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Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

system76.com

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Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#291

Post by rattray »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #228
fnord77 wrote: post #218

I don't understand why many of these workstation-class laptops have num. pads. It is so annoying to type with your hands off-center from the screen.

I don't understand why many workstation-class laptops DONT have a num pads. It is so annoying to have to type long sequences of digits without one.

This debate makes me wonder what it'd be like to have a keyboard layout in which the num pad is in the middle of the keyboard, such that on a qwerty keyboard Q-T, A-G, Z-V are on one side and Y-P, H-L, B-M on another, with the numbers in the middle (separated by a buffer space).

I know this sounds crazy, but IME the worst part of keyboard ergonomics on mac laptops is that my hands are much closer together than my shoulders are; widening to shoulder width makes for much more comfortable typing.

I'm sure nobody will crazy enough to build a laptop like this, but it makes me wonder...

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#292

Post by mvanaltvorst »

ur-whale wrote: post #286
tristor wrote: post #275

I want to love this, but the keyboard seems horrible. I know I'm exceptionally picky when it comes to keyboards, I usually just take a 60% mechanical keyboard with me, but I've been able to adjust to using the (non-crappy years) Macbook Pro keyboard and the Thinkpad keyboards while traveling, and generally find them acceptable. This keyboard though has really bad legends, an inexplicable numpad, and it takes up too m…

I've never bought a laptop without a numpad and would never even consider a laptop that doesn't have one. There are tons of apps, specifically in the video editing / 3D modeling space that are basically unusable without one. When I code, I have macros tied to numpad keys. Couldn't work without them. If all you do is browse the web and answer email on your laptop, then yeah, makes sense. For any serious work, no numpa…

Do you really feel like you would be constrained by the amount of shortcuts on a keyboard without a numpad? There are so many different combinations you can make once you include control/alt/fn etc. Sure, if you're used to shortcuts on a numpad I can see how it might hinder your productivity for a few weeks. However, working on a smaller keyboard will definitely not constrain the amount of flexibility you have in the long term once you get used to other shortcuts. You might even become more productive on a smaller keyboard, because it takes less effort to stay on the home row and find keys.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#293

Post by api »

Fergusonb wrote: post #86

I can't speak to the 4700u or the pangolin specifically, but I can offer this perspective on PopOS/AMD: I've been using System76's PopOS with my Asus Zephyrus G14 (4800hs) as a daily driver and I really like it. (freelance/web) The battery life is comparable to Windows (on integrated graphics mode, it has graphics switching available)at 7-10 hours with 70% brightness and balanced power settings using VScode and firef…

It's so unfortunate that it's called Pop! OS. That name is unspeakably awful. It screams "toy not suitable for anything serious."

It wouldn't turn me off from System76 if the hardware were good, but it's just... bad... real bad.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#294

Post by tristor »

ur-whale wrote: post #286
tristor wrote: post #275

I want to love this, but the keyboard seems horrible. I know I'm exceptionally picky when it comes to keyboards, I usually just take a 60% mechanical keyboard with me, but I've been able to adjust to using the (non-crappy years) Macbook Pro keyboard and the Thinkpad keyboards while traveling, and generally find them acceptable. This keyboard though has really bad legends, an inexplicable numpad, and it takes up too m…

I've never bought a laptop without a numpad and would never even consider a laptop that doesn't have one. There are tons of apps, specifically in the video editing / 3D modeling space that are basically unusable without one. When I code, I have macros tied to numpad keys. Couldn't work without them. If all you do is browse the web and answer email on your laptop, then yeah, makes sense. For any serious work, no numpa…

I probably feel differently, because I'm used to using shortcuts and macros on a TKL (or smaller) keyboard. There are many different ways to achieve that, but for instance on my 60% mechanical keyboards I have between 3 and 14 layers (depending on keyboard firmware) which can be accessed with modifiers and trigger macros. There are significantly more combinations available to me on a 60% keyboard or on a laptop keyboard, with appropriate tooling, than is available on a numpad.

I've been doing "serious work" for my entire career, thanks, although these days I do spend more time in Zoom meetings and writing emails/documents.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#295

Post by ansible »

fnord77 wrote: post #218

I don't understand why many of these workstation-class laptops have num. pads. It is so annoying to type with your hands off-center from the screen.

Six years ago, I searched long and hard for a 15.6in screen laptop with a SSD and no numeric keypad. HP had just come out with the first of their Omen series of gaming laptops.

I've sort of regretted the decision. Not the keypad part, I still hate those, but there are other little aspects to the laptop I still don't like, or didn't work quite right.

I don't know, I guess I shouldn't really complain. For all the expense, the 16G of RAM and SSD are holding up well after this time. The programmable gaming keys didn't work quite right for my purposes (I just wanted dedicated PgUp / PgDown, Home and End, with the shift and Ctrl variants), and the battery life is crap these days (glued in). It still mostly works though.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#296

Post by Fergusonb »

Tade0 wrote: post #204
Fergusonb wrote: post #86

I can't speak to the 4700u or the pangolin specifically, but I can offer this perspective on PopOS/AMD: I've been using System76's PopOS with my Asus Zephyrus G14 (4800hs) as a daily driver and I really like it. (freelance/web) The battery life is comparable to Windows (on integrated graphics mode, it has graphics switching available)at 7-10 hours with 70% brightness and balanced power settings using VScode and firef…

> I've been using System76's PopOS with my Asus Zephyrus G14 (4800hs) as a daily driver and I really like it. (freelance/web) Thank you for the pointer. I have the exact same laptop and tried Ubuntu on it - couldn't even change the screen brightness.

You won't be able to change the brightness or use the keyboard shortcuts by default, but it's pretty easy to use mainline to get the latest kernel which will support those features.

This would also work for Ubuntu.

https://github.com/bkw777/mainline

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#297

Post by scns »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #228
fnord77 wrote: post #218

I don't understand why many of these workstation-class laptops have num. pads. It is so annoying to type with your hands off-center from the screen.

I don't understand why many workstation-class laptops DONT have a num pads. It is so annoying to have to type long sequences of digits without one.

The NEO2 layout has the numpad on another layer under the right hand, no numpad needed.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#298

Post by ansible »

api wrote: post #293
Fergusonb wrote: post #86

I can't speak to the 4700u or the pangolin specifically, but I can offer this perspective on PopOS/AMD: I've been using System76's PopOS with my Asus Zephyrus G14 (4800hs) as a daily driver and I really like it. (freelance/web) The battery life is comparable to Windows (on integrated graphics mode, it has graphics switching available)at 7-10 hours with 70% brightness and balanced power settings using VScode and firef…

It's so unfortunate that it's called Pop! OS. That name is unspeakably awful. It screams "toy not suitable for anything serious." It wouldn't turn me off from System76 if the hardware were good, but it's just... bad... real bad.

Any more, all I care about is how searchable the name is. That's something to like with Debian and Ubuntu.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#299

Post by pier25 »

spijdar wrote: post #276
pier25 wrote: post #272

Why do they use such ugly fonts for the keyboard? It's an immediate turn off.

Probably because it's (likely) a Clevo NL51RU or something similar and they use these gamer-y legends. [0] [0] https://clevo-computer.com/media/image/15/da/88/CLEVO-NL51RU...

My question was rather "why would anyone use such an ugly font on a keyboard?" :)
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