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I was recently in the market for a laptop that could be ordered with 16GB of RAM and two hard drives. The options I found were the the Dell M6600, Lenovo W520,

by sciurus 15y ago

I was recently in the market for a laptop that could be ordered with 16GB of RAM and two hard drives. The options I found were the the Dell M6600, Lenovo W520, and System76 Gazelle. System76 had the greatest range of options available and the lowest overall price. The best part was that the options were priced near their cost; going from 4GB to 16GB of RAM added only $280 to the cost compared to $480 from IBM and $800 from Dell. I haven't made detailed comparisons, but I expect System76 would be competitive for more mainstream laptop configurations as well.

eropple 15y ago
Quality doesn't mean only specs. System76 isn't competitive in terms of after-purchase support (Dell or Lenovo) or in terms of build quality (Lenovo). The reason people pay more for a Lenovo machine is because it's built like a tank. You pay more because you get more. System76, on the other hand? You pay less and you get a lot less. EDIT: System76's build quality looks even worse than it used to--those are truly hideous plasticky machines. They're also pretty underspecced and crappy, on the low end. The only processor available in their 13.1" model is an i3-330UM running at 1.2GHz. My x201 has an i5, and you can get them with i7's. It skimps in the peripherals, too: it comes with a 5400RPM hard disk and a smallish battery. When you up it to a 320GB 7200RPM disk and a halfway decent battery, you're already up to what I paid for my X201. Adding 8GB of RAM puts it over (although that's somewhat unfair because I bought my RAM off Newegg). The machine also weighs more than my x201, has one of those weird button-y keyboards, no trackpoint, has a glossy screen, and less pixel density. Fails across the board. So, at least for me, System76 doesn't even begin to compete with Lenovo. Even if you don't consider Linux on the desktop a minus, it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy what looks in most ways to be a cheapie Dell knockoff.
- eropple 15y ago
  Clarification: where I refer to my x201 having an i5, that is to say it has a non-ULV i5, running at 2.4GHz.

by sciurus 15y ago

eropple 15y ago

Quality doesn't mean only specs. System76 isn't competitive in terms of after-purchase support (Dell or Lenovo) or in terms of build quality (Lenovo). The reason people pay more for a Lenovo machine is because it's built like a tank. You pay more because you get more. System76, on the other hand? You pay less and you get a lot less. EDIT: System76's build quality looks even worse than it used to--those are truly hideous plasticky machines. They're also pretty underspecced and crappy, on the low end. The only processor available in their 13.1" model is an i3-330UM running at 1.2GHz. My x201 has an i5, and you can get them with i7's. It skimps in the peripherals, too: it comes with a 5400RPM hard disk and a smallish battery. When you up it to a 320GB 7200RPM disk and a halfway decent battery, you're already up to what I paid for my X201. Adding 8GB of RAM puts it over (although that's somewhat unfair because I bought my RAM off Newegg). The machine also weighs more than my x201, has one of those weird button-y keyboards, no trackpoint, has a glossy screen, and less pixel density. Fails across the board. So, at least for me, System76 doesn't even begin to compete with Lenovo. Even if you don't consider Linux on the desktop a minus, it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy what looks in most ways to be a cheapie Dell knockoff.

eropple 15y ago
Clarification: where I refer to my x201 having an i5, that is to say it has a non-ULV i5, running at 2.4GHz.