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hu3 parent
I'm confused.

The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU benchmarks.

Their office suite benchmarks puts it at almost 10 hour battery.

See Framework 13 Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

To me, being able to run native Linux alone is worth its weight in gold, even if it was slower.

coder543
> The article shows a few charts where a Framework laptop is faster than M4 Air both in single and multicore CPU benchmarks.

Every single chart in the article showed the M4 MacBook Air beating the Framework 12 by a large margin.

I don't know what charts you were looking at.

adolph
I think the parent comment is referring to its parent's question "Is it unreasonable to think Framework should be able to make a laptop competitive with the 5 years old MacBook Air M1?"

That the Framework 12 is not extremely lagging behind the M4 (subjective comparison) might lead one to believe that it would be competitive with an five year old M1 Air. Taking a quick look at "Cinebench R23" from 2020 [0], Macbook Air M1 comes in at 1,520 and 7,804, which compares favorably to 2025's "Cinebench R23" in which the Framework 12's i5-1334U scores 1,474 and 4,644.

The answer is it isn't competitive performance-wise. Given the M1 seems to have some native Linux support through Ashai, the Framework's advantages over the 5 year old MBA M1 seem to be user accessible hardware changes, touchscreen and longer hinge throw.

0. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/hands-on-with-the-ap...

MBCook
Except the M1 Air has no fan and will be dead silent doing that.

The framework won’t.

Once you get used to an inaudible laptop you really don’t want to go back. There’s nothing wrong with a fan you literally can’t hear without putting your head up against the laptop.

I would do anything to get rid of the hairdryers in my life pretending to be laptops.

pythonaut_16
Does Asahi actually maintain the Macbook's performance and battery advantage when running Linux though?
aseipp
The performance is great, and now there's a fully stable userspace graphics driver stack. Peripherials basically work. The battery life under load (i.e. development) is serviceable, not terrible, but in my (limited, "I turn on my laptop after some amount of time" testing) it's not even close to macOS especially when turned off. This is with a 13" M2 Air.

It's a really good Linux laptop if you can find a M2 somewhere, IMO.

femiagbabiaka
They didn't describe the full specs of their test rigs (that I saw) but a similarly spec'd Macbook Air is going to get better battery life than the equivalent Framework 12 or 13 based on the 10 hours they quoted for the 12. (The 13 gets even less). And saying that the best possible CPU framework offers in a 13 inch format beats the consumer line of Macbooks.. sometimes.. you would really need to like/need Linux. At which point, get the cheapest Macbook Air M4 you can and then just use the money you save to get a decent NUC.
hu3 OP
Why would I get Air M4 if I want to use Linux?
femiagbabiaka
There are many different methods through which one can develop against/on Linux. For example, I have a pretty low spec'd Macbook Air and several different test machines at home that I do remote development against. I prefer a low-heat, high battery life, good performing machine like the Air over a power hungry, loud, and constantly overheating workstation. But, those are my preferences -- some people want to have a single interface through which they do all their work, and the most powerful Linux laptop money can buy. If that's the case, Framework is great!
nico_h
You may have confused the lower/higher is better? I think the Air is missing from a few charts though.
hu3 OP
No, but perhaps you may have. Please take a look:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...

And for battery life:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Frame...

zapzupnz
I think the person to whom you're replying may not have realised you're talking about one of the Framework 13s, not the Framework 12.
renewiltord
This is why humans can't be trusted to read article. Often they produce hallucinations. Use LLM. Much more reliable.

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