
KDE Slimbook: Linux Laptop with Ryzen 4000 - ekianjo
https://kde.slimbook.es/
======
openfuture
I have a slimbook pro (the model before the silver keyboard) and sadly I am
very unhappy with it, I got a fairly maxed out version and it's fans are
always on full blast and I have found no way to keep the power management
under control except throttling the CPU - so it is constantly overheated,
suspend is not working properly and the chassis is not strong enough so the
fans stall unless you have it on a flat surface. Note that I have some lenovo
computer from work which is configured in the exact same way and there are no
overheating or suspend issues.

I also got a pinebook pro and I managed to use it a sum total of 12 times (and
only on flat surfaces with the power plugged in because otherwise the screen
would flicker like a strobe light) before the screen completely gave up and
now it's an expensive paperweight.

Still I will keep buying these things.. eventually someone will figure out how
to make reliable laptops that align with the ethos of free software. I've
researched system76, puri.sm and also lately the way too expensive MNT reform,
but really the only laptop people seem to be happy with is thinkpad x220 /
x230 which came out 12 years ago.... This makes me sad.

I would pay a lot for a super sturdy laptop which works (and aligns with the
free software ethos).

~~~
angyrold
I think the T series is great. I have a T460 (bought off ebay for $140). I had
an extra SSD, some old ram sticks I stuck in there and it works great. The
dock off of Amazon cost me approximately 20 bucks. The CPU maxes and never
goes above 55 C (idles 37-40) and runs almost all my dev tasks as needed. The
laptop is approximately the size of my 13" 2015 Macbook Pro (my wife currently
has taken that one). I have two headless machines with GPUs if I want to game
(via Parsec or Steam streaming) or use GPU for Python notebooks etc.

I've run Fedora and a custom Debian setup in the past (and currently am using
Void Linux). Things mostly work with no real issues.

I think perhaps the mistake is paying premium with new and shiny things that
haven't stood the test of time is the problem here? If you buy cheap
(something that is a known quantity also), you're less likely to feel the b
urn of walking away from the shiny / expensive new thing, right?

Note: I also have the X230 (bought off craigslist for ~$100, 2 years ago) and
have given that to my dad who has used it happily for years now.

~~~
orhmeh09
I’ve had a T480 since summer 2018. It is the worst computer I have ever owned,
less reliable and poorer build quality than a $250 Acer netbook from 2010. I
had to install Windows because of an error to update one of several firmware
issues that have arisen with this machine — this one relating to Thunderbolt
without which it could not provide external output over any port but HDMI, and
there only at 30 Hz for 4K. And I think the throttling issue is still not
fixed. The ports on the board are extremely flimsy and I’m going to have to
send my machine in to fix them a second time. At the very least they have
massive issues in developing and deploying quality firmware.

~~~
jorvi
Posts like this make me anxious to step out of the MacBook Pro bubble even
though I want to. Aside from the butterfly keyboard saga those devices have
generally been built very well, whereas I read nothing but complaints about
the Dell XPS / Lenovo T4XX / HP Spectre du jour. Ranges from flimsy build
quality to poor screens to coil whine to rapidly degrading batteries.

~~~
bradstewart
In terms of build quality, Dell's Latitude business notebooks have been great
for a very long time. I have one from 6-7 years ago that's still running
strong.

I've also been really happy with my Razer Blade which I've used alongside a
Macbook Pro for the last ~3 years.

~~~
thingsgoup
I can’t say enough good things about dell latitude. It’s to the point that
they are all I use. You can get a _great_ laptop for ~400 on eBay and when
stuff breaks or wears out you can actually fix it yourself using spare parts
that are easy to find

------
lhl
For those interested in this or the Tuxedo Pulse 15 or Schenker VIA 15 Pro
(all based off of the same barebones TongFang PF5NU1G), I have one and I’ve
been doing a pretty thorough review here: [https://www.notion.so/lhl/Mechrevo-
Code-01-TongFang-PF5NU1G-...](https://www.notion.so/lhl/Mechrevo-
Code-01-TongFang-PF5NU1G-Information-8009025fdefc40118ab0ea973e7e0988)

~~~
boudewijnrempt
How did you manage to break the page-up/page-down/home/end keys on that page?

~~~
chrismorgan
Notion pages are _so bad_ in those ways. Space/Shift+Space don’t work either,
arrows do very much the wrong thing, they wrap all the text blocks with
contenteditable (why!? it’s not even like I can _edit_ the page!) which
mangles at least Firefox’s link handling (it makes it not show the href in the
status bar on hover) and Tab-based keyboard focus (it makes each block
focusable, despite that being useless, and _stops_ inline links from being
focusable), …

It’s just awful. An accessibility disaster, and I don’t say such things
lightly (normally I might just say it has serious problems).

If I come across much more usage of Notion, I’ll need to craft a user script
to unbreak as much as I can.
document.querySelectorAll('[contenteditable]').forEach(e => e.contentEditable
= false) is a good start, fixing the focus issues. Unfortunately all their
event handlers are on the root element, so you can’t just clobber them with
document.body.outerHTML = document.body.outerHTML or similar but must figure
out some other way of deregistering or breaking their event handlers.

~~~
coldpie
It'd be cool if browsers had some way to display text and handle things like
scrolling and linking to other pages. Really a big oversight when they were
designing HTML. Too bad though, I guess every site will have to implement all
of that from scratch in JS.

~~~
chrismorgan
I think the problem here isn’t that, so much as that Notion is using their
_editing_ interface even when you’re clearly only reading the document and
can’t edit it, and kinda whitewashing it a bit so that it’s not actually
editable (with event handlers to stop the normal editing things working,
turning the caret colour transparent, _& c._), and that seems to mess things
up even further. (I don’t use Notion, but I presume their editing interface
works better when it’s not read-only, because otherwise no one would be
willing to use it.) Of course what they should have done is just produced the
HTML (preferably server-side, but even client-side would be tolerable) and
left it alone, no contenteditable, event handlers.

------
hardwaresofton
So this looks like the walmart MOTILE laptop[0][1], but rebranded?

Is this basically a System76[2]-like effort?

[EDIT] - I own an System76 Oryx Pro and love it -- this laptop being a
rebranded effort is _not_ a bad thing in my mind, if anything it gives me more
faith in the initial build quality. If the KDE org gets it just as right as
System76 (open source drivers galore, fantastic system tooling and support),
then this is going to be a boon for open source everywhere, more money in
KDE's pockets, more linux-first machines out there.

[0]: [https://www.walmart.com/ip/MOTILE-14-Performance-Laptop-
FHD-...](https://www.walmart.com/ip/MOTILE-14-Performance-Laptop-FHD-AMD-
Ryzen-3-Radeon-Vega-Graphics-THX-Spatial-Audio-Tuned-display-4GB-RAM-128GB-
SSD-HDMI-Front-720P-HD-IR-Camera-Rose/708573214)

[1]: [https://the-gadgeteer.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/Motile-...](https://the-gadgeteer.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/Motile-00-800x600.jpg)

[2]: [https://system76.com/laptops](https://system76.com/laptops)

~~~
wmf
It's made by Tongfeng and rebranded by Mechrevo, Schenker, Tuxedo, etc.

~~~
voltagex_
Replying here in the hopes someone knows if anyone resells these in Australia.
Last I looked it was all Clevo.

------
XorNot
Oh my god...is that a 15" laptop _without_ a number pad being crammed onto the
side of the keyboard, thus _not_ forcing all my typing to be awkwardly offset
and uncomfortable?

~~~
tomrod
This is my beef with laptops. I bought a huge laptop just so I could have a
numberpad.

But I've been amazed at how many programmers don't like to have them. Why?

~~~
krzyk
Why would I use numpad?

Even on normal keyboards I don't use it, and they are annoying because they
make the mouse position awkwardly more to the right than it should be healthy
for the arm (I really envy left handed people, they don't have to deal with
this).

And it is next to impossible to get a keyboard without the numpad, fortunately
I found two such keyboards and I have one at work and one at home (Logitech
K310 and Microsoft Sculpt).

And I haven't seen in live any person that uses numpad, I always thought it is
used by accountants only (and those that don't want to use two hands to enter
numbers).

~~~
pqb
FYI: Keyboards without the numpad block are called "TenKeyLess Keyboards"
(sometimes it is abbreviated to TKL acronym) or 87/80% keyboards.

In short research, I found they are hundreds of them available on Amazon,
Aliexpress. However, most of them have mechanical switches[0][1], some of them
have conducted switches (like Topre[2]) and it is very rarely to see cheap,
typical office-use TKL keyboards made by companies like Microsoft or Logitech
but Matias have at least sell one model [3].

It might be handy to read a short guide [4] of keyboard naming by their sizes,
whether you will look for new keyboard in future.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/10-keyless-
keyboard/s?k=10+keyless+ke...](https://www.amazon.com/10-keyless-
keyboard/s?k=10+keyless+keyboard)

[1]:
[https://www.keyboardco.com/category.asp?path=Mechanical%20Ke...](https://www.keyboardco.com/category.asp?path=Mechanical%20Keyboards/Tenkeyless)

[2]:
[https://www.amazon.com/s?k=topre&ref=nb_sb_noss_1](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=topre&ref=nb_sb_noss_1)

[3]:
[https://www.keyboardco.com/category.asp?path=Mac/Standard/Te...](https://www.keyboardco.com/category.asp?path=Mac/Standard/Tenkeyless)

[4]: [https://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/full-
size-...](https://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2017/08/full-size-
tkl-60-and-more-a-guide-to-mechanical-keyboard-sizes/)

~~~
numpad0
Happy Hacking used to have cheap membrane "Lite" versions in 80% format. Those
were great for the price.

------
Roritharr
Why is it so hard to produce a 13" Notebook with a Ryzen 4800U, 32 GB Ram (or
better just two Sockets) and two 4k/60hz Outputs?

Make one HDMI 2.0 and the other Displayport over Type-C and I'm fine.

I'd love to see a USB 3 Type-A Port aswell but that seems like too much to ask
nowadays.

~~~
sz4kerto
Lenovo X13 with Ryzen 4750U + 32 GB RAM + docking station is quite similar.

~~~
boruto
> You can get 32GB of RAM in a 15" form factor, just not in 13".

> This is due to the well known engineering limitation that links LCD size to
> the density of RAM modules that can be supported by a motherboard.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21445497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21445497)

I thought this comment 8 months back was correct. I dont know the limitation
nor could find something related.

~~~
Roritharr
This is simply not true. My current Notebook is a 32GB Ram equipped 13"
Toshiba Portegé X-30-D, comes in at nearly 1KG and is available with a quad-
core i7-8550U.

I'd just like a Ryzen 4800U version of my current machine, even if it means
sacrificing Thunderbolt 3.

I think i'll have to wait for 5800U to come around and have USB4 though to see
that happen. :(

~~~
Roritharr
Here is a link to a block diagram to show what's possible on Renoir Chipsets:

[https://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc3/...](https://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc3/AMD_Renoir_Block_Diagram.jpg)

------
lvturner
Yep, still get access denied via Cloudflare on this and can't access it.

A bit frustrating that there is no way to report that you might be seeing this
message in error.

EDIT: Especially frustrating as I'm actively looking for a good Linux laptop
to replace my MacBook - specifically I'm worried about compatibility with my
thunderbolt docks

~~~
bubblethink
no thunderbolt with amd laptops at the moment

~~~
lvturner
Do you know of any intel based machines that work well with thunderbolt docks
and are worth considering?

~~~
callahad
Very happy with my (5th generation) ThinkPad X1 Carbon running NixOS and
connected to a Toshiba Thunderbolt 3 dock. Everything works just perfectly.

------
toastal
Given we have the technology, I don't think it's wise to advertise this
machine as ready for serious digital painting and video editing with only 100%
sRGB gamut. Color accuracy can be recalibrated, but the gamut can't be
expanded. Video editing really should be done in the wider gamut like 94-100%
DCI-P3. The same thing applies to photo editing and digital painting in DCI-P3
or Adobe RGB. Many high-end phones have these specs and many monitor as well
as the HDR screens on TV and projectors. However, all of the laptop with
panels in the appropriate ranges for digital content creation (XPS series,
ZenBook Pro Duo, ConceptD, etc.) are all running Intel chips -- so I'm still
waiting.

~~~
yxhuvud
Yes, and it boggles my mind that Apple is still the one building laptops with
high resolutions.

~~~
Filligree
The highest-end Zephyrus G14 comes with a high-res panel; windows defaults to
2x zoom. I've been very happy with it, not least since - well, thanks to the
Vega chiplet there's no lag.

It also has an Nvidia for those times when you really need horsepower, but so
far I've only needed it for ML.

~~~
toastal
I took a hard look at this laptop particularly with the 1440p resolution, but
101.2% sRGB, 71.7% DCI-P3 and 69.7% Adobe RGB still isn't in the color gamut
ranges I'm considering acceptable for content creation. The truth is that ASUS
are more focused on high refresh rates for gamers than they are content
creation. When 60Hz was the norm a few years ago, a lot of gaming laptops
offered wide color gamuts and high pixel density to stand out even though
these don't help gaming.

~~~
Filligree
I'm curious actually. The majority of users don't have a calibrated or wide-
gamut screen, so how much does the color gamut really matter?

I have one laptop with an OLED panel that's (IIRC) 105% Adobe-RGB, and it's
sufficiently nice that I'd like that everywhere if I could, but it isn't
enough to rule out the G14 for me. Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm not into
photo editing, as a rule.

------
codewiz
Nate Graham, coordinator of the KDE Usability & Productivity initiative, wrote
a full review:

[https://pointieststick.com/2020/07/23/the-superfast-ryzen-
po...](https://pointieststick.com/2020/07/23/the-superfast-ryzen-powered-kde-
slimbook/)

------
Abishek_Muthian
When I saw 'Slimbook' I wished for a small pocketable Linux netbook even
though I knew Ryzen 4000's thermal profile wouldn't suit such a design.

I would really like AMD to release CPUs which can compete with intel's core
M3, which can be used in SBCs or pocketable netbooks like these[1][2]. I feel
there is a need gap in this space for a reputed manufacturer or a trusted
enthusiast brand to get in.

Why would you want a pocketable Linux pc? one may ask; I'm tired of this
always tracking smartphone cellular-apps cluster-X mess. My phone-call usage
lifestyle is anyways on-demand(little to no incoming calls), so why not just
use a USB GSM module on a pocket Linux pc when needed.

P.S. I'm aware of upcoming pure Linux smartphones, some with cellular-kill
switch, I'm a vocal support of these platforms, but it's not available in my
country and as I understand they are not ready for a daily driver.

[1][https://www.1netbook.com/product/](https://www.1netbook.com/product/)

[2][https://www.gpd.hk/gpdpocket2](https://www.gpd.hk/gpdpocket2)

~~~
derefr
> Why would you want a pocketable Linux pc? one may ask; I'm tired of this
> always tracking smartphone cellular-apps cluster-X mess. My phone-call usage
> lifestyle is anyways on-demand(little to no incoming calls), so why not just
> use a USB GSM module on a pocket Linux pc when needed.

You could probably run Linux on one of the GPD Win devices. (e.g.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gpdwin/comments/glpokv/gpd_win_max_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gpdwin/comments/glpokv/gpd_win_max_linux_is_mostly_working/))

Also, as an aside: rather than using a GSM module with a real SIM card that
you'd have to pay monthly for, you could just subscribe to a VoIP service (I
use [https://voip.ms](https://voip.ms)) and then connect to it with a
softphone app to place and receive calls.

I pay $1/mo for a number, and $0.005/min for calling, and that's it. I have
softphone apps for my PC, phone, and tablets, that are all connected to its
same number, so I can answer calls "directly" through any of them, without one
device having to route through another. (Also, as a side-benefit, I've set it
up with has voicemail-to-MP3s-in-my-email, like Google Voice does. And
configured it so that if people outside my whitelist call, they go _directly_
to voicemail.)

Works especially well when combined with a phone that you set up as a "tablet"
with a data-only plan. (This plan costs me $10/mo, in Canada, which is quite a
feat if you know the Canadian cellular ISP market.)

Oh, and I've also written a SMS<->Slack bridge bot
([https://github.com/tsutsu/smsforwarder](https://github.com/tsutsu/smsforwarder)),
that I run as a Heroku free-tier app wired with webhooks to voip.ms's SMS API.
SMSes to my VoIP number pop up in a Slack channel named after the peer's
number in a special private Slack team I created; and messages I write into
that channel are sent back to the peer number as SMSes. So all the same
devices that have the softphone app, have Slack, and so can also interact with
my SMSes in a shared manner as well.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
>You could probably run Linux on one of the GPD Win devices.

I had mentioned it in my parent comment. I cannot get these devices inside my
country for the same reason I cannot get a PinePhone due to China-India
tensions; even before the blockade I have heard horror stories from people who
imported computers from Aliexpress in India having to pay 2-3x the price as
import taxes!

Furthermore, I would like a brand which is available to greater Linux audience
in western countries, so that it's been vetted properly.

>Also, as an aside: rather than using a GSM module with a real SIM card that
you'd have to pay monthly for, you could just subscribe to a VoIP service

I do use VoIP services, but without a GSM module how do you connect to the
Internet(4G/LTE) on the move in a PC? i.e. considering you are not carrying a
smartphone. Places where WiFi hotspots are available are not an issue(If you
don't consider them to be a security risk or being stationery), but say you
have to book a Uber on the move then a GSM Module for Internet + Anbox for
Uber app seems necessary.

smsforwarder looks cool, I will check it out. Thank you.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Sidenote -

>without a GSM module how do you connect to the Internet(4G/LTE)

This is also a reason why we need non-cellular mobile Internet[1], like city
wide WiFi hotspots.

[1][https://needgap.com/problems/51-non-cellular-network-
mobile-...](https://needgap.com/problems/51-non-cellular-network-mobile-
internet-telecom-internet)

~~~
numpad0
WiMAX existed and died

------
blitmap
I want too much. I need a 4k oled display and I'd buy AMD so fast.

~~~
leetrout
Do you use 4K currently with Linux? If so what screen resolution / scaling and
what WM / desktop?

I’m using pop_os and I desperately want scaling to work and it doesn’t.

~~~
blitmap
I am odd. On Windows I use 2x scaling on a 4k screen. On Linux I go unscaled
and just bump up the text size in editors and GTK/Qt apps.

~~~
bjoli
I found that scaling killed performance for me on an old intel 6500U, so I
bumped font sizes and icon sizes up and went unscaled. DrRacket is the only
program that doesn't obey it currently. Even Emacs works fine.

------
t0astbread
FYI (if anyone in charge of the website is reading this): I get blocked off by
Cloudflare in an infinite reload loop if I try to access the site via Tor
(even with JS & cookies enabled).

I'm not an expert in Cloudflare products but if I'm not mistaken, there should
be a setting labelled something like "Onion Services" in your configuration
console that makes the experience for Tor users a lot less painful.

------
pmlnr
Sigh.

The main points I look at a laptop by are keyboard, trackpoint, then display
quality, then the rest. I couldn't care less about the Ryzen part; the
keyboard looks abysmal.

~~~
CiTyBear
I agree. What made me use macbook for years is their touchpad.

Do you have recommandation of linux compatible laptop with good keyboard and
touchpad ?

~~~
pmlnr
Lenovo ThinkPads. The T495 looks nice: [https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T495-Review-bu...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T495-Review-business-laptop-with-AMD-processor-long-battery-life-and-
good-display.434716.0.html)

~~~
rurban
Got one, can confirm. The older Ryzen blows everything else away, but you need
Fedora. Debian sucks.

------
flerchin
Looks nice. I would prefer a 4K display like my Precision 5530.

~~~
cyrksoft
Do you find 4K in a 15 inch screen worth it? I’m in the verge of buying a 4K
one, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the battery consumption in such a small
screen.

~~~
smcleod
I find it absolutely worth it, whenever I see a 1080p laptop screen I find
myself continuously noticing how blurring the fonts are and how little I can
fit on the display, high resolution monitor screens have meant that I find
myself needing an external monitor far less often.

~~~
dman
Otoh whenever I am on a 4k laptop the increased heat and decreased battery
life are immediately noticeable.

------
bfuclusion
This is my favorite form factor for 15" notebooks. Center keyboard and touch
pad and lots of ports. My only reservation is it's not 4K and my eyes really
like the font smoothness now that I'm getting older.

------
charsi
Still no good 13 inch options with ryzen 4000. Waiting for the thinkpad.

~~~
threentaway
Lenovo X13?

~~~
lliamander
That thing with AMD is actually faster than an X1 Extreme (in CPU
performance). I'm pretty happy with my E495, but that X13 is tempting.

------
corndoge
FHD on a 13 inch or larger just doesn't cut it these days. QHD is the minimum
for people whose jobs are computers, imo.

~~~
michaelmrose
Here's a ppi calculator [https://www.sven.de/dpi/](https://www.sven.de/dpi/)
to satify various hypotheticals.

Any 4K monitor 26" or greater is the same dpi as FHD at 13"

Various examples here
[https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=4k+monitor](https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=4k+monitor)

A 24" 4K monitor is only 8% better in fact. I would venture to guess it would
be basically indistinguishable to the naked eye.

QHD at 13" is 226 ppi is that really a reasonable minimum?

~~~
wtallis
It's less about DPI than about raw pixel count. At 1080p, you simply lose too
much usable screen space to menus, toolbars, task bars, and all the dumb shit
that websites set "position: fixed" on. 2560x1440 (or better yet, 2560x1600)
with appropriate magnification gives you a lot more flexibility in how you use
screen space, instead of more or less forcing you to work with only one
maximized/fullscreen window at a time.

I use a 13" MBP with no UI magnification, but most web pages scaled to around
200%. That keeps the UI nice and compact and leaves a lot of screen space for
actual _content_ (about 2170x1523 with my current browser layout). I do
occasionally set it to a scaled resolution when someone else has to watch/use
the machine as well.

~~~
vzidex
>or better yet, 2560x1600

I couldn't agree more, I was given 16:10 monitors for my current job and I'm
not sure if I'll ever go back to 16:9 if I can avoid it. Next laptop is a 13"
MBP for sure too.

------
lanewinfield
Always and forever with any linux laptop, the major question is: how is the
trackpad?

~~~
lhl
The trackpad is decent. Roughly centered under the home keys. Plastic but
pretty smooth (about 80% the size and 80% the smoothness of a late model
MBP13). It's a physical clickpad that feels fine, and recognizes left, middle
and right clicks. I haven't had a problem using the libinput defaults -
gestures work, default sensitivity and acceleration is sane (although of
course, fully adjustable).

------
drewg123
TL;DR: Anybody know if Lenovo is locking-down NVME by PCI id, the same way
they do wifi cards on their new Ryzen 4000 laptops?

I've been looking at Ryzen 4000 based laptops. I need a pointer stick / eraser
stick (I hate touchpads), and Lenovo is the only choice I've seen with Ryzen
4000 and a pointer stick.

The Lenovo T14 is pretty compelling. However, I just can't stomach paying
roughly 4x the market rate for NVME storage. They want $719 for a 1TB NVME
drive (where I don't even know the vendor), when I can buy a 2TB drive from a
vendor I trust for 1/2 of that. If I knew I could just open the thing up and
replace the NVME drive, then I'd get it. But I"m afraid they've BIOS locked it
to whatever OEM drive they ship.

~~~
risho
I bought an amd based t14s with the base 128gb NVME drive and replaced it with
a 2tb samsung 970 evo plus and it works fine. If you are planning on using
linux you are likely to have a sub optimal experience unless you are okay with
using a bleeding edge rolling distro like arch due to needing newer kernels
for the best levels of support.

~~~
drewg123
Awesome! Thank you so much! Would you mind putting up the output of lspci -vvv
to pastebin or something similar and linking it here?

FWIW, my goal is to run FreeBSD-current on it.

~~~
risho
[https://pastebin.com/v6BbEpbK](https://pastebin.com/v6BbEpbK)

You can also run an additional m.2 ssd in the WWAN slot which works just fine
assuming you grab the correct type. It's not the standard m.2 though. It's
weird and has 2 notches instead of 1. My understanding is when it comes to
this slot only specific drives will work properly. I grabbed an SN520 512gb
(2242 size by the way, the standard 2282 is too big and 2232 is too small) off
of ebay and I'm booting from it as we speak.
[https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-
drives/pc-s...](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/pc-
sn520-ssd)

So when it comes to the standard m.2 slot my understanding is that there are
no limitations, but the using the WWAN slot as an ssd slot can lead to issues
unless you get the correct one.

Unfortunately I don't have any insight about running freebsd on this machine,
so good luck to you there.

------
PaywallBuster
How many laptopts use the high powered range of Ryzen cpus?

e.g. 4xxxH like this laptop

Most laptopts I see use the 15W versions, very rare to find anything
competitive with Macbook.

~~~
lhl
There are only a handful of AMD options worth mentioning and availability for
models is very regional. Those without a dGPU are the Lenovo S540-13ARE (4800U
but has dual-fan/dual-heatpipe cooling and runs at a sustained 38W), these
TongFang PF4/PF5 models (a variety of OEMs like the Slimbook, Tuxedo), the
2020 Redmibooks, and the just announced Honor Magicbook Pro.

The rest are mostly gaming models. The Asus G14, TongFang's GK5/GK7 (like the
Eluktronics RP-15/17), HP Omen 15, and the Lenovo Legion 5 are the best of the
bunch. They all have Nvidia 1660Tis/2060s.

The 4800H performs on par with the 10875H at lower temps/power usage but I
think competition w/ a Macbook is going to be subjective. None have anywhere
close to the fit and finish of a MBP. Most are significantly cheaper. Most
will have a better port selection and better upgradability (although some also
have soldered RAM). Most will have better battery life. Only a few will be
more portable. Only a few support USB-C PD. Only a few have >FHD screens and
if you need >100% sRGB color gamut, there's literally only one AMD option (the
4K Schenker VIA 15 Pro), and that won't be available until September at the
earliest. There are plenty of 10875H+ laptop options on the Intel side. Some
like the new XPS's are specifically designed to compete head-to-head w/ MBPs.

------
olakease
Does anyone know why Ryzen 4000 laptops don't come with screen resolutions
higher than FHD?

------
winter_blue
This is unjustifiably a lot more expensive than the similar HP Envy 13 or Envy
15.

You can get an Envy with a Ryzen 4700U (the 8-core 15W CPU), 16 GB of RAM, and
a 512 GB PCIE NVM SSD -- for less than $900.

~~~
lhl
These are pretty different classes of machines. The 4800H performs 64% better
at R20 (representative of rendering tasks), and 61% on Geekbench 5
(representative of general productivity).
[https://www.notebookcheck.net/R7-4700U-vs-R7-4800H_11683_116...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/R7-4700U-vs-R7-4800H_11683_11677.247596.0.html)

The Envy 13 is also limited to 16GB of soldered RAM while the Slimbook can be
upgraded to 64GB. The 15" version has a huge battery advantage over the Envys.

It's also worth noting that the pricing listed includes a 21% VAT. The pricing
is more competitive once you take that into account.

------
hamilyon2
It doesn't mention distro on the page, which is confusing.

I like the idea, though.

------
sheinsheish
Nice ! I would appreciate the category Music Making (=DAW) amongst the four on
the top. Musicians struggle with Apple’s prices and monopoly.

~~~
komali2
What DAW would you use on a Linux distro? I didn't think any of the main 3
would work (Ableton, flstudio, protools or whatever).

~~~
lhl
Ardour, Bitwig, and Reaper would probably be the top choices for full blown
DAWs on Linux.

------
thekyle
I really appreciate the 91Wh battery on the 15 inch. I was looking at buying a
Dell XPS 15 but they shrunk the battery size this year.

------
AtlasBarfed
Why do they NEVER disclose the HDMI version? It is so important for 4k. Just
maddening.

------
daffy
What's the potential-firmware-backdoor situation? Is there something
equivalent to the Intel Management Engine?

~~~
numpad0
The answer is sadly a yes there is. Current AMD processors contain Platform
Security Processor based on ARM Cortex-A5.

------
twiclo
You love to see a slim laptop that didn't use the thinness as an excuse to
ditch the ethernet port

------
einr
Does it have a replaceable battery?

------
jgilias
Have people at AMD solved the issue(s) with Ryzen-equipped Linux laptops
freezing randomly?

~~~
fraktl
I've ASUS TUF A15 laptop (Ryzen 4800H with GeForce 2060) with Linux and
haven't experienced a freeze yet. I own that laptop for 2 months now, so it's
not impossible I won't experience it, however so far - no freezes. There are
some annoyances with it, but overall I'm more than happy with 4800H and what
you get for that kind of money.

------
andrepd
This is a Tongfang barebone, same as e.g. Schenker Via 15.

------
kdamica
Good star for having full size arrow keys!

------
eadonmachine
3200Hz memory??

~~~
exikyut
Wait. You're right. I did a double-take then doubted myself.

I can't find anything historical that used 3.2kHz memory access speeds, but
I'm pretty sure there was something out there... from the 1960s.

~~~
cardinalfang
That speed is slower than magnetic memory; it could be delay-line memory,
which would be even earlier.

------
grezql
Not meant to offend but im about to ditch my macbook 2014, can this machine
run windows10?

~~~
throwaway743
You could get a laptop with windows and a dual boot linux. Did that with mine
a few months ago using Ubuntu and it's been great.

~~~
lysp
Or run windows on its own disk / partition.

Then create a windows VM in linux with direct disk access.

------
f6v
From what I read about people running Linux on laptops I anticipate the
following:

\- Touchpad sucks

\- Battery lasts 2 hours

\- Sleep mode doesn’t work

~~~
andrepd
If this is all you have to say why comment at all. That's not remotely true,
and you might be aware that there's no such thing as a "Linux laptop" per se,
you can install Linux on any computer you wish.

------
jonhohle
> Paint like a maestro with Krita

That pretty much sums up the care and thoughtfulness of the Linux desktop
ecosystem.

~~~
dTal
What do you mean?

~~~
mappu
The Maestro is a musician, not a painter.

~~~
jcelerier
> A maestro is an artistic master: someone who is skilled enough to be
> considered an artistic genius.

> Taking one music class or art class can teach you a lot, but it won't make
> you a maestro. Maestro (which comes from Italian) is reserved for people
> with an enormous amount of skill and talent. This word can apply to __any
> type of artist __— and sometimes, to people with impressive skills in other
> areas — but it 's most commonly applied to musicians. Master composers,
> pianists, cellists, guitarists, and conductors are often called maestros.

