System76 Oryx Pro / Clevo 650SE

[Kris_Matthews]

Does anyone actually have this laptop? If so, how do you like it? What is battery life like? How about fan noise and heat generation?

[Markus_Iofcea]

Does anyone actually have this laptop? If so, how do you like it? What is battery life like? How about fan noise and heat generation?
I have this laptop. Fan noise and heat generation is actually ok. The battery life is horrible. I would say max 2h (at least on mine). But on the other side it is a powerful gaming machine and not to confuse with a Macbook Air or a Lenovo X1.

[Kris_Matthews]

Thanks for the reply, Markus_Iofcea. Seems like there's a remarkable lack of reputable reviews for this machine. Most of the reviews I've seen are just regurgitating the sales material - it's obvious the "reviewers" never actually touched the machine. :/ (Hint hint!)

(I ended up deciding against this this laptop based on .. well, I'll call it a lack of professionalism in a response to pre-sales questions.)

[Markus_Iofcea]

I can fully understand that. I am also surprised that there is no professional review of the laptop yet.

[Kris_Matthews]

Is there any chance I can convince you to take a few pictures of the laptop? Maybe a video of it running a game? Pretty please with sugar on top? :wink:

I'm in a really annoying situation where I can't find a computer that doesn't **** me off. ](*,) I've just gone through three separate Dell XPS 15s (the 2015 infinity display model) - all were defective in multiple ways, and Dells customer support has probably managed to take a few years off my life. I'm using a macbook pro at the moment, but not very happy with it - though admittedly the problems I'm experiencing are software based.

[ultima96]

I have to concur withMarkus_Iofcea. Its great at running games. The heat isn't too crazy, just what you'd expect from a high-end laptop. I don't understand why there isn't a single real review of the Oryx yet. I have had it for about a week now, and I'm really loving it, but just don't think you're going to get 13 hours of battery on this thing. My battery runs about an two hours. If you're going to be gaming, make sure and plug in. It definitely is less battery than I would really like, but I sort of expected 2-4 hours going in. If I have time, I might take a video of it, and some pictures later tonight. It's a gorgeous machine. I have the 17 inch model, and it really is beautiful.

[Kris_Matthews]

That would be great - I'm sure System76 would appreciate some actual reviews. :) (As would I!)

[Foxcow]

That would be great - I'm sure System76 would appreciate some actual reviews. :) (As would I!)

Same here. I'm trying to decide between the XPS15 and the Oryx Pro.


To OP or anyone else that has the machine:
How much of the body aluminum? I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that really flexy/bendy plastic laptop shells are tiresome. I'm hoping this machine is a strong departure from that.

[Kris_Matthews]

I would strongly urge avoiding the XPS 15 like the plague. I've had four of them now, all defective in various ways. In addition, Dells support is absolutely horrific.

[Foxcow]

I would strongly urge avoiding the XPS 15 like the plague. I've had four of them now, all defective in various ways. In addition, Dells support is absolutely horrific.

That really sounds like a terrible time. However, I know some people that have gotten them and really like them. The Oryx Pro's battery life seems to be its biggest drawback. The XPS15 seems to be doing much, much better in that department according to user reviews on the net.

[2ndthief]

I use a Galago Ultra Pro for work. It is my company provided daily driver. I like it so much I ordered an Oryx Pro to replace my current home gaming setup.
It is due to deliver on the 23rd of this month. Once it gets here I will do some unboxing and throw some photos of it up. I am an fps player and I run steam so I can throw some video of that up as well.
All of the reviews that I was able to find before I ordered mine seemed to be light weight cookie cutter reviews done by people that did not want to bash a company that was providing Linux hardware.
I will get some reference for you as soon as I can in the form of photos and video of it in action. That is, as soon as UPS drops it off...

[Foxcow]

I use a Galago Ultra Pro for work. It is my company provided daily driver. I like it so much I ordered an Oryx Pro to replace my current home gaming setup.
It is due to deliver on the 23rd of this month. Once it gets here I will do some unboxing and throw some photos of it up. I am an fps player and I run steam so I can throw some video of that up as well.
All of the reviews that I was able to find before I ordered mine seemed to be light weight cookie cutter reviews done by people that did not want to bash a company that was providing Linux hardware.
I will get some reference for you as soon as I can in the form of photos and video of it in action. That is, as soon as UPS drops it off...

Thank you!!

[Arron_Atchison]

Hey guys, I've owned one for nearly two weeks now. I have to say that yes, the battery life is quite short. I'm extremely happy with the performance and workability of the operating system and provided drivers. I actually borked the pre-installed Ubuntu 15.10 the other day (my fault I believe,) but a fresh installation worked out of the box and after installing the system76 ppa, I'm back to normal. I'll try to give you some more info in the future as I was also disappointed by the lack of reviews. I can confirm that it runs Shadow of Mordor on Steam very well ;) I can also cross-compile a Raspberry PI 2 Kernel in about 5 mins.

[Foxcow]

Hey guys, I've owned one for nearly two weeks now. I have to say that yes, the battery life is quite short. I'm extremely happy with the performance and workability of the operating system and provided drivers. I actually borked the pre-installed Ubuntu 15.10 the other day (my fault I believe,) but a fresh installation worked out of the box and after installing the system76 ppa, I'm back to normal. I'll try to give you some more info in the future as I was also disappointed by the lack of reviews. I can confirm that it runs Shadow of Mordor on Steam very well ;) I can also cross-compile a Raspberry PI 2 Kernel in about 5 mins.

Thanks for the feedback.

Do you know what packages are in the System76 PPA? Can you provide some pics of the body of the machine? I'd like to know how much of it is aluminum.

Thanks

[kennethmark]

For pics of Oryx Pro you can easily found them on Youtube, type "Sager NP8651 (Clevo P650SE)" as search key.
They are same machine with different brands but System76 provides their own drivers making Oryx Pro
smoother user experience and their support is really helpful and friendly.
Many may claims they can get better quality, performance and usability for cheaper Lenovo, Asus, or other brands
but, from my own experience, if u want a laptop ready to work with Ubuntu, System76 is a nice option.

[Foxcow]

It looks like the NP8657 to me and there aren't any reviews of that machine anywhere. The NP8651 has a Haswell (4th gen Intel core cpu), doesn't have an optical drive, and doesn't appear to be dressed in aluminum in any capacity.

[2ndthief]

So UPS was on time today and delivered the goods. I apologize for the low quality of the photos these were shot with an LG v10 then scaled in GIMP.
This thing is gorgeous,

Aluminum parts include: Top of the lid ( but not the bezel around the screen )
The bottom of the laptop , the entire bottom, this was tested using a pocket knife to scratch at it ( as seen in one of the pics ) it does not scratch.
The wrist rest area around the track pad etc. but not the area around the keyboard.
This thing is a tank. I am installing and updating steam, I will post a video of gaming action once I get it all in there.
here is some video though, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_li0uvuw0g this does not do it justice. It looks absolutely beautiful on the matte ips screen.

[Foxcow]

So UPS was on time today and delivered the goods. I apologize for the low quality of the photos these were shot with an LG v10 then scaled in GIMP.
This thing is gorgeous,

Aluminum parts include: Top of the lid ( but not the bezel around the screen )
The bottom of the laptop , the entire bottom, this was tested using a pocket knife to scratch at it ( as seen in one of the pics ) it does not scratch.
The wrist rest area around the track pad etc. but not the area around the keyboard.
This thing is a tank. I am installing and updating steam, I will post a video of gaming action once I get it all in there.
here is some video though, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_li0uvuw0g this does not do it justice. It looks absolutely beautiful on the matte ips screen.

Thank you so much for this post! You're right about it being a beautiful machine. If I can live with the battery life, I'm 100% sold.


Thank you again.

[2ndthief]

I have not done any battery testing on it yet, but I am assuming that it is not an endurance machine. I have however played some TF-2 on it and with everything set to high, but no AA and no AF I am running 120 fps solid.
That is with the 970m and the stock driver config from system76.
I am in love with this machine ( even though I only got it today ) the keyboard is comfortable to type on ( full 10 key as well )
It really is a great laptop.
So far so good. It needs more base in the audio but hey, it is a laptop right?

[Shane_Carr]

How does the touchpad feel? Is it pretty easy to scroll, or is there a lot of friction?
Is anyone aware of accessories available for this model laptop, like touchpad or keyboard film?

[2ndthief]

The touchpad is the typical plastic, it is not the glass feeling one that comes on a mac, it is slightly textured. It is responsive and I have used it for playing some minecraft but I would not recommend it.
I am not aware of accessories but TBH I do not have an issue with the touchpad and it does not get in my way when typing. Overall it is not a detractor. Settings for 2 finger scroll and tap to click work
as expected. and the buttons at the bottom are not loose but are solid in place.

[Scott Deagan]

I bought one of these from PC Specialist here in London, but it was branded as a "Defiance II" (came with 32GB of RAM, the Intel i7-6820HK, 500GB SSD, nVidia 970m). It runs Ubuntu 15.10 almost perfectly. The only problem I have is when I put the unit in Intel GPU mode (by setting the graphics to "MSHYBRID" instead of "DISCRETE" in the BIOS), the unit doesn't shutdown properly. If I boot in to nVidia GPU mode, everything works perfectly.

This is annoying, because most of the time I'm not using Steam and would like to boot up in Intel GPU mode. In Intel GPU mode, the battery life is about 4.5 hours, compared to 2 hours in nVidia mode. The strangest thing is the unit also freezes when I run an lspci or lshw. Also worth mentioning that if I boot up in console only mode, then shutdown -h now works fine.

I have tried installing the System76 drivers, but this doesn't solve the problem. I have installed the nVidia drivers by going in to Additional Drivers (I'm not sure how to install the nVidia binaries and still have the nVidia PRIME option).

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Anyone have any idea what a possible solution would be?

[neuromot]

Did you ever decide? I am trying to make this same decision b/t the XPS15 and OryxPro...

[Foxcow]

I didn't get the Oryx Pro from System 76 but I did get the same exact computer (sager np-8657-S) from XoticPc.

Here are my thoughts:


Sager NP8657-S First Look

I had a pretty good experinece with Sager and XoticPC previously with a
Sager NP2650 so I decided to try the duo again. This is essentially the same
computer as System 76's Oryx Pro sans some branding and the nice non-Windows
super key. Ordering the computer with more options from XoticPc was a better
deal as you get more.

Specs of the build:
6th Generation Intel® Skylake™ i7-6700HQ (2.6GHz - 3.5GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache)
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 970M (3.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 (Maxwell) w/ Optimus™ Technology)
15.6” FHD 16:9 IPS LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finish w/ G-SYNC Technology (1920x1080)
16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory
250GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD
1TB 7200RPM [SATA II - 3GB/s]
Intel® Dual Band AC 8260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth™ 4.0 [M.2 Chip]
C Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Remove All Branding
No Operating System
$1399 pre-shipping

Look and Feel:
This computer looks and feels fantastic. The mostly aluminum chasis feels very solid.
There are a few places that are plastic (the lip of the the lid and where you rest your palms)
but they feel very good. I could not be happier with the build quality of this machine.
This thing weigns in at about 5.5 lbs which gives it a nice solid feel. It is also less
than an inch thick. I am very pleased with how thin it is. There is no optical drive so
I would imaigne that cut down on the thickness quite a bit. 9/10

Touchpad:
My previous laptop was a Sager np2650 and the touchpad was my biggest gripe with the machine.
This touchpad is awesome. It has a very nice texture and it is very large. The buttons
feel nice and clicky and are great. I don't find myself accidentally touching the pad when typing
or gaming. 10/10

Display:
This is by far the best laptop display I have ever used. Matte + gsync + great colors and viewing
angles make for a great experience. I have played some games (Cities: Skylines, Crimsonland) and
everything is crisp and smooth. 10/10

Keyboard:
By far, the best laptop keyboard I've used in a long time. First of all, it is truly a full sized keyboard
with well spaced keys and a full numpad. The keys feel fantastic and have a good amount of travel. The
keys are plastic but they feel very high quality. There is no flex as I'm typing. The backlight (white only)
works very well and has 5 different intensities. My only gripes (and I'm reaching on this one) are that I
could not replace the Windows key with something more generic and some of the backlight leaks around the keys.
9/10

Battery Life:
One of the sacrafices made to make this machine so thin was the battery. Its a small 60W/hour battery that will
get me barely 2 hours of moderate/heavy (non-gaming) use. I have BIOS/UEFI set to use only the discrete GPU as
I don't have Nvidia's Optimus technology available with my OS of choice (Linux). **** you Nvidia. I am probably
going to give Bumblebee a try in the near future. I knew going in that battery life would suck and am OK with
this. 3/10

GPU:
GTX-970M + Nvidia proprietary drivers. So far, it cand handle the stuff I have thrown at it. I can get
around 30fps in Cities: Skylines in a fairly large city. The game is powered by the Unity engine and
it is well know that there isn't performance parity on all supported platforms.
I am more than satisfied so far. 8/10

Sound:
The speakers are better than the typical laptop speakers. They are mounted close to the lid hinges so they
actually project out. Headphones sound fantastic. 7/10

Noise/Heat:
When performing non-intensive tasks, the noise level is pretty quiet. Obviously, when demand for the CPU/GPU
ramps, up the noise increases. Its not excessively loud nor is it quiet. The bottom of the machine does
get somewhat warm but the keyboard, touchbad, and palm rest areas are just fine. I spent a good 6 hours
playing Civilization V and the machine performed flawlessly. With everything turned up to 10 framerates were
between 40 (zoomed all the way out) and 200 fps.
No complaints. 7/10

Bluetooth:
To my delight, the bluetooth works great. When working, I may run deadbeaf in the background for music
but when I want to listen to podcasts or my Google Music playlists, I connect my Nexus 5x via bluetooth
and it works flawlessly. I am very happy with this. 10/10

OS/Software:
My OS of choice is Archlinux. However, I could not get certain things working such as brightness dimming and
standby on lid close. I usually use Gnome Shell and have never had any issue before. I got brightness/standby
working but with the use of a few ugly hacks. It turns out, Gnome Shell is the issue so I decided to try
Ubuntu 15.10 with Unity and everything works out of the box. I'll probably re-install Arch again in the future
and choose a differnt DE than Gnome as I'm not really a fan of Unity.

[DuckHook]

Thread moved to The Cafe as the more appropriate forum.

[mike.mikowski]

I own this laptop and recommend as a high-performance desktop replacement where long battery life is not required.
It is excellent for work and gaming. Look elsewhere if you require day-long battery life.

My configuration
Ubuntu 16.04 with KDE and System76 repo (was shipped with Ubuntu 15.10)
3 GB GeForce GTX 970M with 1280 CUDA Cores
3.5 GHz i7-6700HQ (6MB Cache – 4 Cores – 8 Threads)
+ $99.00 15.6"Matte IPS 1080p IPS LED-backlit Display with G-SYNC
+ $299.00 32 GB Dual-channel DDR4 at 2133 MHz (4× 8 GB)
+ $195.00 256 GB PCIe M.2 SSD – Seq. Read: 2150 MB/s, Write: 1200 MB/s
1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty
$1,992.00 as configured ( $1399 + 99 + 299 + 195 )

9/10 OS compatibility
+ With 16.04 and KDE, everything just works. Multi-monitors, wake/sleep, wireless, etc. I'm using the latest stable plasma with the dark theme, and it looks fantastic (see attached). Ensure the BIOS is set to discrete graphics to get this to work. All the annoying niggles like missing virtual terminals and power management from 15.10 got fixed.
- Nvidia-prime switching to Intel graphics works when enabled in the BIOS, but I have yet to get multi-screen support working.

10/10 Performance
+ Blazing fast, period.
+ Supports an external 4k monitor automatically.
+ The PCIe M.2 SSD is amazingly fast. Cold boots in 15s. Resume in 5s.
+ My kids love this thing.

10/10 Display / GPU
+ Gsync, IPS, great color and saturation.
+ OGL Performance and support has been excellent.
+ Steam works great.
+ Gsync looks great.

8/10 Ergonomics
+ Excellent keyboard with num pad. Ubuntu key (no stupid sticker!).
+ Doesn't get warm on keyboard / palmrest / trackpad.
+ The trackpad is as good as any I've used it although I almost always pack a wireless mouse.
+ Fans can spin-up and get a bit loud for seemingly simple tasks.

5/10 Fit and Finish
+ Mostly sturdy and stylish
- The finish is very prone to scratching and fingerprints and paint scrapes though. I always use a case, and I still have 5 scratched or marred areas already.
- Keep a microfibre cloth with you at all times.

4/10 Battery Life
- With the GTX970 the battery life borders on laughable. It will last 1.5-2.0hr; when driving an external monitor, it drops to 1hr.
- Nvidia-prime which switches to Intel graphics and only one screen at a time doubles the battery life to 3-4 hours.
-- Reboot to BIOS and select Advanced > Graphics > Hybrid; save and reboot
-- It should restart in Intel graphics. If not, open a virtual terminal and sudo prime-select intel && systemctl restart sddm
-- I installed intel microcode (sudo apt-get install intel-microcode) and added i910 to /etc/modules. Both of these may be required.

9/10 Summary
- My only let-down was the easily damaged finish
. Battery life is meh, but I knew that going in. Using nvidia-prime is a good compromise when you need longer life and don't need multi-display (e.g. on a long train ride, at a cafe, etc).
+ Exceeded my expectations in almost all other respects: performance is fantastic

Screen Shot of KDE 5 using Dark Theme

http://michaelmikowski.com/img/snap.png

[undecidable]

agree with all @mike.mikowski wrote above, so will just add some of my own perspective.

Configuration

15.6″ Matte IPS 1080p IPS LED-backlit Display
8 GB GeForce GTX 980M with 1536 CUDA Cores
3.6 GHz i7-6820HK (8MB Cache – 4 Cores – 8 Threads)
64 GB Dual-channel DDR4 at 2400 MHz (4× 16 GB)
120 GB M.2 SSD – Seq. Read: 540 MB/s, Write: 500 MB/s
250 GB M.2 SSD – Seq. Read: 540 MB/s, Write: 500 MB/s
250 GB 2.5″ SSD
No 2nd 2.5″ Drive


Usage

Day to day work. Run 3 x Kubuntu VMs at all times, sometimes 4 and work on v v large spreadsheets.
Really only need 32gb, not 64gb, but got 64gb so it would last longer.
The 2xM2 SSDs, 1xSSd are: 1 systems, 1 fast data, 1 slow data.
Use it with 2 external screens - 3x1920x1080 in total, both connected via dpi.
(The same setup worked on the Galago, except one was connected via hdmi.)
I mostly use an external keyboard and mouse because of my physical setup (see picture).
I don't use nvidia-prime switching - just keep it on discrete.
Am using Kubuntu 14.04, though it has ubuntu 16.04 on another partition.

What I was using
Galago Ultrapro with 16gb memory. Great machine, but was running out of memory.
I would have got another one with 64gb except S76 no longer sell them
so was really forced into an OryxPro.

Why I chose it
Use to use Thinkpads - still have one- but install was always an issue -
had to check carefully exactly what chips were used and what workarounds were needed.
Similarly Dell laptops.
S76 preinstall Ubuntu and I repartition and add Kubuntu. no research needed.

Support
I changed the order the night before shipment - and it got changed!!
If you've ever used Lenovo or Dell support, you can describe S76 as magnificent.
You get a real person and they respond.
Sometimes not as knowledgeable as needed, but persistence gets the answer.
(just had to deal with Dell support on an LCD - pain, pain, pain,
can't overemphasize what a different reachable support makes to a human with a short fuse).

Downsides
Noisier than the Galago - some fan noise - the Galago was silent.
No middle mouse button - you have to click left and right buttons at the same time.

Upsides
A beautiful, no hassle machine that just works, with no issues.
Great screen, great keyboard.
You can get it with 3 (or even 4) SSDs - a huge advantage over other laptops.
(I once bought a 2nd hdd for a thinkpad - lost 86 days off my life)
Fast: it is on now so can't time it but sure it cold boots to login screen in under 10 seconds.

Summary
A real fast, lovely machine, that just works out of the box
with easily reachable real people support. Just love it.

270373


(how did mike get such a great picture in the post, and all I am getting is these miserable thumbnails??)

[RichardET]

Does anyone actually have this laptop? If so, how do you like it? What is battery life like? How about fan noise and heat generation?


I looked at the web site - horribly overpriced, in my view; also I own a great laptop, a Lenovo W530 (end of 2012, core i7, 24GB of memory, ~$1350). It's able to run either Windows 10, or Ubuntu natively, but I stick with Windows due to the NVIDIA 2 GB video card, the K1000M, which truly runs better with the Windows driver. At some point, I will probably go Linux only on it, but not yet. It's great with VMware and I run many different VM's with it, including Ubuntu.