System76 Teases Their "Virgo" In-House Manufactured Laptop

[kylew77]

If they can put in a TrackPoint in the keyboard I might buy one assuming it is cheaper than an x1 carbon and in the 15 to 16 inch diagonal screen real-estate section. Hate me a 13 inch monitor. X1 carbon extreme is the best laptop out there BUT it comes with Nvidia GPU which is a non starter on OpenBSD.

[cb88]

I really would have preferred that they would partner with framework. they seem to be a good fit

Frameworks IO is stupid... lets give up double the IO for MODULARITY and increased costs!

You could literally fit an extra USB an HDMI + Ethernet in the space Framework squanders on 2 USB ports any other two ports.

[jamesblacklock]

Frameworks IO is stupid... lets give up double the IO for MODULARITY and increased costs!

You could literally fit an extra USB an HDMI + Ethernet in the space Framework squanders on 2 USB ports any other two ports.

Configurability, expandability, and repairability always come with tradeoffs in terms of form factor.

[cb88]

Configurability, expandability, and repairability always come with tradeoffs in terms of form factor.

Often tradeoffs are not worth making... and you have to use your brain to evaluate that something they clearly didn't bring to work. When you make such trade offs you are supposed to end up with a GOOD and useful form factor... not one that will break, costs more, and provides fewer features.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

If pursued... I could see this effectively being their death (?) I'd only do this if you have money to throw away and just want it as a marketing piece. So far, looks bad in so so so many ways. I'd keep with the partnerships and as someone else mentioned, frame.work might be an excellent choice (?)

With that said, System76, feel free to prove me wrong (I'm pretty confident in my assessment of this though).

Edit: Maybe this was an April Fools day joke??

You don't know their revenue. You don't know their operating profit. You don't know their cash on hand. You literally have zero financial information about System76. And yet you are "pretty confident" in your assessment. The only thing related to fools here is the army of Phoronix armchair quarterbacks who couldn't even explain how the business works that employs them, let alone some other company they have no insider information on.

[andyprough]

Shut up and take my money!

[isantop]

Looks like the one side was milled flat with a shellmill, engraved, then put on a vacuum plate and used a small endmill, maybe 1/4" or 3/8" endmill, to get everything else.
Are you guys going to attempt to do plastic injection? Cause plastic injection molding is pretty end-game for production, and quite expensive to set up correctly with few people in the world that know how to design and build such things.
Or are you guys going to keep it to lower-volume milled-from-solid aluminum? Planning on doing your own anodizing?
Its one thing to make a few to test out, its another to set up for production

I've been in the manufacturing industry for a lot of years now, and currently programming million dollar CNC machines. I always find it fun to see projects like this pop up that looks like there is at least somewhat of a competent approach to how the part is made. A lot of places stop after making some teaser products because of how different and more difficult it is to set up for production.

Unfortunately, I don't know many of the details of the final product. I mainly work on Pop_OS and just happened to be in the office on a day where they were showing this stuff off internally. That said I do trust the engineers and machinists will come up with something that works well and looks good.

[chocolate]

Cool!
Please don't make a cuneiform base to give the needless illusion of a slim profile, with a thin front edge that cuts the user's wrists.
Good luck with everything!

[sarmad]

Nice. Hope they focus on premium build quality.

[Teggs]

Are you guys going to attempt to do plastic injection? Cause plastic injection molding is pretty end-game for production, and quite expensive to set up correctly with few people in the world that know how to design and build such things.

<--- April 1 is that way.

But I laughed.