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Thread: gazelle professional review

  1. #21
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    My experience with the gazelle was very similar to that of rorschachwalter. the keyboard is indeed very bad (mine was loose in the lower right corner). more annoyingly, when i first contacted them about the loose keyboard they did not tell me it was a common problem, they simply told me the way to take the keyboard off but no way to fix the problem. i later contacted them about it again and then they suggested to put notecards under the keyboard. while this worked, it is a somewhat ridiculous way of solving the problem.

    what also annoyed me was that after one week i heard the first loose screw moving around inside the laptop. after opening the laptop, I noticed that 50% of the screws inside the laptop were not tightened properly. if you mind opening your laptop and your keyboard and fixing things, don't get this laptop.

    i also had trouble with the microphone and skype only shows me a green screen on video calls. the lenovo of my wife with the same ubuntu version did not have that problem. i did not have time to fix this problem but given that on the same ubuntu version skype works fine on the lenovo and not fine on the system76 suggests that skype has trouble with some element of the system76 laptop.

    further, if you plan to carry the laptop around you will notice that the edge between keyboard and trackpad starts touching the screen. that leaves a nice grey mark on the screen - great, that is exactly what you want with a glossy screen. i fixed it by attaching several 3M Bumpons along the top of the screen to keep the screen from touching the laptop. again, if you expect to buy a laptop, start running it and have no problems, don't bother with system76.

    the laptop indeed becomes very hot, especially in the area where you palm rests. i don't mind, but i can imagine that many people will find it annoying.

    i tried some gaming on the laptop. uru (game from around 2006) worked fine on highest settings in wine. the ventilation went to full power for it though, so it seemed as if i was playing at an airport. i have not yet tried any steam games which may be the real test.

    i noticed that the screen switch button (fn+f7) did not work. that was right at the moment i wanted to start a presentation, great!

    to nerdcommander: i would recommend to get a lenovo and install ubuntu on it by yourself. the lenovo of my wife which came with win7 and still gave much less trouble running ubuntu 13.04 than the system76 laptop. sound, video, function keys, fingerprint reader, etc. worked without any problems and their laptops seem to be build out of much better material.

  2. #22
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    Jun 2006
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    As a recent purchaser of the Gazelle Pro, I would like to provide my own review.

    For starters the matte screen on the unit I purchased is beautiful. The keyboard works pretty well despite a number of complaints indicating otherwise. The idea that this might be a problem forced me to think long and hard about getting this laptop as I type for living (developer) and I'm glad I decided to move forward anyway. The machine is quite powerful and can run multiple 4 gigabyte VM instances of Windows 7 Pro in VMWare without issue. During compilations within Visual Studio the fans will spin up, but after that they will quiet down in short order. Also these machines don't "force" you into running Ubuntu. I'm running Arch Linux on mine right now with no issues at all (though I am using a cutting edge Intel video driver compiled out of git as Haswell support on Linux is still percolating it seems).

    Now I've been in and out of the laptop quite a bit. I installed my own SSDs and I've been switching between various wireless cards with different chipsets in an ongoing experiment to find what works best in Linux. In that time I've found what appear to be several "extra" screws hidden away in the case and in some cases those screws come loose and have to be removed. I typically have noticed this after I close up the laptop, turn it over and hear a rattling. I believe there have been four of these screws in total. This was somewhat disturbing but the issue was easily rectified as getting in and out of the laptop is pretty easy as it only requires removing two screws on the bottom.

    Also in terms of gaming, my experience has been good. I already knew what I was in for with Intel integrated graphics and I'm pleased. A lot of indie games that have been ported to Linux either via Humble Bundle or Steam work without issue. Intel's support for their video hardware in Linux is improving day by day whereas their wireless hardware is terrible. I highly recommend against purchasing any Intel wireless chipset for use in Linux or Windows due to massive driver related issues. Atheros is the way to go. Sadly System 76 doesn't offer that as a build to order option.

    Overall my opinion of this laptop is very favorable. I would recommend it to others without hesitation. Of course as an experienced Linux user, I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty so a lot of the nit picks above are really non-issues for me.
    Last edited by jaylittle; October 25th, 2013 at 12:30 PM.

  3. #23
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    jaylittle, is it easy to put in a different wireless card? If I just purchase an atheros card from Amazon, can I just pull out the Intel card and put in the new card, or will it be more tedious than that?

  4. #24
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    @jaylittle: yes, tightening screws etc. is certainly nitpicking. what is certainly no nitpicking is the issue about having to plug in and plug out a microphone (headphone works, too) in order to get the internal microphone going. that is simply bad hardware/drivers and seems to be a problem that has been around for quite a while. also, having to put ugly bumpers on the laptop case so that the screen does not scratch on the keyboard edge below is simply bad construction. i have last had that problem with a laptop from around 2004. all laptops i have known since then had a smart enough design to avoid that problem.

    i agree with you that it is an ok laptop, but i would not recommend it to others. especially since some of the problems have been known to system76 for a long time and have not been fixed over time. that suggests that also in the future one can expect their laptops to ship with bad keyboards and bad case construction. unfortunately i am over my 30 day return time, so since i did not immediately notice all of the problems I will have to keep it. but looking around and seeing that one can get a similarly-paced lenovo with a sturdy outside, nice keyboard and longer battery time makes me feel quite bad about having bought this laptop.

  5. #25
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    @jaylittle, When I purchased my Gazelle Pro (gazp9) in June, I upgraded to the "Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 802.11 A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Module" which is an Atheros based card. I see it isn't offered anymore for new builds, but it's working great for me. I'm sure you could find it online and add it yourself.

    # sudo lspci -v
    03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. Device 2003
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
    Memory at f7d00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
    Expansion ROM at f7d80000 [disabled] [size=64K]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/4 Maskable+ 64bit+
    Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
    Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
    Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
    Kernel driver in use: ath9k
    Kernel modules: ath9k

  6. #26
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    Jun 2006
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    Quote Originally Posted by scoodlebop View Post
    jaylittle, is it easy to put in a different wireless card? If I just purchase an atheros card from Amazon, can I just pull out the Intel card and put in the new card, or will it be more tedious than that?
    Yes you'll have to remove two screws on the bottom of the laptop to remove the bottom panel. Then you'll need to gently disconnect the two antenna wires from the wireless card (which is a mini-PCIe card) and remove a single screw so that you can remove it from it's slot. Then put in the new card, screw it in and reconnect the antenna wires (gently).

  7. #27
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    Quote Originally Posted by hendrik-0 View Post
    @jaylittle: yes, tightening screws etc. is certainly nitpicking. what is certainly no nitpicking is the issue about having to plug in and plug out a microphone (headphone works, too) in order to get the internal microphone going. that is simply bad hardware/drivers and seems to be a problem that has been around for quite a while. also, having to put ugly bumpers on the laptop case so that the screen does not scratch on the keyboard edge below is simply bad construction. i have last had that problem with a laptop from around 2004. all laptops i have known since then had a smart enough design to avoid that problem.

    i agree with you that it is an ok laptop, but i would not recommend it to others. especially since some of the problems have been known to system76 for a long time and have not been fixed over time. that suggests that also in the future one can expect their laptops to ship with bad keyboards and bad case construction. unfortunately i am over my 30 day return time, so since i did not immediately notice all of the problems I will have to keep it. but looking around and seeing that one can get a similarly-paced lenovo with a sturdy outside, nice keyboard and longer battery time makes me feel quite bad about having bought this laptop.
    For what it's worth - I feel that System 76 is probably a bit too aggressive in moving to new Intel processors and chipsets. The fact is that support for newer hardware lags in Linux, no matter how much you love it. Up until kernel 3.11, Intel Haswell video support was less than great. Right now I'm using a pre-release xorg video driver for my Haswell video because kinks are still being ironed out. But to be fair to System 76, they are competing in an aggressive market with razor thin margins. Ubuntu generally seems to do an alright job with negating some of these issues but still - I think it could be handled better.

    Yeah I agree the screw thing is annoying. But I have had other laptops with similar issues Nobody is perfect. As long as the screws don't short circuit the motherboard its a simple enough issue to resolve. As for the keyboard and the screen issue, I can't attest to that one. My laptop is relatively new though, so maybe that will become an issue over the next few months. Maybe not. We shall see.

  8. #28
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    Quote Originally Posted by mbaee View Post
    @jaylittle, When I purchased my Gazelle Pro (gazp9) in June, I upgraded to the "Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 802.11 A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Module" which is an Atheros based card. I see it isn't offered anymore for new builds, but it's working great for me. I'm sure you could find it online and add it yourself.
    My experience with combo wireless/bluetooth cards has been decidedly mixed whether the OS is Windows or Linux. I find that on most of these cards, even if things are working great beforehand, once you connect a bluetooth device a number of problems tend to arise. Not the least of which is the fact that once I connect my bluetooth headphones, network performance disintegrates. At this point I've become resigned to using a straight out dual band wireless card and a USB dongle for bluetooth. This seems to avoid all of the issues.

  9. #29
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    Just curious, was this with the latest version (Gazelle Professional 9) ? https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/gazp9

    Can you expand on "keyboard is absolute rubbish"? You mean the funny numpad with . at the top?

  10. #30
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    Re: gazelle professional review

    @NoBugs!

    People complaining about the keyboard are complaining that it doesn't register keystrokes. I'm too lazy to look them up, but there are multiple blogs and forum threads where people have hated the keyboards so much that they sent the machines back, even if they lose shipping costs and import fees. Most of the reviews are about the Galago, but the Gazelle seems to have the same complaints.

    It's making me hold off on buying one. Although I keep thinking of getting one to see if I can handle the keyboard. There are videos somewhere on this forum that show how bad the keyboard is, with the guy hitting a key a lot and it doesn't register if you want to see what it's like. This guy says "When I was initially typing this review, using this keyboard was an exercise in frustration, and I got really mad. I returned the laptop because of the keyboard" and "If you take only one thing away from this review, take away that the keyboard is really bad and give extra considerations to that before purchasing" and "I need one that when you press a key, the Operating System registers that key as pressed and renders the appropriate ascii character on screen. The Galago keyboard does not do that".

    I'd love it if we could try the laptops for free so we could see if we liked them. That's a lot of money to spend on something that might have such a bad keyboard.

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