzen Zen 5 CPUs in the future. (They have already confirmed that they won't be offering Ryzen 8040 CPUs as they aren't much of an upgrade anyways like I've already said.)

7. The Framework Laptops have a more versatile port selection than the Tuxedo offers, both with the Expansion Card system allowing for a lot of flexibility, and also the two USB4 ports on the Framework Laptops compared to just one on each of the Tuxedo laptops. I will give the Tuxedo laptops a bit of praise for both having two SSD slots that can support 2 M.2 2280 drives with NAND chips on both sides. The Framework Laptop 13.5 can only support one SSD while the Framework Laptop 16 can only support one M.2 2280 slot with NAND chips on one side only (so a 4 TB limit in that slot because all of the 8 TB SSDs I've seen have NAND chips on both sides) and a 2 TB M.2 2230 SSD. If you want an 8 TB SSD or one with NAND chips on both sides, you're limited to one SSD. I understand why this limitation exists because of the motherboard design and that was all of the room they had, but that is a bonus for the Tuxedo laptops. However, both of the Framework Laptops have two RAM SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM slots. While the Tuxedo Sirius 16 also has two RAM slots, the Tuxedo Pulse 14 only has 32 GB of RAM as an option and it's soldered LPDDR5X RAM, meaning that's all you get. And while that amount of RAM is fine for most users, has slightly faster RAM speeds, lower power consumption, and 32 GB of RAM is standard on all configurations (there's no lower-end 16 GB of RAM option), if you need more RAM, you're SOOL for that laptop. That's a bit disappointing.

I will give the Tuxedo Sirius 16 another bonus point for having a BIOS/UEFI accessible MUX switch while Framework only offers AMD Smart Access Graphics when the expansion bay GPU is installed; there's no tool, either in Linux or even in the BIOS/UEFI, that can switch the internal screen's working GPU. While for Windows 11, that hasn't been a serious issue since the CASO update that bascially allows Optimus/iGPU gaming framerates to be within the margin of error of gaming directly on the dGPU, on Linux, as far as I know, there's no equivalent or way to bypass the iGPU on the internal screen, so on the Framework Laptop 16, unless you connect an external screen to the USB-C port on the Expansion Bay that connects directly to the dGPU, you will (at least for now) have to accept you will lose a bit of performance in games on the Framework Laptop 16. (This doesn't matter on the laptops with the iGPU only, including the Framework Laptop 16 without the dGPU installed in the Expansion Bay because they won't be hitting super high frame rates that tend to be the bottleneck for the iGPU when the screen is routed through it and because iGPU generally don't hit super high framerates in games anyway.)

Bonus: All of the laptops have a 1080p webcams with one exception; the Framework Laptops have a 1080p 60 fps webcam with both a webcam and microphone privacy shutter, the Tuxedo Sirius 16 has a 1080p 30 fps webcam with a wevam privacy shutter, and the Tuxedo Pulse 24 only has a 720p webcam with no privacy shutter. It does have an IR camera for Windows Hello, but that only works in Windows unfortunately.

Conclusion
For most people, if they had the choice between the Framework Laptop 16 and the Tuxedo Sirius 16, I would definitely recommend the Framework Laptop 16 over the Sirius 16 because the Framework Laptop 16 has many more advantages over the the Sirius 16 that I mentioned.

The battle between the Framework Laptop 13.5 (the version with an AMD Ryzen 7040U) and Pulse 14 (which has a more powerful AMD Ryzen 8040HS CPU that has a higher CPU power limit), on the other hand, is a lot closer. I'd personally go for the Framework Laptop 13.5 because I value repairability and upgradability, even for the RAM, but in this case, I can see some people preferring the Pulse 14 for its better CPU, higher refresh rate screen, and more SSD slots, as well as it's slightly faster RAM.

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Finally an option with an ANSI keyboard layout. Though it comes too late for me, as I already got a Framework Laptop 16...

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Yep, time to play other games! Even if I was a Windows user, Vanguard is an immediate dealbreaker.

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Quoting: Boldos

Quoting: cameronboschWhat's the point of buying this over the Framework Laptop 16? The Framework Laptop 16 is much more modular, it has 2 USB4 ports, it has a Linux fprintd compatible sensor, it has a 16:10 screen unlike pretty much every other Linux laptop, and it has ANSI keyboard options unlike pretty much every good Tuxedo Laptop.

Honestly, this device seems like a bit of a miss to me... It's good to have options, but I can't see myself getting this when I'm still waiting for a Framework Laptop 16 to ship...

Because of these problems and additional costs (for EU)?
!This applies when you order somewhere to EU [External Link]
Also, Framework just does NOT provide half of EU keyboard setups.
So I guess, those are some of the points.

There literally aren't any ANSI options from Tuxedo though. So if youre not in Europe, this laptop is DoA. Not to mention 16:9 needs to die on laptops; nearly every good Windows laptop has moved on from 16:9.

Also, your link isn't working.

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What's the point of buying this over the Framework Laptop 16? The Framework Laptop 16 is much more modular, it has 2 USB4 ports, it has a Linux fprintd compatible sensor, it has a 16:10 screen unlike pretty much every other Linux laptop, and it has ANSI keyboard options unlike pretty much every good Tuxedo Laptop.

Honestly, this device seems like a bit of a miss to me... It's good to have options, but I can't see myself getting this when I'm still waiting for a Framework Laptop 16 to ship...

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...but then again people play a lot on Nintendo Switch where even first-party games have big issues without a care so…

I 100% agree with this. Not to mention how (pardon my language) s**tty Nintendo is as a company. Imo, they're worse than Apple.

Dave The Diver is great; I was a bit worried that I wouldn't like it, but I do like it, maybe a bit more than I should, given how much I played it recently! 😂

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So while it's going to be controversial, it's not exactly a big deal is it?

For the intended audience of desktop Ubuntu editions, that actually will be. Most of those users won't think to install Flatpak, which means they'll get less apps and ones that open slower than Flatpaks.

That pretty much leaves me on KDE Arch-based distros for the foreseeable future. Kubuntu & Ubuntu Studio are now officially out of consideration.

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I know that many Arch-based distros are having issues with the Nvidia 4000 series GPUs, but I'm shocked that there's still no timeline for their addition to System76 desktops, given that Debian & Ubuntu-based distros do work with them. Hence why I built my own desktop.

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