We were not content with the quality of laptops available on the market. The majority shipped with proprietary and locked-in software solutions, filled with not-uninstallable bloat where the user was left at the mercy of whatever the company selling them a laptop saw fit for them to work with. As creators and makers we knew what it meant to be locked into a set of solutions defined by others. Many alternatives took whatever hardware they could find when they wanted to provide more free options and the end result was often lackluster and as such, lowering the enjoyment in using the computer, our main tool in creating, and shipping with underwhelming specs.
We saw a problem, and we solved it: The KDE Slimbook.
Basically a MacBook Air-like laptop, preconfigured with KDE Neon, at a relatively reasonable price. This is a very attractive laptop, and I would love to own one. Very nice work.
I just upgraded to a similar device and nearly the same price. I might have waited, if for no other reason than to kind of support the kde folk. Ah well.
Which device if I may ask? The Xiaomi Air? Or maybe some cheap Chinese brand? I am in the market for something similar too.
Sorry should have clarified, I bought something like their Slimbook one, https://slimbook.es/en/power-minipc-one, which is neither that slim, nor a book, but a low power mini pc.
I ended up getting a msi cubi 2 https://us.msi.com/product/barebone/Cubi-2.html#hero-overview
Its not exactly comparable, as it comes without ram or storage, but same intended audience. The non kaby lake cpus are a bit disappointing in the KDE offering, but really unless you are doing something very specific ( like netflix/ youtube 4k streaming, there isn’t much of a performance difference.
The target market are certain countries where they immediately put a pirated version of Windows on it.
No problem. As a honest person you can select Windows 10 as an option (120 euro)
As a not honest person you can buy without OS and install Windows 10. A Lenovo Yoga or similar has an equal price with the same specs and a legit W10.
Some people use Macs because it’s the only viable desktop (up until now) for developing on a Unix-like system. Given the direction the Mac is going in this is probably a smart move…………
Who cares. It shows up as a sale of a laptop with Linux preinstalled.
I buy laptops with Windows installed and replace it with Linux.
It does matter
1) If you eye a Windows laptop/hybrid/tablet, you have to research if the hardware is supported by Linux, especially if the hardware is unusual, like pen input or movable keyboards. And it could be that the manufacturer locked the device with UEFI.
2) Buying Windows computer is paying money to Microsoft for no reason and a vote for the Windows eco system, keeping the status quo.
I try to buy dedicated hardware designed for Linux these days. Unfortunately, not always viable or economical.
Edited 2017-01-27 22:41 UTC
Rubbish, the target market is anyone that wants to run Linux on good fully supported hardware.
http://www.dell.com/p/laptops.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=mn#!facets=6…
https://bartongeorge.io/
Notice how much the range of Dell Linux laptops have increased, but of course its just people that want to run pirated windows, that’s the only reason why the range is extending and including more pre-installed Linux installations.
I am very very tempted with this, I’ve been buying dell xps laptops – I ended up buying an xps15 last year and sticking kubuntu on it (last year – I needed 16G RAM), but I would like to buy a kde laptop just to support them. If it had a better than 1080p display I would be buying this, something more portable than a 15″ would be good.
. double post — just wanted to change with with by..
Edited 2017-01-28 10:21 UTC
So….every country then?
You can expand the RAM. Which makes it more flexible then a Macbook.
It even has HDMI!
The other type seems like the same specs with different color.
One of my annoyances of my MBA is the impossible way to stream Netflix to an other screen. With linux it is no problem.
16GB RAM is hardly major expandability in 2017. I thought MacBooks did that with the same 16GB limit (DDR3?).
I saw a 2011 ultrabook with 16GB of RAM recently.
It could be argued that fast SSDs reduce the need for huge amounts of RAM.
So we made hardware exactly like many others but with different software on top because…reasons!
It looks like a decent machine with decent specs and decent configuration options and a decent price but literally nothing special at all about the hardware
It’s a controlled configuration, and as such, they can troubleshoot issues much easier. Granted, it’s best for KDE development and aficionados who want to submit bug reports.
KDE has tried several hardware projects previously. It was several tablet projects that never got off the ground before this, so it’s neat to see they were able to launch something.
Linux preinstalled by the OEM is still special, and no the hardware isn’t going to be special. Well tested, N-1 hardware is better for smaller OEMs like this who don’t have dev teams like Dell to fill in the software gaps.
Can you Hackintosh it
Why no decent pictures of the keyboard, I wonder? It’s one of the most important things in a laptop.
But it’s interesting to see that the keyboard of the KDE laptop has a Windows key:
http://kde.slimbook.es/images/galeria/resizedimages/5_work.jpg
Edited 2017-01-27 22:36 UTC
https://slimbook.es/en/store/componentes/teclado-slb15tc-comprar
The lineup needs a ~300 Euro entry-level Pentium model for basic office/media consumption use. I’d get one in a heartbeat.
Edited 2017-01-28 06:31 UTC
You can buy a very powerful secondhand Dell ultrabook or Lenovo Thinkpad with 100% Linux compatibility for a fraction of that amount. eg a 12.5″ Thinkpad 230x with i5, 8GB RAM and a SSD should cost around euro 150.
Edited 2017-01-28 09:59 UTC