Inevitable question, battery life on the Galago?

[screaminj3sus]

Linux could certainly improve when it comes to battery life, but linux/ubuntu does a decent job (the linux kernel does plenty of power saving stuff by default, and ubuntu has pm utils scripts by default for all the power saving basics, such as putting pci devices into power saving modes on battery etc...) On my older Asus laptop my battery life in ubuntu is about the same as in windows.

The main problem with battery life in system76 laptops is because the only offer super low end 6 cell 48 Wh batteries (at least in the 14 inch models), and don't even offer any higher capacity options. If the battery is really low capacity then there is only so much the OS can do.

Anyway, aside from battery life gripes this new ultrabook does look like a very nice machine. If I had known system76 had an ultrabook in the works this year I probably would have held off on getting my lemur ultra (got one about 5 months ago). Oh well, this type of thing always happens with technology, as soon as you buy something something even better always comes right along

[cprofitt]

In regards to battery life my W520 with a 9 cell battery gets about 9.5 hours of battery life. My T530 gets roughly the same with a 9 cell battery.

[3Miro]

Ultrabooks usually come with low wattage CPU which gives them long life for the battery. Galago comes with regular i7, which means more power and more power consumption.

[Leslie Dorner]

It's a very good Ultrabook PC with average looks. I sort of mistook it for an Acer Ultrabook, but with higher quality PC components and Ubuntu pre-loaded. I'm interested, but I'm having second thoughts. I've always bought new PCs with optical drives and to forgo it would be a considerable decision for me even though I have an external USB 3 Blu-Ray writer and another external USB 2 DVD/CD burner drives. I still rent discs including DVD-Videos and music CDs not to mention Blu-Ray discs from my local public libraries and I make backup copies of my own private library collection which is still growing with each purchase. I use the library to preview what I want to order to own in my library to see if it's worth the money or not. So, the Galago UltraPro would not let me do that at the library. That's a big bummer for me. I might go with the Gazelle Professional, but I prefer the Intel Iris Pro 5200. I could always get a portable USB 3 Blu-Ray burner drive, but they're kind of expensive.

[RedRat]

This really isn't a dump on System76. I think your criticism is on the wrong track. Look, many take laptops to class at university or they take them to business or scientific meeting to facilitate note taking. My grandson has Toshiba that is now roughly three years old running Windows and it gets around 3 hours. Really, 4 hours is just a little too short for such uses, unless the facility has a wall plug. I think this has been a problem for all laptops, whether running Ubuntu or Windows or Apple, and computer providers ought to be thinking about this. I have a Serval Pro from Sys76 and it has a battery life of about less than 1 hour. A good desktop replacement but then the battery becomes redundant.

I think someone mentioned that performance is probably not a major talking point anymore, pretty much just about all the various computers do just fine in that department. Perhaps it is time for manufacturers begin rethinking battery life again. Is it due to battery technology, power consumption of other components (e.g., backlight of the screen) or the CPU?

[isantop]

The big problem is lack of optimization in Ubuntu.

[eutropia]

Ultrabooks usually come with low wattage CPU which gives them long life for the battery. Galago comes with regular i7, which means more power and more power consumption.

This. The i7-4750HQ is totally beastmode. Check out anandtech's review of it's higher-bin brother, the i7-4950HQ and you'll see the only chip on the market that outperformed it in computation fluid dynamics was a hex-core ivybridge CPU costing nearly $1000. The 128MB eDRAM isn't just for the graphics portion of the chip, it also acts as an L4 cache for the main CPU.

Back to the point at hand, the haswell U-series processors (the likes of which are in the new macbook air) have an average TPD of about 27W, whereas this i7 HQ series has a TPD of 47W. Furthermore, most ultrabook OEMS are further underclocking/volting the U-series haswells for even more battery life.

This machine is an extremely portable powerhouse, and I welcome it with open arms as a developer. I do look forward to more kernel support for haswell's power saving features, and I imagine that for the most part, I will get better battery life than 4 hours -- I don't plan on watching videos on it full time, after all.

[RedRat]

What I would like to see is a laptop that I can take on an airplane and last long enough to cross the country, e.g., roughly 5-6 hour flight. That way, I can watch a movie or whatever. How many out there really need a laptop for strenuous game playing? I suspect that most users are either business people or users who use their machines to check email, maybe text, maybe Skype. I know that tablets kind of fit that bill a little bit. As Isantop said above, perhaps the next big push at the Ubuntu level ought to be optimization for power usage instead of changing the GUI and other window dressing.

[isantop]

I should point out that Canonical is capable of working on more than one thing at once with Ubuntu; indeed, the designers who make those sorts of GUI changes aren't even able to help with power usage optimiztion.

[RedRat]

"I should point out that Canonical is capable of working on more than one thing at once with Ubuntu; indeed, the designers who make those sorts of GUI changes aren't even able to help with power usage optimiztion."
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How long have laptops been around now??? Quite a few years, I guess. How long has Ubuntu been around? Quite a few years too. I assume that Canonical is indeed capable of working on several things at once, but I think we are dealing with priorities here. Since we do not have an optimized Ubuntu for laptops, I guess that is down below GUI development. Someone, somewhere in the Canonical operation must set priorities, and I would like to see it on energy consumption. Android in tablets seems to be pretty well optimized for power, why not Ubuntu?