Here we are again, TUXEDO continuing to roll out new models to try and capture Linux users attention and the latest with the TUXEDO Stellaris 15 sounds pretty great. Part of what makes the TUXEDO Stellaris 15 interesting is the split options between AMD and Intel CPUs, giving you more control and choice on what you can buy.
Before getting too excited, keep in mind it's yet another high-end gamer and high performance workstation model. We have something of a lack of low-mid end devices since these high-end options seem to be what gets people talking, even though we would love to see more low end stuff too.
You get the choice between the Tiger Lake Intel Core i7-11800H or the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU as well as Ryzen 9 5900HX so that should make a lot of people happy there. Coming with a "3K" screen giving you 2,560 x 1,440 pixels to stare at, with a 165Hz IPS panel it's probably going to make things look pretty good. When it comes to graphics options, you're only getting NVIDIA here with either the RTX 3060 / 3070 / 3080 which depends on what processor you pick too. Not all are available with each.
The case is a little on the thicker side with a quiet "optomechanical" keyboard, which TUXEDO say gave room for "higher fans and heatsinks than typical thin-and-light gaming notebooks" so it's hopefully a bit more powerful than slimmer models to keep it nice and cool but still weighing a reasonable 2.2 kg. Thinking about the weight, my rubbish old Intel laptop weighs about the same and is a great many-many times less powerful. Pretty amazing what you can fit into small spaces now.
You also get a 93 Wh battery they say gives "8 hours" idle and about "6 hours" with "moderate work", so probably a lot less while gaming. With the Intel model you get Thunderbolt 4, while the AMD models come with USB-C 3.2 Gen2 - both of which have DisplayPort signal integrated. Then there's also 3x USB Type A ports and a full size card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC) and the typical headphone port, microphone input and the ethernet port.
Once again though, this "high-end" unit comes with only 8GB RAM to begin with. Seems really odd to have such a low starting point of RAM for what's supposed to be a power house. Starting at €1,799 it's not cheap but let's face it you want 16GB minimum so it's actually more like €1,854.
See more on the TUXEDO store.
Before getting too excited, keep in mind it's yet another high-end gamer and high performance workstation model. We have something of a lack of low-mid end devices since these high-end options seem to be what gets people talking, even though we would love to see more low end stuff too.It's not marketing, it's economies of scale. Cheap things can only be cheap if you can sell a lot of them, and the Linux laptop market just isn't that big even if you could capture all of it. Which means that high end boutique models are the only ones worth making unless you can sell a shedload of the same machine with Windows on, like Dell or Lenovo. When the market is bigger, or if it's supplemented by another income stream, it can sustain low margin devices like Chromebooks.
It's not marketing, it's economies of scale. Cheap things can only be cheap if you can sell a lot of them, and the Linux laptop market just isn't that big even if you could capture all of it. Which means that high end boutique models are the only ones worth making unless you can sell a shedload of the same machine with Windows on, like Dell or Lenovo. When the market is bigger, or if it's supplemented by another income stream, it can sustain low margin devices like Chromebooks.Absolutely, well aware of this, doesn't mean I can't want to see more lower end models for Linux users on the market :). I like what Star Labs do with their Star Lite Mk III, which has been tempting...
Absolutely, well aware of this, doesn't mean I can't want to see more lower end models for Linux users on the market :). I like what Star Labs do with their Star Lite Mk III, which has been tempting...
Dell has been offering a few more reasonably priced options with preinstalled Linux for a while here. Not sure if that offer is available in Europe, though.
Dell has been offering a few more reasonably priced options with preinstalled Linux for a while here. Not sure if that offer is available in Europe, though.Dell's offerings are usually US only.
Their latest InfinityBook sounds like a good laptop. But I simply can't imagine getting back to only four cores.
Obviously you should tie some string around something before venturing into the Dell website, but I've had no other trouble getting Dell stuff (including a Dell Linux laptop) in the UK. They do have different inventory for different regions, but it's not the US gets one thing and everywhere else gets something different, it's that everywhere gets some haphazard selection. Don't forget the string.Dell has been offering a few more reasonably priced options with preinstalled Linux for a while here. Not sure if that offer is available in Europe, though.Dell's offerings are usually US only.
I still wish they'd release a laptop similar to their Pulse model, with at least 100% sRGB coverage and high contrast (> 1000)[...]
I first read that as "I want RGB backlighting all over the place, like it's a Christmas tree"
Then, I noticed it is sRGB...
Yet another laptop with a very short life span due to the lack of proper GPU options.
I'm more worried about the driver situation...
I haven't used the proprietary nVidia drivers for some years now, so I'm not sure that's still the case, but back then there were two major pain points with those drivers, both mostly relevant on laptops:
- PRIME support was lacking. There's bumblebee, but that's more like a workaround than proper support.
- External screens/beamers/etc. were much more painful to configure than with any open source drivers, as the only tool that really worked was the nVidia Control Center
Dell has been offering a few more reasonably priced options with preinstalled Linux for a while here. Not sure if that offer is available in Europe, though.Dell's offerings are usually US only.
I actually got into Linux entirely because of saving a 100 euros by getting a Dell laptop (~500 eur) and with Ubuntu off some local retailer in Estonia.
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