Pangolin or Serval ?

[thebinaryblob]

I am going to be buying my first laptop from System76 sometime in the next couple of weeks, and I am having trouble deciding between the Pangolin and Serval.

With a Core 2 Duo added to the Pangolin, the only difference between it and the Serval is the screen resolution and battery life (and $130). As I plan on using it for taking notes, gaming, programming, and schoolwork, I am worried that the graphics card wont be able to handle running the latest Sauerbraten and Spring at high settings with a larger screen, and that i would have to turn off things like anti-aliasing, making the graphics less smooth, which kind-of defeats the purpose of having a high-res screen :) . Also, would it be possible to have two 80-character columns of text (with a reasonable font size) on the 1280x800 screen the pangolin has, as I would find this very useful when coding.

Some other things I am worrying about:
will the battery life vary very much between them with all the power-saving features like CPU scaling, or will it not be that much of a difference?
The 6-cell Pangolin has a better estimated battery life than the 9-cell Serval, is this related to the screen, the CPU, or both? Will a Pangolin with a core 2 Duo have a similar battery life to the Serval?

also, how hot do these two laptops get?, does anyone have any numbers I could compare? I am counting on being able to use it almost anywhere, I just dont want to get burned.

And finally, I have 2 cats, they always run from point A to point B as fast as they possibly can, and it is quite entertaining watching them slip on smooth surfaces :popcorn: , at least if they dont knock anything down. Since this laptop is going to be a very large investment for me (I am still in high school), will it survive a short fall, or various other bumps (like a cat running into it at full speed :) ) that will occur at home and at school?

[thomasaaron]

First, see this thread.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=844737&highlight=serval+pangolin


I am worried that the graphics card wont be able to handle running the latest Sauerbraten and Spring at high settings with a larger screen, and that i would have to turn off things like anti-aliasing, making the graphics less smooth, which kind-of defeats the purpose of having a high-res screen

Both the pangolin and serval have the 8600M GT nVidia cards. If those don't do the trick, I'm not sure what will. But I'm not a gamer. 76ers?


Will the battery life vary very much between them with all the power-saving features like CPU scaling, or will it not be that much of a difference?

It will help somewhat to run the power-saving features. I don't have any exact metrics on these two models at the moment, but based on past experience with similar models, it should give give you an extra half-hour or so.


The 6-cell Pangolin has a better estimated battery life than the 9-cell Serval, is this related to the screen, the CPU, or both?

Both.


And finally, I have 2 cats, they always run from point A to point B as fast as they possibly can, and it is quite entertaining watching them slip on smooth surfaces , at least if they dont knock anything down. Since this laptop is going to be a very large investment for me (I am still in high school), will it survive a short fall, or various other bumps (like a cat running into it at full speed ) that will occur at home and at school?

Is that something you really intend to put to the test? :lolflag: User-inflicted (or user's-cat-inflicted) damage would not be covered under warranty. But they are fairly rugged. Also, the Serval's finish is beautiful. I'd definitely want to protect it from drops and cats.

[thebinaryblob]

Is that something you really intend to put to the test? User-inflicted (or user's-cat-inflicted) damage would not be covered under warranty. But they are fairly rugged. Also, the Serval's finish is beautiful. I'd definitely want to protect it from drops and cats.

No, I dont plan on actually testing that :) . I just want to make sure that I am getting a laptop that will last, as this is the first one ill have ever owned, and only the second prebuilt computer (my dad usually builds all of our computers). I dont really know what to expect. I hear that laptops, especially the screens and cases get damaged fairly easily.:confused:

the Serval's finish seems very nice, but I might not be able to get a Serval in the end, as I dont want to take too much from my stash.

Do you have any idea how much having a Core 2 Duo in a Pangolin instead of the Celeron Dual core would reduce the battery life?

[thomasaaron]

I don't have any metrics on that. But, not very much.

[osx424242]

Here's a screenshot from my Pangolin: some overlapping may be required. It's alright for occasional programming, but I do prefer my at-work environment (which does also have a second monitor, larger keyboard, more desk space...). Note I have _not_ tried changing any fonts or font sizes at all -- I believe these are all the default sizes; a slight overlapping has worked well enough for me that I haven't tried anything yet to improve the situation.

My Pangolin was also my very first laptop. I'm pretty happy with it :). But, as I mentioned, it's my first so I can't really compare it to others.

[steveneddy]

Go for the Serval. You will be happier in the long run.

[thebinaryblob]

Well, I still haven't bought my laptop yet, and the new Pangolin seems to be exactly what I'm looking for.

I used one of my relatives' MacBooks (my family are mostly Mac users :rolleyes: ) to try JEdit on the 1280x800 screen and found that I could use two columns w/line numbering and a docked sidekick window, even though I had to set the font fairly small. The MacBook had a 13.3" screen, and was barely readable, so I figure the 15.4" Pangolin will be okay :) .

I also tried running a few games like Sauerbraten to test its integrated graphics chip, an old GMA 950, and it ran them sufficiently. I figure that with the new Montevina core 2 duo and the X4500HD should be able to run most anything I want to run nicely.

I look forward to getting a System76 Pangolin Performance Laptop :cool: even though im not sure I like the white, oh well :lolflag:

p.s. is the Pangolin now technically a Centrino 2 Duo (most companies tend to loudly display this) and has all intel chips from wireless to CPU to GPU, or does this mean something else? :confused:

p.p.s. does the new Pangolin have a slot for a kensington lock?

[Bllz]

No, I dont plan on actually testing that :) . I just want to make sure that I am getting a laptop that will last, as this is the first one ill have ever owned, and only the second prebuilt computer (my dad usually builds all of our computers). I dont really know what to expect. I hear that laptops, especially the screens and cases get damaged fairly easily.:confused:

the Serval's finish seems very nice, but I might not be able to get a Serval in the end, as I dont want to take too much from my stash.

Do you have any idea how much having a Core 2 Duo in a Pangolin instead of the Celeron Dual core would reduce the battery life?

Mine survived a mailing disaster (I'll spare everybody the details) in which one of the corners was beat up real bad. System76 fixed it up and now I can barely tell there was any damage, and there's no damaged hardware. I only have a lightly scuffed finish and a slightly dinged corner.

The point is, even if it does get royally beat up, System76 does a good job fixing the lappies. And as far as I can tell, that must have been quite a bump that it took because it feels solidly constructed.

The bottom line, anything short of a tiger isn't going harm your lappy's internal organs.