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System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

system76.com

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Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#5

Post by 1MachineElf »

protomyth wrote: post #2

I wish a person could order one of these without the numeric keypad. I deeply hate being off-center to the screen when typing on these larger portables.

Agreed. The least they could do, if a numpad really is necessary, is put something of equal size on the left side. A macro pad would be novel, or even just a left numpad so that right-hand mouse users could enter numbers at the same time.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#6

Post by nostrademons »

protomyth wrote: post #2

I wish a person could order one of these without the numeric keypad. I deeply hate being off-center to the screen when typing on these larger portables.

I have a 2013 Pangolin and the keypad & touchpad are the worst parts. They're decent machines otherwise, but the off-center keyboard and touchpad with no tactile feedback make it very hard to navigate around the interface. Looks like they might've fixed the touchpad at least in this reboot.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#7

Post by jagger27 »

I say it every time every time one of these threads pop up and I’ll say it again here: if it’s not 16:10 or 3:2 I’m simply not interested.

I buy devices like this for productivity. I don't care about black bars when watching videos because I don't watch videos on it. What I absolutely care about is the extra inch of text in my terminal or text editor.

I didn't think this was a controversial opinion.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#8

Post by johnzim »

protomyth wrote: post #2

I wish a person could order one of these without the numeric keypad. I deeply hate being off-center to the screen when typing on these larger portables.

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it.

I'm not a fan of symmetry for symmetry's sake, but I do think some affordances for the human body might be a good idea. How do southpaws enjoy this keyboard setup?

The ergonomics of laptops are bad enough without stuff like this.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#9

Post by jandrese »

The specs page is a bit vague in places.

    Graphics   AMD Radeon™ Graphics
    
    Storage    1 x M.2 SSD(SATA or PCIe NVMe). Up to 2TB total.
In the configurator you have to pay attention to the read speeds to figure out if you are getting a SATA or PCIe drive. There is no indication for which brand of drive they are using. I have a few SSD controllers that are on my do not buy list, like anything made by Sandforce[1] after we lost almost an entire lot of computers to premature firmware failures and got absolutely no support from the vendor for even just resetting the firmware and starting over.

[1] https://computerlounge.it/how-to-unbrick-sandforce-ssd/

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#10

Post by neogodless »

Obviously the "Linux-first" is a big value-add for this brand, but the hardware for the price isn't amazing.

$1200 gets you a Zen 2 (previous generation) 6-core, 12-thread CPU[0], 8GB RAM, 240 GB NVME, 15" 1080p (did not see brightness/color accuracy mentioned.)

But I like my laptops to come with fast refresh and a dedicated GPU, and I run Windows, so I'm not their target audience. Would love to hear how this is received by those in the right market segment!

[0] A bunch of $600-700 laptops with this CPU: https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-5-5500u

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