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Thread: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
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    19

    Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    After having a few days with my Darter UltraThin, I have a few comments.

    Overall, this is a very nice laptop for the price. The feature list is very impressive. I have been waiting for 1080p, 802.11AC, and Haswell all in one package for quite a while now. I would have preferred a 13 inch option as that suits my needs a little better, however I'm happy with the 14 inch display.

    After opening the box, the first thing that struck me was the weight of this thing. I imagine that it's related to the touch screen, which is a feature that I didn't necessarily need, but it's pretty darn heavy. Otherwise, I have found the construction to be quite nice and have had no problems with the keyboard at all. This is my first System76 computer, so I am unfamiliar with the previous issues some may have experienced. The display is very nice, bright, and the touchscreen is responsive (when is multi-touch coming?). After installing NFS and exFAT (why oh why is this not included with Ubuntu?) I started to experiment with some video playback. Overall it's quite smooth and VLC does a good job with my bluray rips. I initially had some tearing issues but found a fix (forgot where) online. I tried updating the video drivers with the intel GUI app, but they haven't supported 13.10 yet. On to my first real complaint... the sound coming from the speakers on this thing is quite tinny and minuscule. I suppose you will always have to compromise something in a computer with this form factor. Next issue, battery life. I have waited a few days to comment on this. I was hoping that after a few cycles on the battery I would get better performance out of this thing. That was the whole reason for waiting for Haswell! However, even on dim brightness settings, I'm only getting about 3.5 hours with normal internet usage. Very disappointing! I don't really think this is System76's fault, however. It's more likely an Ubuntu power usage issue. I'm not even sure if the processor throttling that is advertised is supported in Ubuntu...?

    In the end I am quite happy with this laptop. I think it's a nice looking, high spec machine for the price. The battery life and speakers are the only things holding it back for me.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Beans
    14
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    What specs did you put on it?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Beans
    19

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Base System $899.00
    Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit
    5 Free GB of Ubuntu One Online Storage and Sync
    14.1" 1080p Full High Definition Touch Display with Glossy Surface ( 1920 x 1080 )
    Intel® High Definition Graphics 4400
    4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U ( 2.4 GHz - 4MB L3 Cache - 2 Cores plus Hyperthreading ) $89.00
    8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB $65.00
    120 GB Crucial M500 Series mSATA Solid State Drive $129.00
    No Secondary Hard Drive
    Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n Wireless LAN + Bluetooth $29.00
    No Bag
    1 Yr. Ltd. Warranty and 1 Yr. Technical Support

    I suppose the i5 would have a better battery life.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Aurora, CO
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    2,564
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Just note: your touchscreen already supports multi-touch. You can check this by using three fingers to drag a Window around, or tapping with four fingers to open the Dash.
    Ian Santopietro - System76 Technical Support.
    Open a Support Ticket!
    Ask a Sales Question!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
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    19

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Ah, I see. Great! How about pinch-to-zoom or two-finger scroll?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Aurora, CO
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    2,564
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Scrolling is one finger for GTK+ applications; similar to scrolling on a smartphone. Open up a folder with a lot of files in it in Nautilus, then scrool.

    Pinch-to-zoom would need to be supported by applications first. This type of gesture is supported by the OS, just not recognized by any applications it's passed to. You can three-finger strech or pinch to maximize/restore windows.
    Ian Santopietro - System76 Technical Support.
    Open a Support Ticket!
    Ask a Sales Question!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Beans
    1

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Is there any way to right-click with the touch screen?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    Aurora, CO
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    Ubuntu

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Not directly. When I needed to right-click (if I was feeling lazy enough to not just use the trackpad), I'd tap the thing I wanted to right click on, then press the menu key on the keyboard.

    This is a software limitation, though, and it's definitely possible that it willbe fixed in the future.
    Ian Santopietro - System76 Technical Support.
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Beans
    161
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    How do you scroll firefox with the touch screen? For me, single finger scrolling acts like highlighting text

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Aurora, CO
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    2,564
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: Quick Darter UltraThin Review

    Scrolling in web browsers requires installing a third-party plugin (within the browser). I used Chrome and the chromeTouch extension, which works great.
    Ian Santopietro - System76 Technical Support.
    Open a Support Ticket!
    Ask a Sales Question!

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