System76 has a littered history with firmware updates and drivers, especially for a company that brands itself as a specialist in Linux systems. If you're paying that premium in hopes you'll get a fully working system without quirks, be prepared for disappointment. I have had better luck with simply buying the most popular laptop since it's more likely to be working correctly without hours of configurations.
> If you're paying that premium in hopes you'll get a fully working system without quirks, be prepared for disappointment. I have had better luck with simply buying the most popular laptop since it's more likely to be working correctly without hours of configurations.
I disagree. I buy from, for example, ThinkPenguin, precisely because they've vetted the systems and I'm confident they will "just work" if I do a fresh reinstall.
yes, agreed completely. In general I've come to this conclusion: avoid buying hardware from small/lesser-known companies if possible. It doesn't matter how cool their tech is - what I'm sacrificing is not worth it. Every time, I'm missing build quality, support, and an online community that has already gone through and found solutions to most of the major issues.
I find it hard to imagine a situation where a s76 laptop can do something that a Dell XPS can't.
What premium are you paying? I never found that System76 products were that expensive. I owned one a while ago. It lasted 6 years and was still working when I replaced it.
Mainly comparing what you can get for a similar price in terms of CPU speed and memory size for half the cost. Their $920 laptop compares to a $500 Dell. In theory this is worth it because you're paying for that awesome Linux integration, but in practice more people buy the Dell laptop so more people are invested in making it work for daily use.
> In theory this is worth it because you're paying for that awesome Linux integration
Dell's hardware generally works quite well with Linux. Since 2014, I've bought two desktops and two laptops from Dell, and everything has worked out of the box with the Linux distributions I've tried. My employer bought a new desktop computer for me from Dell with Ubuntu installed. There's no need to pay a premium.
A 13" Macbook Pro as well as a Macbook (without Pro) start at $1,300 nowadays, which is 30% more than you are suggesting. 15" MBPs start at $2,400, which is 140% more.
Those are prices I'm comfortable paying for a ThinkPad, XPS, or Macbook. And all of them run a Unix variant (Linux or MacOS) very well. System76 needs to be offering similar levels of build quality and support for those systems to be worthwhile.
They are not offering the same level of build quality. Not by a long shot. At my last company we started with System76 for both desktops and laptops, but ended up switching to Dell for laptops and Exxact for desktops.
The System76 machines are also just Clevo laptops that are rebranded and sold. You're literally paying a "premium" for them to install a working version of linux and offer support on top.
Yeah, that's what I've heard. I don't have firsthand experience with their laptops, but I have no reason to expect (and many reasons to doubt, based on reports here) that they match up to the others in their price class.
System76 tech support here. An important part of comparing prices between two products is to make sure to make apples to apples comparisons. Our pricing includes a couple of value-adds that our competitor's do not.
First, all of our computers come with lifetime technical support. Me and my team are readily accessible both via the phone and our support system, for as long as you own the product. We not only support the Ubuntu and Pop! operating systems, and all of their software components, but we also help with printers, installed software, hardware issues, network configuration, and everything that comes our way. Few competitors will teach and educate and help in the ways that we do.
Next, all of our products also support our engineering efforts in the Linux community. Many desktop bugs and issues that we discover and fix affect every Linux user. For instance, NVMe drives had been around for a few years, but it was our engineer that found the GRUB install bug that prevented automatic installation on those drives due to a regex error with handing /dev/sda vs. /dev/nvme0n1. That fix was incorporated in Debian, Red Hat, and every other version of Linux that used the GRUB bootloader. The work we put into our operating system benefits all users in many cases. Buying our products means that when we discover bugs in the operating system, we can get them addressed quickly and effectively without waiting to deliver patches.
OK, I guess based on the downvotes people mostly think that these are premium prices. I honestly thought it was in the average range for the given specs.
