Are these laptops more expensive than a similarly spec'd mainstream alternative? Yes. However, as is the point of the article, you're really not buying the laptop for the specs.
Unfortunately, the desire for open source being rather niche, these companies do not benefit from the economies of scale a mainstream brand enjoys. AND these companies are not positioning themselves to profit from their customers recurringly through cloud memberships, app stores, microtransactions, and the likes.
At home, though, I do run a slightly modified old Dell desktop that I bought on Craigslist for basically nothing, and for daily work I much much prefer it to any laptop. So yeah, old desktops and S76 FTW.
I really want to want a System76 laptop, but I just can't bring myself to get one because of the 16:9 screens [1].
[1] 16:9 screens are another one of the computing marketplace's shitty regressions over the last decade. General purpose computers should have 16:10 or 3:2 screens, but unfortunately the number of models that have one is very small.
Additionally, like you said, for text, you ideally want windows with portrait aspect ratios - but if you split a fullHD 16:9 screen in two, your portrait windows only have 960 pixels of horizontal resolution which is not enough for many IDEs (or e-mail clients or spreadsheets).
On a 28 inch 4K screen 16:9 is not a problem - you can have 3 long vertical text windows next to each other, or ultra-wide spreadsheets, or a combination thereof. On a 13 inch laptop screen it is a different story.
Other than that, it meets all the Free source and ergonomic thin laptop requirements for $200.
My ideal setup is something like that as a client, and a bunch of high end machines located far away from my desk.
That said, sure making your own desktop is also an option.
Latest gen AMD motherboard with strong power delivery, 32gb of blistering fast memory (3600/16), 12/24 core Ryzen CPU @ 4.4ghz all core (1.27vcore loaded; 1.3v idle), PCIE4 NVME storage - 1kw platinum PSU, 360mm AIO CPU cooling (one DYI was enough..), a great case with terrific airflow (Define 7 Dark TG, Corsair ML140 fans) - overall it's a bloody ripper of a (gaming#) workstation. 7731 CineBench 2.0 score.
Absolutely love working on it. I have four monitors - 4th above the middle one on my custom aluminum profile. MKB & mouse, studio lighting.
I run Win10, but all my work is through WSL2/Ubuntu/MS Terminal. I happen to really like this combo - and it's my computer, so my choice.
#) Everything's new this year - I renew every 5 years or so, and son gets my old. Am however using an old 1080TI and holding off on the GPU until well into 2021, due to current market craziness and to be able to see the size of AMD's rabbit. Oh and my Soundblaster ZXR stayed too; love the wired audio I'm getting from this!
I'm still running an i7 6700. Initially it was one of the fastest components in my system, but has become the bottleneck as I've upgraded the parts around it (added a discrete gpu and nvme ssd, affecting the bottleneck for gaming and compiling, respectively). But honestly, it's still good enough most of the time, and I'm in no hurry to replace it.
Also/especially, while the initial build is not that much cheaper, the cost over time is — both the longer expected lifetime of the parts and the ability to upgrade piecemeal instead of replacing the whole thing.
One is they don't get the volume.
Second is they don't get kickbacks for bundling an operating system, or other software or make a profit collecting data. This is probably $50 per machine.
Mainstream manufacturers have to deal with consumers who know nothing about computers. They expect full support. They will also follow directions on any website without knowing what they're doing, and mess things up. The move to lock down computers isn't really a Big Brother conspiracy to prevent us from doing things on our computers that The Man doesn't want us to. It's a safety measure to stop inexperienced users bricking their machines and demanding support fix it.
Purism (and others) sell "overpriced" computers to people who know what we're doing. When I had a problem on my Purism laptop, they told me to unscrew the back and check the connections. That's not something that Dell can do with their customers.
I think they'll always stay "overpriced", partly because we're happy paying for the extra freedom. And partly so that they don't become mainstream and end up with a huge support overhead.
Given that the author's demands are being met, exactly, by Purism (etc), then I don't think he gets to complain that it's "too expensive" - that's not how markets work. You have a niche need, you pay a niche price. Stop with the Big Brother conspiracy theories and pay the extra cash to get the specific thing you want.
How much? I bet it's not much.
> That’s why System76 is more expensive. They’re NOT overpriced. They’re priced as “general purpose computers” must be to be competitive.
They're so much more expensive because they're niche. Not because of anything inherent to the product or producing it.
So "overpriced" sounds fair to me.
> I agree with this author, but this suggests that the strength of his conviction is maybe $400.
Is that not enough? If you can spread the word enough, and get enough people that are willing to spend $50 extra, you'll find plenty of companies begging for that money. The profit margin for building computers is bad.
I'm yet to find a decent laptop in this range that's max 14.5"@min 1440p (I don't even need 4k!) and support for 24GB RAM.
Librem 14 is not even launched yet and only has a 1080p option.
They're distracting people from the real problem, and doing so is harmful.
I forget what all of the main players are right now, but I know I’ve read on at least 2 of these types of open hardware companies’ sites how they scrub the intel ME all but completely out of the machine. That’s kind of the whole point, and they advertise that pretty conspicuously in their marketing.
If I didn’t start using a (17”, 3lb!) LG Gram laptop right around the time before I learned about open firmware, I would probably use a system76 laptop. For right now, the LG is just so damn light for that huge beautiful screen.....i’ve ruined myself and can’t switch to anything else until further notice unless another manufacturer makes a similarly ridiculous screensize:weight-ratio’d laptop lol (pine, purism, s76...you listening?)
I doubt that.
Compute Cores are fine, so the CPU still works.
You confirmed this how?
> Read their site, they go into the details there.
Debunked. The HAP bit doesn't do what they think it does:
This quote suggest to me the author is an integral part of the problem.
Companies are ALWAYS trying to increase their profitability. If they can lock down the computer, they can drop the price while _increasing_ CLTV.
That’s why System76 is more expensive. They’re NOT overpriced. They’re priced as “general purpose computers” must be to be competitive.
I agree with this author, but this suggests that the strength of his conviction is maybe $400.