The second-generation TUXEDO Pulse 15 is up for pre-order with shipping expected in late July, which comes with the powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5700U that TUXEDO have pushed up to 35w.
TUXEDO claim their Pulse 15 is one of the "most popular Linux notebooks on the market", so they made sure to keep that crown and bump up the performance quite a lot with their changes to the model in the second-gen. Coming with the Ryzen 7 5700U, which AMD state should run at 10-25W, TUXEDO did something a little more unique here pushing what's possible with the chip.
Not only have they bumped up the wattage to give solid performance, they're also keeping it quiet and cool with 2 fans and 2 heat pipes, which they say most vendors have only 1 of each. The result should be cool surface temps and low fan noise under full load without throttling.
Main Specifications include:
- 15.6 inch WQHD IPS Display (2560 x 1440 | 165 Hz)
- Very lightweight and thin magnesium chassis
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700U-35W (TDP: 35 Watt!)
- AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 Graphics
- 91 Wh Lithium-Polymer battery
- USB-C (Power-Delivery | DisplayPort 1.4) & HDMI 2.0
- Max. 64 GB DDR4 RAM (Dual Channel)
- 2x M.2 SSD PCIe NVMe & SATAIII
- Backlit keyboard with TUX super-key
- 3x USB-A ports (2x USB 3.2 Gen2, 1x USB 2.0), LAN RJ45, a Micro SD card reader
With a base price of €1,149.
My criticism here continues though, why do vendors keep sticking in such a low amount of RAM with obviously power-focused machines? Realistically, if you're going for such a machine, you're going to up the RAM to 16 GB minimum which brings the price up to €1,194.
TUXEDO Computers works with barebone manufacturers for its Linux notebooks and PCs, optimizing them to run flawlessly with Linux through driver and firmware adaptions, extensive "reverse engineering" and testing, as well as in-house software development, cloud services and Linux customer support.
TUXEDO Press
You can check it out on the official website.
My criticism here continues though, why do vendors keep sticking in such a low amount of RAM with obviously power-focused machines?
To keep the base price lower :)
1149 sounds better then 1194, to at least get you to follow the link.
Same in supermarkets etc. etc.
Last edited by Bumadar on 11 July 2022 at 4:01 pm UTC
TUXEDO claim their Pulse 15 is one of the "most popular Linux notebooks on the market"Not much of a claim, really. It could be dead last and not only would it still be technically true, it'd probably still be in the top 10.
Bumping the ram up to 16Gb and the disk up to 500Gb puts the price at a few pounds over a grand. That's pretty amazing considering what I paid for my 2016 XPS.
Last edited by Pengling on 11 July 2022 at 8:45 pm UTC
This led me down the rabbit hole of research and turns out there's a bunch of laptop manufacturers (including Tuxedo and Slimbook) are selling the same computer from a Chinese manufacturer called TongFang: https://www.hk.tongfangpc.com/thin-g-series-2/ (Note that their SSL certificate seems to have expired, so your browser may freak out when you click that link). I've also come to learn System76 is doing a similar thing with a company called Clevo.
All in all, I honestly don't mind at all. It's great that these companies are putting in the effort to sell laptops that "just work" on Linux. Especially when they're smart about it and don't pick NVidia for a Linux-oriented product.
I'm super happy with my laptop, zero driver issues, everything working out of the box with *my* OS of choice (Manjaro, currently) and a whooping 8-10 hours of battery life (or more like 6, when doing intensive work)! So I can only expect the offer from tuxedo to be *very* similar Needless to say, it's more than capable for gaming! Nothing too impressive, but if the steam deck has taught us something is that gaming it not about the maximum power throughput, it's about the comfort :)
Last edited by setzer22 on 12 July 2022 at 8:21 am UTC
I've also come to learn System76 is doing a similar thing with a company called Clevo.UK Linux specialist Entroware is another one that sells Clevo hardware, too (I've had excellent experiences with them, incidentally; I have their i5 Orion and it's an excellent workhorse), and I'm in the same boat as you - I don't care about the rebadging because at the end of the day these guys are catering to a market that would probably otherwise be ignored, and what's on offer all seems to be pretty good.
All in all, I honestly don't mind at all. It's great that these companies are putting in the effort to sell laptops that "just work" on Linux.
No wonder why this laptop looked familiar! The chasis for this is identical to the Slimbook PRO X15 I'm using right now!
This led me down the rabbit hole of research and turns out there's a bunch of laptop manufacturers (including Tuxedo and Slimbook) are selling the same computer from a Chinese manufacturer called TongFang: https://www.hk.tongfangpc.com/thin-g-series-2/ (Note that their SSL certificate seems to have expired, so your browser may freak out when you click that link). I've also come to learn System76 is doing a similar thing with a company called Clevo.
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I don't know about the others, but Tuxedo does have a relationship with their OEM so they feed back into the BIOS for updates. I am pretty sure there's more going on that just sticking a different logo on the lid.
But if you're like me who rarely uses laptops, it's not worth getting an overly powerful machine and certainly not worth the price tag of £1,000+.
My current laptop (from 2008, it was even budget at the time - only £250) thankfully still mostly suites my needs and has the performance I need with Arch. But its battery is long dead and I can't find a replacement. I would like to replace it, but the fact is if I'm going to spend £1,000+ on hardware, that's going to be in the desktop form factor (or server) where the power will actually be used. My current laptop was last booted around 3 months ago for updates and my laptop basically only gets used for showing data to accountants from GnuCash in meetings.
So some budget options, much like the general laptop market has - would be appreciated I'd be happy to pay £400-500, but £1,000+ for a laptop that will sit in its bag 98% of the time? Nope.
Sadly, when I do eventually replace my laptop it will probably end up being a cheap windows laptop as it appears to be the only option. (Promptly followed by a Linux install)
Just my 2c.
(To be clear, I am talking about reduced spec level for budget friendly, not high spec)
If only it had the 6000 series (the one with RDNA igpu).
I just backed the new GPD Win Max 2, basically because of The Phawx's video on it haha, but it's got a nice spec lineup:
AMD Ryzen 7 6800U
2TB M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD
32GB LPDDR5 6400
$1,297 USD
Also it's got a slot for a 2030 drive, same size the Steam Deck takes.
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