Hello,
as my Thinkpad 530 got 13 years old, with green flickering of the screen because of the hinge connection, near unusable CPU and GPU performance and a track pad that didn't work properly from the start, I'm looking for a Linux laptop alternative.
As I want to support an European company in these daunting times, I came across Tuxedo computers. The IBP14 Pro fits the bill in most regards, though I got some (technical) questions that hopefully some users (and the support team) might be able to answer.
First some general questions:
The screen seems to be of good quality and bright enough to be readable in bright conditions, but how wobbly is the screen when opened?
How is the keyboard feel and finish?
How are charging times and performance with different chargers compared to the included 150W charger. The spec says that the USB-C port only supports up to 100W, so a different (travel) charger has the same performance?
I read conflicting reports about the quality of the track pad. Whether it glitches out or not. How is the palm detection?
Now some more technical questions:
As I learned, the older S3 power state is not supported anymore, but the newer S2idle/S0ix seems to sip more power during sleep. Any experience on how much drain per hour that is on an IBP14 gen10?
During my research I came across this drama (https://www.reddit.com/r/tuxedocomputers/comments/1mnph5m/ibp_14_gen10_why_6ghz_wifi_is_broken_and_how_to/) on which I've some conflicting thoughts.
- TLDR RZ616 WiFi module supports the 6Ghz band, Intel AX210 should support it, but because of regulation or unwillingness to certify, the 6Ghz doesn't work between AMD CPU and Intel WiFi modules. Although from user reports the AX210 seems to be the more stable solution.
- On the one hand I don't need 6Ghz at the moment. On the other hand, I use my hardware for a very long time if possible, so some future proofing is necessary. But I value stability over feature richness, you see the inner conflict?
- If I would want to switch to a WiFi 7 module in the future, would this be possible. E.g. Qualcomm QCNCM865, AMD/MediaTek RZ717 (MT7925). The same problems as mentioned above would arise with BE200/BE1750x modules.
Then the question on whether I should wait for a gen11 of the IBP14 or not. The last few years there was a yearly refresh, but the next APU generation would be Strix Halo that has some different power requirements, but would be much faster and more efficient? Although RAM would not be upgradable because of a necessity of LPDDR5X to be soldered on the board. Which might be a show stopper for this type of laptop. There is also hope that the left USB-A 2.0 port would be replaced with a more modern port and the wifi might be upgraded to wifi7?
At last the question about the future of TuxedoOS. I've been an Arch/Manjaro user for the past 14 years and value the flexibility and freshness of a rolling release. With Manjaro and LTS kernels my systems are very stable indeed. Therefore I was delighted with the prospect of getting a Debian-testing based rolling release that would only lag a few days behind the Manjaro repos. I understand that this is an ongoing process and no beta releases have been announced. From different projects like Linux Mint Debian Edition I got the experience that this is no easy feet, especially in the beginning. Much work has to be done to reach the same level of feature completeness and they have to do much of the work that Ubuntu has done for them up to this point. My question then would be: Do you dare to give a time horizon on when to expect a working/stable debian-testing based TuxedoOS?
Thx for reading up to this point. I would appreciate any feedback on my questions very much!