Framework Laptop 16 (2025) Review: Finally, Mobile Gaming With Desktop Modularity

I should know what the new Framework Laptop 16 (2025) is capable of, being that I’m the one who built it. Well, okay, I didn’t use a CNC machine to carve out the aluminum frame or craft the fan apparatus by hand like an old shoemaker squinting at a boot’s sole in the dim light of an oil lamp. But I did install everything, from the SSD storage to the RAM, all the way up to the screen bezel, keyboard, and RGB-backlit numpad. I’m not so much a tinkerer, but a follower of instructions. Don’t knock it. That’s all it takes to introduce yourself to the joys of PC building.

So when your next desktop PC diehard tells you that no laptop will be as customizable as their 45L desktop tower, you can show them the new Framework Laptop 16. Of course, there will always be compromises for the sake of both repairability and portability. But if I had the choice of keeping one gaming laptop at home, even with the bevy of options with better speakers and better screens, I may still look first to Framework. Because, when push comes to shove, I would know this is still my laptop, and nobody else’s.

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Somehow, when all the disparate pieces were fitted together and I got down to actually using the new Framework Laptop 16 in my daily grind, it’s a perfectly usable device. Performance-wise, this laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU and the brand new Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU module performed relatively well compared to other laptops with similar specs. However, it still may not be what you want considering the price.

The Laptop 16 DIY kit that Framework sent me for review costs close to $2,500, and that’s without a Windows 11 key or choosing any extra I/O modules you can swap in and out. Laptops going for around the same price or less (though usually on sale) will offer better single-core and multi-core CPU performance; the latter being much more important for creative apps like video editing. Those gaming-ready computers often include better display technology to make games look sharper and have keyboards that don’t feel like you’re plinking away at a knockoff MacBook Magic Keyboard.

That’s not to say Framework’s rough edges are totally lackluster; they’re simply good enough. It’s more important for a Framework to have a baseline of quality considering it’s a laptop that wants you to keep it forever. Framework computers are known as ultra-repairable, but this is the first laptop I’ve used with a completely replaceable discrete GPU. The module hangs out in the back and accepts a full 240W of power through USB-C, which is also a first for laptops. All the other laptop makers that claim you need a proprietary port for a gaming laptop can keep on whistling Dixie. The Framework Laptop 16 is the only laptop of its kind. Just because it’s not the easiest nor the prettiest doesn’t mean you should ignore it in favor of more-standard devices. Sometimes, jank is a benefit.

Swap your entire keyboard layout in less than 30 seconds

I never had the chance to build the 2-year-old Framework 16 before the new 2025 model. Jumping in for the first time took roughly 30 minutes all in all, including me glancing back and forth between the instructions and laptop. Getting underneath the mid plate requires using a standard Phillips-head screwdriver to loosen 16 separate screws. It’s the most tedious part of the process, but nothing so difficult that it becomes tiresome. After that point, you can install your storage components or whatever first-party or aftermarket parts you plan to stick inside. My system came with a 1TB stick of WD Black M.2 2280 storage and a single 16GB DDR5-5600 RAM. There’s an extra slot built in for more memory options whenever you decide to upgrade.

Framework’s DIY kit comes in a box packed with all the necessary components, from the screen bezel down to individual spacer and I/O modules. Most of these bits and bobs adhere to the Framework Laptop 16 through a clever mix of magnets and slots. This means you don’t need to do any screwing to set the keyboard or trackpad in place. The bezel is equally idiot-proof. It merely requires you line it up with the perimeter and make sure its stuck on tight. Alongside the traditional black bezel, there are additional orange and lavender options. Unfortunately there’s no transparent plastic option like there is on this year’s Framework Laptop 13.

The new Framework Laptop 16 can be configured so you can have a simple black 75% keyboard or enable per-key RGB lights behind either opaque or clear plastic keys. There are other options for a numpad, an RGB “Macropad†(essentially a programmable numpad), or a suite of “spacers†with a kind of 1990s flair that screams “tubular†in a Chester Cheetah voice. There’s even a set of LED matrix lights you can, again, program to show off whatever suits your fancy.

These magnetic attachment points worked well enough in most cases, but that doesn’t mean every component is built perfectly. When initially constructing the laptop, you’ll need to remove the two silver touchpad spacers. One of mine was off-colored compared to the other, and I found if I installed one on the right and the other on the left, the spacer would feel loose—able to slide in and out without much force. Swapping them fixed that issue.

Modularity means sacrificing pristine aesthetics

When the Framework Laptop 16 is all configured to suit your needs, it won’t look as perfectly constructed as any non-repairable device you’ve used prior. The laptop’s silver finish tends to get scuffed easily by foreign objects. Those odd panel lines certainly won’t help it win awards for aesthetics, either. Worse still is that the keyboard and trackpad have a good degree of flex, both in the center and on the peripheries. If you’re one to type heavily, those keys with their bare 1.5mm of travel will see a small bounce with every press.

The default trackpad feels fine, and it’s big enough to allow your finger to glide without too many issues with palm rejection. At the same time, the keyboard doesn’t feel quite as premium as contemporary laptops for the same price. The smaller Framework Laptop 13 feels snappier under my fingertips. At the very least, with all the RGB on and bedecked with the orange bezel, the Framework Laptop 16 looks the part of a gaming laptop without anything overt like the Asus ROG “AniME Lights†strobing on the lid. In order to change the device’s RGB or programmable buttons, you need to skirt over to one of several web-based apps. It’s nice to have a laptop that isn’t coming packed with an obnoxious default Alienware, ROG, or Lenovo Legion app.

Every other laptop will inevitably disappoint for the number of I/O ports available. The Framework Laptop 16 doesn’t have that problem. The rear GPU module holds the lone built-in 240W USB-C port that also accepts DisplayPort 2.1. There are an additional six total slots where you can stick any number of port modules. However, you can’t just stick six SD card slots into the laptop. The two modules closest to the trackpad won’t accept anything but USB-C 3.2 (not 240W capable) and USB-A. Any other port will still accept the full 240W power brick.

Not the all-round multi-media laptop

The 240W power brick isn’t nearly that big it won’t act as ballast on a old-timey sailing vessel, though the laptop itself will struggle to fit in any sized backpack laptop sleeve.

The base DIY kit comes with your typical IPS LCD display. Many high-end gaming laptops are switching over to OLED, which offers better contrast and black levels than traditional liquid-crystal display technology. That’s not to say the screen looks bad; the black levels aren’t nearly as gray as some low-end LCDs. When you finally get into your games, the display is perfectly fine even if it won’t make some titles with denser color palettes like Hades II or The Outer Worlds 2 pop like they do on other systems.

Unlike the previous-gen Framework Laptop 16, the 2025 edition sports a 165Hz refresh rate panel at 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. It also now supports Nvidia G-Sync to hopefully cut down any awkwardness when games aren’t running at the max refresh rate.

The Framework Laptop 16 isn’t built to be the best-looking laptop around. By its nature, Framework’s “gaming†laptop with its massively thick bottom screen bezel will appear old school, to some extent. At least it includes an extra physical toggle to enable the mic and 1080p webcam.

What is somehow better than other laptops of this scale is the thermal design. Framework said it improved the Laptop 16’s ability to handle the heat with optimized fan geometry and an improved Honeywell PTM pad on the CPU. When pushing the Framework Laptop 16 as hard as it will go, the fans never kicked up anywhere close to the same racket as other 14-inch or 16-inch laptops I’ve tested recently. The RTX 50-series GPUs are notoriously more energy dependent—and therefore produce more heat. Using a laser thermometer, the Framework Laptop 16 clocked in at around 85 degrees Fahrenheit around the palmrests and around 90 degrees in the center of the keyboard.

That means the Framework Laptop 16 could get extra toasty in warmer climates, though I’ll admit that the warmth was pretty pleasant on my palms during these late fall months in New York City. The system won’t overall be your one multimedia entertainment device. The two side-firing speakers aren’t enough to offer the kind of entertainment experience that will keep you from buying a nice pair of headphones or desktop soundbar.

Solid gaming chops

It’s hard to overstate how big a deal the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 module is for laptops. Alienware, the last company that tried to create a laptop with a replaceable GPU, ended up ditching the project entirely, hounded by lawsuits. Framework worked directly with Nvidia to develop the GPU module, and it makes such a difference compared to the last gen’s AMD Radeon RX 7700S. Better yet, you don’t even need the new Framework Laptop 16 to get the next-gen GPU. You can buy it separately for $650, and it will still slot in to the same expansion bay as before.

The 8-core Ryzen AI 7 370 isn’t typically what you’ll want for a full gaming-ready 16-inch laptop, though at a 45W TDP (thermal design power), the Framework Laptop 16’s 240W power delivery is more than enough to give the CPU and the RTX 5070 GPU (at 140W) the required juice to play demanding AAA games with solid performance, so long as you accept a few compromises.

There’s another version of the Framework Laptop 16 that includes an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, the same processor found in the Razer Blade 16 from this year. That chip could offer slightly boosted performance over the Ryzen AI 7 370, though I have not had the opportunity to test just how much of a jump it would be. Based on my tests with laptops like the Razer Blade 14 and its Ryzen AI 9 365, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 may prove a huge step up in CPU performance, which will be even more important for non-gaming related tasks.

In CPU performance, the Framework Laptop 16 with the Ryzen AI 7 370 beat out the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V that I just tested on the $2,500 Acer Predator Triton 14 AI, though it also wins against this year’s Framework Laptop 13 with the same chip thanks to the expanded power delivery. It still scores 5,000 points below the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 in Geekbench 6 multi-core benchmarks. It has no chance against other CPUs like the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, which you can find in gaming laptops like the Alienware Area-51, HP Omen Max 16, or Lenovo Legion Pro 7i for around the same price with either an RTX 5070 or RTX 5070 Ti and 16GB more RAM.

But it’s as soon as you break away from the synthetic benchmarks that you start to see what the Framework Laptop 16 is capable of. In my Blender tests, where we get the system to render a scene of a BMW using both the CPU and GPU, the Ryzen AI 7 370 on the 16-inch chassis managed it just 8 seconds slower than the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip. Yes, it’s still a minute slower than the 16-inch Macbook Pro with M4 Pro chip. Instead, it shows that even the lower-end chip can still do relatively well in certain real-world tasks, benchmarks be damned. Besides, the GPU module means you’ll have a much better time when running these same rendering tasks when relying on a discrete GPU.

In gaming benchmarks, things get even better. The Framework Laptop 16 is just enough to hit playable frame rates in multiple games I tested even on the highest settings. Those few titles that wouldn’t net a minimum 60 fps could become playable if you reduce settings just a smidge and resort to AI upscaling, like Nvidia’s DLSS (deep learning super sampling).

On “Ultra†settings in Cyberpunk 2077, the Framework Laptop 16 manages to hit 70 fps without needing to use DLSS. It can handle the game with ray-tracing settings enabled (for more accurate lighting in games) if you accept you won’t have every setting at its peak and rely on upscaling. In Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered benchmark tests, the laptop manages to get an average of 53 fps at the laptop’s max 2,560 x 1,600 resolution without DLSS.

You can net solid frame rates on more-recent titles like The Outer Worlds 2, but the premium experience without AI upscaling will be just out of reach. I managed to push the game to “Very High†settings and clock in with an average of 35 fps. With a few settings dialed back, I could get around 55 fps in the same environment.

These benchmarks are partly a factor of Nvidia’s latest drivers, which have slowly but surely managed to optimize for today’s gaming environment. I was especially keen to learn whether the GPU module being a removable piece of the laptop’s pie would impact performance. The Framework Laptop 16 shows us that you can have a modular design without impacting overall performance and thermals. Now here’s the big caveat: while there is another module with the Radeon RX 7700S GPU and a separate Expansion Bay module that enhances system cooling, there are no other options currently for enhanced graphics. You simply have to trust that Framework will craft new modules in the future, whether that’s with new AMD integrated GPUs or whatever new RTX 50-series Super variant squeeks out of Nvidia’s labs. I don’t imagine Framework will stop making upgrades, but any time traveler will tell you, you can’t account for the future.

The last laptop you’ll ever buy?

Early in testing, I encountered problems with the Framework Laptop 16 refusing to charge when asleep, but a new firmware update fixed those issues. Otherwise, the laptop lasts longer than other noteooks I’ve used recently that have discrete GPUs. On average, I could net around 4.5 to 5 hours of active use just doing my usual writing and browsing tasks.

The 85Wh battery won’t make a 16-inch laptop with a discrete GPU into a true “all-day†device, but that’s true with every gaming-ready laptop I’ve used for the past two years. At the least, Framework isn’t making some overt claim about this laptop being a miracle of battery life. Even if its not as big as other, extra-meaty mobile gaming platforms, the 5.29-pound Framework Laptop 16 is not quite portable enough to be your perfect everyday carry unless you like to schlep around with a extra-large bag.

But keeping the Framework Laptop 16 at home or the office, where I can tinker with it incessantly, is one of the rare treats in tech. So often, we’re stuck with laptops that hinder users from engaging with the underlying hardware. Proprietary charging ports, soldered RAM, screen bezels that require a heat gun and a prayer to remove, are all examples of ways devices separate us from the pure understanding of what’s going on under the hood.

In so many ways, the Framework Laptop 16 is an occasionally janky device that won’t look as clean and pristine as a typical gaming laptop. Those odd spacers and all the panel lines that don’t quite match up can make the laptop seem slapdash. The Framework Laptop 16 will also be more expensive than other laptops for these specs. But it’s a solid device, solid enough that any small flaws are easily overlooked once you have the opportunity to tinker with every little element. You can change your keyboard layout in less than 30 seconds, and the laptop will remember your RGB or lighting settings if you switch back. If you’re still confused why desktop aficionados love to throw together a PC build, perhaps the Framework Laptop 16 can teach you a few of the joys of throwing a jumble of aluminum, plastic, and silicon together to create something wholly yours.