Is the Lemur Ultra a Good Choice?

[joe4ska]

Nice review Joe, thanks for sharing! One thing I can confirm is that even with the 60GB Intel SSD, which is what I have, performance is incredibly snappy. However, I'm running Xubuntu, so maybe with Ubuntu, there is a difference between the 60 and 120GB drives.

I'd like to hear about your experience with heat, especially as your lemu4 is definitely more tricked out than mine (in addition to the smaller capacity SSD, I have the i5 model.) There is a sensor named "Physical ID 0", which appears to be a composite reading of the CPU cores: idle temps are around 40 degrees C, and most of my usage (firefox, libreoffice, vlc) pushes that to around 55, so I've never had the fan come on. However, I know the fan works, because I can get it come on by intentionally driving the CPU load higher.

Is 40-50 degrees pretty much unavoidable with modern laptops? I wish there was a way to get the temps down a few degrees without using an external cooler. I use one of those Belkin notebook stands, but usually leave the fan unplugged.

My system tends to hover around 52-55c if I'm running on battery and doing low end computing. the fan activates at about 55-56c to a very low hum.

I'm currently charging the battery and playing ogg vorbis music files from Rhythmbox. With all this going on it has leveled off at 66c.

I've never had it go past 75c and that was only because I had a runaway process that needed to be killed.

As for the SSD I doubt anyone would notice a speed difference between the 60GB or higher SSDs

I did briefly install Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu and didn't notice any problems. However I had them all installed together.

I may install ArchLinux later this week but I find it hard to justify since this system is already super snappy.

[brdmn]

40 degrees C is actually remarkably cool for modern laptops. That would only be mildly warm to the touch, in fact. It's perfectly normal.

I should have mentioned that 40 is what I get using an external notebook cooler. Right now, I'm not using the external fan, and the sensor reads 57 degrees. Not hot, but it definitely feels warm!

[brdmn]

My system tends to hover around 52-55c if I'm running on battery and doing low end computing. the fan activates at about 55-56c to a very low hum.

I'm currently charging the battery and playing ogg vorbis music files from Rhythmbox. With all this going on it has leveled off at 66c.

I've never had it go past 75c and that was only because I had a runaway process that needed to be killed.

Thanks, that is very helpful. It seems that 60-odd degrees is pretty normal. The external fan in my laptop stand makes a pretty big difference, but it does add noise, while the lemu4 is super quiet by itself.