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Comment by albertzeyer | Hacker News Reader

Recently there was a discussion about Huawei MateBook X Pro, which also seems to be a great Linux notebook:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765

In that discussion, several other good Linux notebooks were also discussed, including System 76. But it was reported there that the quality is quite bad:

> but the quality is reportedly bad (flaky hardware, too-fast power drain, reflash bios to toggle discrete graphics (!), slow support) https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/review-system76-oryx-pr...

> Mine is in the System 76 repair shop right now for the third time. Extremely unsatisfied with Oryx Pro materials and build quality. Oh it's back for the third time because when they replaced the top case last time, they installed a defective touch pad. Never again.

I wonder if that has been improved, as I'm really interested in a high quality Linux notebook.

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It's worth noting that stories like this are the extreme minority of cases. We have a great many customers and the overwhelming majority of computers we sell live out their entire (long) lives without any sort of incident, major or minor. However, when someone buys a computer and everything works as expected, that's not really all that notable because there's nothing interesting about that, and so you don't really here a ton of "works as expected" stories to counteract the negative ones.

I can't really find more than maybe 10-20 unique public cases of a System76 computer having serious problems. I don't want to toot our horns too much here, but that's just not very many people compared to our entire userbase. We're a company with the resources to develop open source firmware; it takes a lot more support from your customers than could be afforded by 10-20 (or 100, 1000, etc.) people to do that.

If you look hard enough, it's not hard to find examples of any computer manufacturer having issues with occasional units. That's just the nature of manufactured products (especially high-tech electronics). No company has a 0% failure rate, and any that claims to is lying. However, you can be reasonably certain that any company that's been around for a decade and a half (or longer) has a lot fewer failures than successes

Yes every manufactured product will have its percentage of issues. I think it is how you handle the failures and the customers that will be important moving forward.

I can not speak to the original quote but my experience as not been amazing. My 4k Oryx Pro has rebooted randomly since the second month I have owned it. I sent it back 3 times already, ran tests per support and even reinstalled PopOs many times. It still has randomly rebooted. My last interaction with support was just past the year mark of when I bought it and I was asked to pay to replace the last item (the battery, just about everything else was replaced).

I love using PopOs. I love the 4k screen I have and the Oryx. I dont love writing this or the response I sent to support about the request for paying for it. It gives me pause when recommending System76 to a coworker/friend and I will be looking around when when the time comes to get a new laptop. Support was helpful when I had a linux issue early on but the rest of year long interaction was about the reboots.

I'm deeply sorry we couldn't get that issue resolved.

While I have no experience with System76 and the quality of your devices, I doubt you can make any claims about the number of incidents with confidence. I have owned many devices that have had various quality issues that didn’t rise to the level where I felt it was worth going through some warranty procedure that may or may not alleviate the issue after spending an unknown amount of time & money on it. I don’t like the idea that the manufacturers of those devices take the absence of a complaint as confirmation that the computer has lived a long life without any sort of incident, major or minor.

I'm sure you're correct that not every fault gets reported to us; even among those that do, the customer doesn't always decide to take the action and get the computer fixed, depending on the problem and the solution. That said, I'm reasonably confident that most issues with our hardware do result in some communication between the user and us.

They don't make the hardware, all their laptops are rebadges of Clevo/Sager

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8454.html

I bought a Clevo rebadge called a Metabox here in Australia and have all kinds of problems with it. Keys that stick down, headphone jack busted, one of the USB not working, a few other things. I never sent it back on warranty because I would have to buy a new machine to work on while it was away anyhow. I'll just put up with the problems until the next upgrade cycle.

It sits on my desk now with an external keyboard, external USB hub, and external DAC for the headphones to work.

I haven't worked with Clevo, but apparently they provide quite some flexibility. A vendor can use their own choice of keyboard, extra buttons, ports placements, hinges, ...

I guess Clevo would even be up to designing a new PCB around a different CPU by a different vendor, but "use this type of keyboard" will be much cheaper to commission than "swap out the CPU vendor".

So I'd expect keyboard issues to be more up to Metabox choosing the cheapest option for that part, rather than a systemic Clevo failure.

Isn't sager more like an alternative to system76, also a rebadged clevo?

I'm typing this on my second System76 laptop, and my first one (which is still running, in retirement as the home entertainment system) lasted over 5 years as my principal. So, something like 6-7 years of System76 as my principal laptop, and no issues of that sort or any other.

I’ve had my oryx pro for a year now with no problems. I’m not supper easy on hardware. It’s build quality is decent ( my work machine is a 13 in Mac book pro, which is better built, but the oryx isn’t bad.). It even able to run the unreal engine dev kit.

I know it isn't as mobile, but you may want to consider a Mini ITX with a portable screen.

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