System76 Announces "Kudu" AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX Powered Laptop

[torsionbar28]

1080p on a 15 inch display is about 140DPI that's just not good enough - it wasn't good enough in 2018 and it isn't good enough in 2022. Today you can pretty much get a 4k TV for a reasonable price, you can also get good 4k monitor for a reasonable low price, and even the budget Smartphones have screen resolution over 250DPI, but laptops? no .. you want a higher than 1080p and you pay the a double premium price and this is all because "1080p is good enough".

DPI is meaningless without also discussing viewing distance and display size. You're ignoring two thirds of the equation. I don't think 1080p is good enough - I think it's the best choice for a 15" laptop. Cost is not even part of my equation. You do you boo.

[Paradigm Shifter]

It's a start. Hopefully it's a success and more follow... but I think that'll depend more on the ODM than System76 themselves...

As for the resolution debate, at least the industry seems to be finally moving away from 1366x768, which was a horrible resolution even on the 11.6" screen which was the only laptop I've ever had with a res that low. I prefer to get a higher resolution than a lower one, although my previous "portable monster" laptop was 4K and was microscopic on a 15" screen. I had a brief detour to 2560x1600 on a 17" ultralight (for travelling, then SARS-Cov-2 happened so travelling didn't!) and am currently using a 1440p 15.6" screen, which is probably the best screen I've ever used on a laptop.

4K on a <28" panel is a touch too small for me; on a 32" panel it's just right.

[torsionbar28]

i just can't understand why people buying is kind of product. That's pretty much a rebranded cheap laptop from china. Is it for linux support? I doubt that, considering the hardware it has. It doesn't live up "linux laptop" gimmick.

All consumer laptops are made in China, HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. No, I don't like it either, but that's what we're stuck with. Good luck getting any kind of support buying direct from the Chinese manufacturer. Ever tried shipping something to China and back? It'll either cost $hundreds to go quickly, or you'll be waiting 6 to 12 weeks for the slow boat to arrive. And you'll need a translator. And you'll be lucky if you don't get scammed in the process or otherwise spend money to not get what you expected.

Having owned System76 machines in the past, I can state from experience (had to RMA one once) that they have top notch US-based tech support for both software and hardware warranty problems. Very fast turn around and overnight US shipping = happy customers. Their online tech support is great too, for software and configuration questions. Arriving with Linux pre-installed, fully vendor supported (to include bios and firmware updates), and all hardware working out-of-the-box, I'm not sure what else you're looking for in a "linux laptop". Care to elaborate?

[quikee]

This 100%. I just bought a 15" Dell Precision 7560. Total price was north of $3600 with the Xeon and 32 GB ECC memory and a few TB's of NVMe. I opted for the 1080p panel even though higher res ones were available. Higher res makes no sense on a screen that small. To utilize the rez you'd have to sit hunched over like an ape with your face 6 inches from the display. No thanks. I'll take normal res, better performance, and longer battery life of 1080p.

I'll take 4k on a 27" desktop display all day, but for a 15" laptop screen, 1080p is perfection.

1080p is good enough? OK - and then the same people cry when new font rendering doesn't do hinting and sub-pixel positioning anymore (which aren't possible to implment when you render on the GPU) and the fonts look blurry. And also HiDPI scaling - ever heard of that? The physical size of the UI on a 4k at 2x scaling is the same as 1080p, however everything is sharper because of double the resolution.

1080p on a 15 inch display is about 140DPI that's just not good enough - it wasn't good enough in 2018 and it isn't good enough in 2022. Today you can pretty much get a 4k TV for a reasonable price, you can also get good 4k monitor for a reasonable low price, and even the budget Smartphones have screen resolution over 250DPI, but laptops? no .. you want a higher than 1080p and you pay the a double premium price and this is all because "1080p is good enough".

Apple is the only one that gets this and doesn't offer a low DPI screen - why? because they can do the all the UI rendering on the GPU without the fonts looking blurry. Rendering on the GPU also means LESS power is needed as CPU isn't involved in the rendering and there is no need to transfer textures from to main memory and GPU memory, so longer battery life and better performance.

[torsionbar28]

1080p is the sweet spot for laptops IMO. 1:1 app scaling is acceptable (especially in 15.6"),

This 100%. I just bought a 15" Dell Precision 7560. Total price was north of $3600 with the Xeon and 32 GB ECC memory and a few TB's of NVMe. I opted for the 1080p panel even though higher res ones were available. Higher res makes no sense on a screen that small. To utilize the rez you'd have to sit hunched over like an ape with your face 6 inches from the display. No thanks. I'll take normal res, better performance, and longer battery life of 1080p.

I'll take 4k on a 27" desktop display all day, but for a 15" laptop screen, 1080p is perfection.

[sarmad]

i just can't understand why people buying is kind of product. That's pretty much a rebranded cheap laptop from china. Is it for linux support? I doubt that, considering the hardware it has. It doesn't live up "linux laptop" gimmick.

They buy it for the Linux support and a guarantee that you are getting a machine that is compatible with Linux. You can do your homework and research what Windows laptops would work flawlessly or with tweaks on Linux, but that time you spend researching is also extra cost on you. So, people just prefer to pay extra for someone else to do this research for them.
However, this specific laptop is pretty ugly and bulky, with nVidia rather than Radeon RX, and it also has a small battery, so not sure why anyone would prefer this over the Oryx Pro.

[funtastic]

I got one of these Clevo laptops (in this case rebranded as Gigabyte) and I can even use the tuxedo drivers for keyboard lights/fan control. These are nice laptops that are good for gaming, because they are not thin so they don't get throttled. However, I can't see how someone would pay double of what this laptop is really worth just to have a "Tuxedo" or "System76" sticker on top of it (unless you are a freetard of course).

[M@GOid]

Brick is good - usually it means more durability, better battery and (whats important) good cooling system. I am already sick of "notebooks" that are thin as sheet of paper and have a 15W parody on CPU for a price of a good laptop. And I don't have any problem with brick weight, since any notebook needs a bag or backpack for transportation.

Amen brother.

But don't associate weight with thickness. It is perfectly possible a notebook to be both thick and light. Before Jony Ivy (may he fall in his but and crack it) unleashed the MB Air on us, there was small machines that weren't netbooks, and weighted around 1kg/2lb.

[doomie]

The uglier the better. It's meant for hard work; not to win a beauty contest.

Hear hear! No RGB or random triangles and elipses in cheesy cheap silver == win

Brick is good - usually it means more durability, better battery and (whats important) good cooling system. I am already sick of "notebooks" that are thin as sheet of paper and have a 15W parody on CPU for a price of a good laptop. And I don't have any problem with brick weight, since any notebook needs a bag or backpack for transportation.

There are very few practical cases for otherwise, like having to carry much physical paper in said bag, but that isn't actually very common anymore.

[kylew77]

Nvidia GPU is a non-starter for me. Would have been better if they waited for the Arc GPU or even a discrete AMD GPU.