I just discovered a new PC manufacturer (at least new to me): System76. It comes with Ubuntu preinstalled, which sounds cool to me. The price wasn’t too bad either. The 17″ laptop (Bonobo performance) is what interested me since 17″ is what I currently have.
I am not ready for a new laptop (especially considering I just replaced my battery and my hard drive is pretty new too), but this is an option I want to consider the next time I am in the market.
The specs on the 17″ laptop looked pretty good (although I haven’t compared to other vendors). The two things I noticed right off were the battery and the keyboard. The battery was only 6 cell, and I am getting spoiled by my 9 cell battery. I didn’t see any option to upgrade to the 9 cell, and if I had to replace the battery, how would I know which model to buy? Since Dell is pretty popular, lots of options exist for their models. What about System76? Also, the keyboard is more compact with lots of wasted space around the edges. My Dell keyboard has more space around the edges and more extra buttons like volume buttons.
The two things that I would think would be important with Linux laptops would be the price and the innovation. The price wasn’t too bad (without doing comparisons), but the innovation wasn’t the greatest. The hardware offerings weren’t too bad for the innovation department, but I would expect more to make it standout. Maybe an ergonomic keyboard or a big escape button (for vi users) would make the case standout. The Ubuntu logo on the “Start” key was a good touch though. Those are all observations without actually touching or using it.
–Just some thoughts. I would love to hear opinions from people who actually have a System76 computer.