Very cool!
Keep an eye on that Kraken. I'm sure they've continuously gotten better, and this was a few years ago, but I had an X63 that sprung a leak on the radiator. Not as big of a deal when mounted vertical like yours, but it was a pretty big deal on my top-mounted one haha. Nothing damaged other than the radiator, and they warrantied me a new one right away.
Haha, I was definitely a little nervous switching to water cooling and will definitely keep on eye on things. It felt pretty robust and I have to assume they account for the average customer trying to shove these things into all kinds of cases. Fingers crossed!
Whoa, super cool case. I'm really into cases with unique layouts and that one is very much on my radar now. Nice build!
Thanks! Yeah, it's pretty decent case for the price . Maybe not the most amazing quality but it's versatile and I enjoyed building in it.
How's the framework treating you? I'm thinking of getting one as my next (and hopefully last) laptop
Overall, I'm satisfied with the Framework and it serves my needs well.
Of course, it will depend on your past laptop experience and expectations but I think as long as you know the shortcomings and compromises it's a solid choice. My last five laptops were made my Apple and operating systems aside I'm glad I made the switch to the Framework. What you give up in build quality, refinement, and performance per watt, you make up in freedom and flexibility and it's sometimes difficult to put a price on that.
If you want to read a wall of text here are some thoughts from my last 5 months with it:
The Good:
-I feel respected as a customer and love having control over the configuration, customization, and repair of the device I paid for.
-It's great knowing I can easily (and relatively cheaply) replace a broken part or even upgrade in the future.
-I got the DIY version and really appreciated being able to chose exactly the SSD, RAM, and ports I wanted.
-Battery life with the Ryzen 7 has been great. I get between 5-9 hours doing medium to light duty work (web browsing, docs, YouTube, design stuff).
-I love the matte screen - it doesn't look premium but there's less glare and fewer fingerprints.
-Performance is solid -I don't do anything crazy but it handles my work quickly with no fuss. Thermals are pretty good too.
-I ended up liking the 3:2 aspect ratio much more than I thought.
-The webcam and mic have been solid and I like the physical slides to turn them off.
-The fingerprint reader works well.
-I've had zero issues with any of the I/O or expansion cards and charging works well.
-I really like the keyboard. There's a good amount of travel (at least compared to some of the really thin laptops) with two backlight settings.
Meh:
-Some parts like the hinges, expansion card fitment, keyboard backlighting feel unrefined.
-The build quality is fine and nothing more.
-The trackpad is ok and on par with a lot of newish Windows laptops but could be so much better. It's glass which is nice but still a diving board design and occasionally struggles with precision.
-The display doesn't get dim enough for my liking.
-The modular ports doesn't excite me all that much but it's nice to have the flexibility (although the AMD option does limit some ports in some positions)
-The design isn't interesting or inspired but it's inoffensive.
-The little fan curve is annoying and at times will ramp up quickly in a short burst. If it's on during a sustained load it's noticeable but not that annoying.
-Support was friendly and responsive but the initial wait time was too long (but that may have improved by now).
-I feel confident that Framework will keep replacement parts around for a long time but don't have high hopes for that many improved parts (displays, trackpad, speakers, etc) outside of mainboard upgrades.
Cons:
-The speakers are bad. They typically get loud enough (if you're on a hard surface) but can get buzzy and just sound so cheap. Some software trickery helps but only to a point. This is one area where I really miss the MacBook.
-It's not a cheap laptop but Framework is a tiny company compared to the likes of Dell, HP, etc so that's not too surprising. I think it's worth the premium to support the company.
-The screws for the bottom case are pretty soft and easy to strip. I over tightened one and now need to replace it (at least it's easy to do!)
-I've been chasing down some random crashes that happen from time to time. Hard to say if it's a hardware issue but certainly frustrating.
