For a gaming laptop it lacks sex appeal. I’m not asking for rgb keyboard, but maybe something that doesn’t look like an office issued accounting computer.
I think that’s a feature. I find “gaming” laptops with all the red stripes, rgb, stupid angles everywhere, etc. to look very cringe.
If anything it incentivizes people to buy a separate “work” laptop (for those who might need to buy one themselves) because you can’t show up with that thing at a professional meeting or something like that because it looks ridiculous, juvenile, and in bad taste.
I actually love the fact that it DOESN’T have some tacky leet gamer design like nearly every other gaming laptop
I’m with you. I was in the market for a new laptop earlier this year and it was surprisingly hard to find something that didn’t look like it was designed by and for a bunch of teenagers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what you enjoy, but it’s thoroughly not my style.
Cool, but $1699 Euros seems a bit much, no? ~$1800 US
They have cheaper devices, starting at ~850€, but I agree they are a bit expensive over all. They can’t really compete with the big players out there, as their volumes are rather small.
Sadly this is the same with framework laptops or fairphone’s devices as well. They are great products, but their price to value ratio is way worse than these big companies.
Luckily if I need devices that these companies produce, I will definitely buy from them.
Great! It’s good to see they are also contributing upstream!
If you’re not rich or willing enough to contribute to this, the ASUS TUF Advantage (2023) is a very similar all-AMD gaming laptop, a good fit for Linux, at roughly half the price on sale. I’ve been using it for a few months now. Zen3+ cores instead of Zen4 but 32GB RAM and an RX7600S, but with only 1920x1200 pixels at 165 Hz, instead of 1440p.
Just make sure to install a distro with a recent kernel version:
- Pop!_OS (best “just works” distro with recent kernel)
- Fedora 39+ or derivative (such as Nobara)
- Archlinux or a derivative like EndeavourOS or Garuda
Linux Mint will not work out of the box so if you insist on Linux Mint, you will have to install a newer kernel yourself.
It’s good but not strictly necessary to install asusctl and supergfxctl on it for stuff like limiting battery charge to 80% and turning off the dGPU when working away from wall power.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I don’t have a strong opinion about distributions, but just wanted to give some pointers to distros that come with a recent Linux kernel (6.5 or greater) for people who aren’t familiar.
Pop!_OS and Linux Mint seem to be the most recommended for beginners, probably because the net is filled with “how to do X on Ubuntu”. I recognize that Nobara, Fedora and OpenSUSE have an enthusiastic following too and I really think all of the distros I mentioned are good in their own way.
Am running EndeavourOS Sway Community Edition myself, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend that particular variant to people who don’t know what they’re getting into. Have tried to contribute a fix to it but it’s unmaintained currently.
Looking at the specs sheet, this stood out:
Fingerprint reader (Windows-only)
In general, or for this particular reader? The Framework fingerprint reader works well.
Tuxedo Laptops are great! I have one. The very best Linux laptops out there!
