System76 Pangolin Laptop Launches - Powered By AMD Ryzen 4000 Series

[Mez']

I'm shopping for a 15'' laptop atm - I had hoped to be able to postpone the buy until Zen3 models were available, but it seems that it will be close to impossible to get any before end of may at the minimum, at least in Europe.
This one seems quite similar to the Tongfang based models from Schenker (via 15 pro) and Tuxedo (Pulse), the main difference being the 4700U vs 4800H cpu, and possibly the screen.
Would anyone have a recommendation?

Depends what you're looking for.
The (pre-installed) Linux offering is growing between the models oriented towards devs (Dell and Lenovo + some System76 models) and the more mainstream ones (System76 and Tuxedo), yet it's still very limited. Especially on the AMD side, we're only just talking about ± 5-10 models. Add in a dGPU you're only left with a couple of AMD + Nvidia models.
Some look for unsoldiered RAM, some would want 4K screens, for others 2K 16:10, 3:2 or 501:999 screens are fine, one won't like when the manufacturer skimp on the battery capacity, then some cheap smartasses have 300$ as a budget and expect to get a Ryzen 5999U. And when you finally found your "almost every criteria filler" killer one, it's 20 kgs and doesn't fit the mobile bill.

Basically, given the little choice we have and the even smaller sub-choice (AMD/INTEL, dGPU/iGPU), you're going to have to make compromises on some points, even at a big price tag. I've looked for a year before buying the Tuxedo Aura 15.
Sorry for the non constructive answer. It just boils down to research and compromises.

[scratchi]

Is it using coreboot like their other laptops? If it is, thats pretty awesome

[torsionbar28]

Looks like a nice laptop, but why do so many manufacturers put a number pad on their 15" laptop models? Laptops are already ergonomic nightmares, forcing you into a hunched over neanderthal position to operate a display that's hinged to the keyboard. Now they want you to either sit off-center, or use an asymmetric arm position?? It's like a medieval torture device. I swear, this must be some conspiracy to drive revenue for chiropractors.

[eltomito]

1080p, 16:9 ratio in 2021, seriously?

All the major manufacturers have moved to 16:10 and 3:2 now. Especially as Linux users are more likely to do actual work on their machines makes this all the more important.

Widescreen is great for professional translators, for instance. You want the source and destination documents side by side and a 3:2 screen is a nightmare for that. I'm actually considering getting their 4500U laptop. If it's well built, the price seems about right to me.

It's beyond me why anyone would want to use 16:10 instead of 16:9 which is an established movie format. Why?

[Mez']

Looks like a nice laptop, but why do so many manufacturers put a number pad on their 15" laptop models? Laptops are already ergonomic nightmares, forcing you into a hunched over neanderthal position to operate a display that's hinged to the keyboard. Now they want you to either sit off-center, or use an asymmetric arm position?? It's like a medieval torture device. I swear, this must be some conspiracy to drive revenue for chiropractors.

As I was saying above, we all have specific criteria. Some harder than others. For me, there needs to be a numpad.
It feels so much more convenient than to contort my hands holding the left shift with the pinkie while going for 8-9 with the thumb (or right shift + 1-2-3 depending on the hand).
The bottom line is "to each his own" once again.

[torsionbar28]

It's beyond me why anyone would want to use 16:10 instead of 16:9 which is an established movie format. Why?

Historically there have been different resolutions and ratios for content creation vs content consumption. While the movie is 16:9 to consume, those creating/editing it have toolbars above and below the content. 16:10 allows the content to be displayed at 1:1 scale and still has room for the toolbars. That said, I'm not sure who is doing any kind of serious video content creation on a laptop, especially a consumer model. Limited battery life, awful ergonomics, and noisy high speed fans make laptops the wrong tool for the job.

[eltomito]

Looks like a nice laptop, but why do so many manufacturers put a number pad on their 15" laptop models?

Because some programs have important shortcuts assigned to numpad keys and they're weird to use without them. My subtitle editor is a good example. Also, when I assign shortcuts for anything in LibreOffice, I go for the numpad first, because it's ready at hand, all grouped together. For instance, when I translate screenplays, I need shortcuts for these paragraph styles: scene heading, scene description, character name, dialog, action description. The only place to put them next to each other is on the numpad (with ctrl or something like that). I can't use normal number keys, because they double as characters in other languages and that screws up the macro assignment when you switch keyboard layouts. The letter keys are more stable but they're already used for all kinds of other useful things (italic, bold, underline, open file, save file, bla bla bla). And reassigning the F keys Fs up the desktop manager.

[asriel]

Widescreen is great for professional translators, for instance. You want the source and destination documents side by side and a 3:2 screen is a nightmare for that. I'm actually considering getting their 4500U laptop. If it's well built, the price seems about right to me.

It's beyond me why anyone would want to use 16:10 instead of 16:9 which is an established movie format. Why?

Because world is not limited to translators and movie fans. For me as a scientist and developer 16:9 is a nightmare because most of the screen space is taken by the ugly interface leaving narrow gap for the meaningfull content. Yes - it can be ok to split screen in 2 part if yu have 4K or 8K monitor 30+ inches , but we are talking about laptops here. Splitting this little screen in 2 is like reading on 2 phones.

If we are talking about content creators - they will also benefot from extra space on 16:10 because allow you more space for control elements while testing the content. Kind of counters or progressbars can be not on top of the content but under it.

So there will be a lot of people welocming 16:10 and 3:2 screens. Unfortunately those screens are not yet in such mass production and usually used in expensive premium laptops.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Tuxedo has also developed a nice BIOS, the keyboard backlight is supported (fn keys included for colors or brightness), the Tuxedo fan control, some drivers and a few other utilities.
In addition, you can get many different keyboard layouts, and a nice Tux for Super key, that looks better than the one on the Pangolin.
If this is indeed the same model, I definitely recommend it. I don't know if System76 has some custom tools or drivers but they might interchanged with Tuxedo's. Worth a try.

That's interesting (and useful!) to know - thanks!

16:10? 16:10 is dead man only apple uses that shit

I disliked the shift of the industry toward 16:9, apparently simply to copy television, and am happy to see 16:10 return.

Cool. The oddest thing about System76 for me has been their consistent use of NVIDIA GPUs; they render their other machines basically useless to me.

I need CUDA for work, but I just picked up a Ryzen APU-based mini-PC to tinker around with. I wanted to wait until the 5000 series APUs were available, but I found a deal I couldn't say no to, even if it is a slightly older APU.

Not having to faff around with nVidia drivers is a revelation - if I can (realistically) translate some of the CUDA applications I use(/have code for) to AMD using HIPpify (not expecting it to work, but willing to give it a shot) I will be very, very happy.

[tornado99]

The Lenovo Ideapad is 16:10 and only around 600-700 Euros. 16:10 are definitely available in the mid-range market, and Acer even do some 3:2 at the lower end. These aren't boutique options.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-updates-the-16-10-IdeaPad-S540-13-laptop-with-AMD-Ryzen-4000.479644.0.html

Slapping a 1080p screen on a laptop is just lazy in 2021.