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System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

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Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#111

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

Re: Battery life, are you using stock Pop OS or did you put something else on? I have also gotten bad battery life but I'm pretty sure it is because I installed over it; the battery life claimns come as a result of power-saving features built into Pop OS.

I have been using stock PopOS, and my battery life has been poor.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#113

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

> * Nice keyboard Hang on, I thought this was still Clevo stuff. I bought a Clevo-ODM laptop a decade or so ago, the keyboard was atrocious in feel (no click left at all on most keys, just linearish sponginess) and activation (e.g. Space was quite difficult to activate, A would very regularly double-activate) within two years. And I know I’ve heard similar complaints regularly since then from others.

I mean, maybe they're better after a decade

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#114

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

> As mentioned no gpu, while costing about the same as razor laptop.

Consider the lack of GPU a blessing. You absolutely do not want a hybrid NVIDIA GPU laptop, unless you want to sit with it plugged in at a desk while the fans try and keep the GPU from melting through the case. Worse battery life. With absolutely not a single other tangible benefit.

Unless you are using the GPU for machine learning or w/e, in that case, the only utility it has.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#115

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

>Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally this laptop doesn't have an nvidia gpu, which means its job is easier. This might be…

Want to also add that unless you want to stick with Pop OS!, custom firmware will need to be installed, that custom firmware conflicts with packages from many distros. Without that custom firmware, your fans won't scale properly and you will struggle with hardware sleep, battery life, performance in general, etc.

Ironic that distro hopping on a linux-first laptop becomes difficult. But, priorities, I guess.

Maybe being stuck on Pop isn't an issue for some, but for those of us who don't like a UI locked in brown and teal that isn't being updated because they are writing their own entire (also ugly) DE, it is a problem.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#116

I'll say the same thing I always say when System76 hardware is posted here. A 1080p screen should be a non-starter in 2023. How they are still selling these with low DPI screens doesn't make sense to me.

> A 1080p screen should be a non-starter in 2023

I'm at a point where the screen and battery are essentially the only parts of the laptop that matter. Everyone offers a selection of ram, storages, CPU, etc. But a good screen and battery are hard to find without going to the bigger brands.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah - as seen from a few comments on my post, everyone has different opinions on non-objective stuff related to keyboard/trackpad. I feel like the keyboard is pretty responsive while the trackpad isn't, but the only way for you to know is to have tried it I guess.

Keyboards don't have to be non objective. I think everyone agrees that ThinkPad keyboards were great (though since the T14s gen3 they too have lost their quality)

A friend back in college absolutely hated the ThinkPad keyboards, (thought they were too deep and bouncy) and loved Macbook's butterfly keyboard when it came out, marveling at the short travel and crisp feeling of it. It's indeed quite subjective.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Nice keyboard Hang on, I thought this was still Clevo stuff. I bought a Clevo-ODM laptop a decade or so ago, the keyboard was atrocious in feel (no click left at all on most keys, just linearish sponginess) and activation (e.g. Space was quite difficult to activate, A would very regularly double-activate) within two years. And I know I’ve heard similar complaints regularly since then from others.

yeah - as seen from a few comments on my post, everyone has different opinions on non-objective stuff related to keyboard/trackpad. I feel like the keyboard is pretty responsive while the trackpad isn't, but the only way for you to know is to have tried it I guess.

I’m not talking about subjective things, I’m talking about keyboards objectively wearing out 3–10× as fast as any reputable brand’s. I’ve deliberately filtered for objective cases like my own, including querying specifically on the nature of what was bad in at least a couple of cases. I’m not talking about opinions, I’m talking about a keyboard becoming decidedly spongy in less than one year (compare the feel of the least- and most-frequently-used keys—on ones like ASUS and Microsoft, it’s taken much longer than that before I can readily discern any difference), and and almost uselessly bad within two years, in ways that other companies’ haven’t failed in four years (… though others haven’t been without their problems, but I’ve never had one get anywhere near as bad in general in three or four years as the Clevo one was after a little over one year).

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#119

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

> As mentioned no gpu, while costing about the same as razor laptop. Consider the lack of GPU a blessing. You absolutely do not want a hybrid NVIDIA GPU laptop, unless you want to sit with it plugged in at a desk while the fans try and keep the GPU from melting through the case. Worse battery life. With absolutely not a single other tangible benefit. Unless you are using the GPU for machine learning or w/e, in that c…

Interesting, I've found hybrid GPU laptops to be pretty practical. I've had two over the years and on my newer one I installed PopOS, and there's a setting which puts it in hybrid mode, so by default the discrete GPU stays off, but you can run a program with some environmental vars and get it to use the Nvidia GPU.

When I'm not running a game, I get plenty of battery life out of it (4-6 hours or so?) and when I run a game I get decent performance. Exactly what I wanted. I haven't tried ML yet but I don't see why it'd be any different.

Re: System76's Lemur Pro Laptop Is Just a Nice Linux Laptop

#120

Figure I might as well drop a quick review after 2 years with the lemur pro 11 Pros: * Most things "just work", which you only appreciate after working with other linux laptops. For example, I can seamlessly plug this laptop in place of my work macbook with just one usb-c cable. That being said I think things have generally gotten better in the space so this may not be as much of a selling point anymore. Additionally…

I have a system pangolin (AMD 6800) and I can get 5-8 hours routinely. Daily driving for work and it’s been great.

My 6 year old oryx pro gets about 2 hours (on nvidia). It can game though… (steam is kinda amazing)

I really like matt screens which all these laptops have.

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