Star Labs, maker of custom Linux hardware have revealed the Star LabTop Mk IV and it looks like quite the little powerhouse. They only currently offer two laptop models, with this new version replacing the LabTop Mk III.
With a price starting at £699, the Star LabTop Mk IV features a 13 inch 1080p ARC matte screen with Anti-Reflective Coating and it's built to take a few knocks without breaking too. It's also an IPS screen, so you should get some decent viewing angles on it. The rest of the specs sound good too!
No slouch on the processor either. Featuring 10th-generation Intel processors with Intel UHD graphics, this little 13 inch laptop can be damn useful for a lot of things, including some light gaming and streaming. The standard it comes with is a 2.1GHz dual-core Intel® Core® i3-10110u but it can be configured with a 1.1GHz hexa-core Intel® Core® i7-10710u.
For storage it comes with an 'Over Provisioned Star Drive' 240GB SSD as standard configurable up to 1920GB, with a sequential read speed of up to 3400MB/s. They say this extra capacity with the over-provisioning gives it a performance boost to help the SSD controller during read and write tasks.
It also comes with 16GB of 2400MHz LPDDR4 onboard memory, a Glass trackpad for precise cursor control and Multi-Touch gestures, Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201, Bluetooth 5.1 and a 720p webcam. As for the battery they say it's a '45.6-watt-hour' lithium-polymer battery that can give about 7 hours life with a 65w USB-C Power Adapter.
They might not perhaps be as big as US-based System76, but the UK-based Star Labs appear to be doing well. Unlike many other suppliers, they're not a Clevo reseller. According to their info, they started with Clevo initially and then in 2018 started building their own. Hopefully they will continue building interesting hardware with great Linux support.
Star Labs are taking pre-orders for it now, with shipping expected in July. They've currently tested and built it working with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Manjaro 20.0. See more about it here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: iiariI actually wish I had a screen for my desktop that I could flip sideways (ie upright) and have the picture follow like on a phone.Quoting: CatKiller16:10 means that my next laptop when it's time to upgrade will be a Dell. I hope other manufacturers can move away from 16:9 as well.I agree that I'm done with 16:9 on laptops. I've had two 3:2 screen laptops, previously a 2015 Pixel Chromebook and currently a Huawei Matebook X Pro, and I seriously can never go back to 16:9 after these experiences. Using a 16:9 feels like squinting now. 3:2 is soooo much better for text productivity on the laptop form, especially for my workflow.
There were suggestions about 2 years ago that Lenovo was going to start doing 3:2 screens, and I don't know what happened to that. An X1 Carbon with a 3:2 screen and Linux would be perfection for me...
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere actually are monitors that do this, no?Quoting: iiariI actually wish I had a screen for my desktop that I could flip sideways (ie upright) and have the picture follow like on a phone.Quoting: CatKiller16:10 means that my next laptop when it's time to upgrade will be a Dell. I hope other manufacturers can move away from 16:9 as well.I agree that I'm done with 16:9 on laptops. I've had two 3:2 screen laptops, previously a 2015 Pixel Chromebook and currently a Huawei Matebook X Pro, and I seriously can never go back to 16:9 after these experiences. Using a 16:9 feels like squinting now. 3:2 is soooo much better for text productivity on the laptop form, especially for my workflow.
There were suggestions about 2 years ago that Lenovo was going to start doing 3:2 screens, and I don't know what happened to that. An X1 Carbon with a 3:2 screen and Linux would be perfection for me...
Quoting: iiariOh, sweet. I kind of thought there were, but then last time I went looking to buy a monitor I couldn't find any--not locally, at least.Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere actually are monitors that do this, no?Quoting: iiariI actually wish I had a screen for my desktop that I could flip sideways (ie upright) and have the picture follow like on a phone.Quoting: CatKiller16:10 means that my next laptop when it's time to upgrade will be a Dell. I hope other manufacturers can move away from 16:9 as well.I agree that I'm done with 16:9 on laptops. I've had two 3:2 screen laptops, previously a 2015 Pixel Chromebook and currently a Huawei Matebook X Pro, and I seriously can never go back to 16:9 after these experiences. Using a 16:9 feels like squinting now. 3:2 is soooo much better for text productivity on the laptop form, especially for my workflow.
There were suggestions about 2 years ago that Lenovo was going to start doing 3:2 screens, and I don't know what happened to that. An X1 Carbon with a 3:2 screen and Linux would be perfection for me...
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI actually wish I had a screen for my desktop that I could flip sideways (ie upright) and have the picture follow like on a phone.
As well as the one iiari found, both my monitors (both Dells, both 16:10) can swivel into portrait mode. You need to manually set the display to portrait mode, though, since they don't have accelerometers.
My favorite was the green Eraserhead mouse on the early Toshiba Laptops, it was similiar to the trackpoint on the Thinkpads, and had two physical buttons for Left-Right Click.
Other than that this Laptop looks Beautiful. If it came with a Ryzen 5 4500u or Ryzen 7 4700u I'd probably buy it.
I wonder if the Speakers and Camera are any good.
Quoting: DragunovI really miss having physical buttons with the trackpad on laptops. The touch-only pads just annoy me. I always end up using an external USB Mouse. I only want the touchpad to move the mouse. I don't need any fancy gestures.
My favorite was the green Eraserhead mouse on the early Toshiba Laptops, it was similiar to the trackpoint on the Thinkpads, and had two physical buttons for Left-Right Click.
Other than that this Laptop looks Beautiful. If it came with a Ryzen 5 4500u or Ryzen 7 4700u I'd probably buy it.
I wonder if the Speakers and Camera are any good.
I've had my Starlabs MK 4 for about a month. The camera is like any laptop camera... meh, it works...
The speakers are quite good, though they are not as big as they seem in the renderings, as there simply isn't enough room for them to be the full length... they are about an inch long, and the rest of the length as seen in the renderings is just a laser etched dot pattern.
The trackpad in my opinion is one of the best I've experienced since the last physical button trackpad laptop i had in around 2010. I probably would still like to have the physical buttons, but with that said this glass trackpad feels absolutely amazing. It's got a nice firm click when you press down, and the glass surface is extremely smooth and soft to glide across.
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