Framework 16 vs. MacBook Pro 16
I have two expensive laptops, both quite opposite to each other in their philosophy. One is fully repairable and upgradeable, the other is .. basically neither. Well, in all honesty MacBooks these days are quite repairable via the Self Service Repair shop, but the repairs are still ridiculously expensive.
A new battery for the Framework is around 100 EUR whereas a new battery for the MacBook is around 800 EUR, because you can’t buy just a battery, you have to get the entire top side with the keyboard and all, to give you an idea of the repairability differences.
That said, here’s how my Framework 16” with 64GB RAM and Ryzen 7840HS CPU compares against my MacBook Pro 16” with 48GB RAM and M4 Max CPU. Do note that all of these tests were run on battery power, though in high performance mode.
Compiling Ladybird
- Framework: 23 min, 49s.
- MacBook: 11 min, 16s.
Speedometer 3.1
- Framework: 14.5.
- MacBook: 40.7.
Geekbench 6
Single-core:
- Framework: 2108.
- MacBook: 3937.
Multi-core:
- Framework: 4294.
- MacBook: 26258.
No that multi-core test difference is not a typo - I’m not sure why Framework got such a low score, but it did.
Battery life
With light use, which is just browsing web and watching videos:
- Framework: ~6h.
- MacBook: ~17h.
With heavy use, which is doing work, compiling a bunch of things, etc:
- Framework: ~2h.
- MacBook: ~9h.
All-in-all, the MacBook is obviously way more powerful, and the Ryzen 7840HS chip simply cannot offer any competition to the M4 Max chip. Meanwhile MacBook can do all this immense power while also being multiple times more efficient, because I can do balls-to-the-wall programming all day long with the MacBook, whereas I’d need to be close to a electrical socket with the Framework.
I really do like my Framework though, and perhaps I’ll try the comparison again some time with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip, though I’m sure the MacBook will leave the Framework in dust even with that considering it’s just a ~20% improvement over the 7840HS, and from what I hear, even worse for the battery.