Oh, is this actually out now? If so, great, but I took a quick look and didn't spot any third party review yet. For those interested in this laptop, personally I'd still wait for some reviews from some real world people.
So, 3.5 years later, the chassis is still neat, and good on them for plugging away I guess, but for anyone that actually needs a new computer, there's no shortage of higher-end Linux-centric laptops with a better shipping track record (Framework, Tuxedo Computers, Slimbook, etc).
> 01. Removable Webcam With its easy-to-disconnect magnetic connector, you can simply unplug the webcam whenever you want to ensure that no one can access it.
What about the microphone though?
The camera issue has been solved years ago by a simple analog hack of physically obscuring its field of view, with some business units having a physical switch built-in.
The same is much more difficult for a microphone, hence the appeals of privacy-conscious folks about it, mostly unanswered.
What an unfortunate time for these niche hardware companies to be launching new hardware. Framework, StarLabs, System76, (I wonder if Tuxedo will release something). The RAM prices must be killing them. Even if they increase prices to accommodate, I know quite a lot of folks who are simply punting any purchasing until things calm down.
I just ordered my Framework without any memory or storage, hoping that by the time it arrives, I'll be able to pick up some RAM and an SSD for a more reasonable price. If not, I'll just grab something from a drawer and use it underspecced until prices normalize.
Sensible thought. I very much hope there is a glut of one-three year old ram and GPUs on the market in about one year when the AI market "cools" and the ear-marked components return to the market.
The banks that lent the AI industry the money are already trying to sell their debt.
I wonder why the price difference between the 8845HS and the 285H is more than the cost of some complete 8845HS based systems. Also a shame one can't opt out of the storage or accessories like (yet another) measly 65W USB C+USB A GaN charger.
Other than those things, it actually looks decently exciting. I love the 16:10 + high resolution. Screen brightness isn't amazing, but also better than average. Glad to see 120 hz+ across all of the options. Privacy kill switch is great but the removable magnetic webcam seems a bit overkill/complicated given the kill switch (a simple physical slide would have been plenty as well). The hardware options aren't too bad for an open/Linux focused device. 6 USB ports + HDMI + audio ports is great, given the thickness it would have been cool to throw in a built in ethernet port, SD slot, and DP out to negate most of the need for the dock.
If I hadn't already bought a laptop this year this would probably be high on my list.
i would highlight two non-tech strengths of starlabs as well: they're based in Europe and from personal experience they have really good customer service
Do they actually have a business presence in the EU?
If not, how would those rules apply to them?
Edit: tbh, the new "user friendly" idea of automatically converting US prices to the local currency of the visitor in spite of the company not having any connection to the visitor's locale always makes me think of drop shippers, not of legitimate businesses.
Especially if i'm in a non USD non EUR country, I am fully aware that there are different currencies in the world, I already have an established process for converting between those currencies and it's likely to be more to my advantage than whatever Stripe offers so please cut it down.
They are mandated to provide 2-year legal guarantee under EU consumer protection law when they target EU consumers -> i.e. operate an eshop that ships to EU and sells in local currencies. Regardless of where they are located.
They sell to the EU, so they have to follow their regulations. If they don't, the devices can be seized by customs.
Tbh there are more issues if they wanted to be compliant with EU regulations. I'm fine that they aren't compliant (they aren't in the EU, after all), but it's something to be aware of when ordering from them.
They are free to charge you extra for taking the charger out of the box. So I'd grant them a bit of civil disobedience on this one and just take that nice GaN charger.
I can see the EU's take on this, and maybe overall this will even be good. I have some nice Anker chargers and can charge everything we have at home with them (added some USB-C to ligthning/micro-USB thingies here and there), but I'd be a bit annoyed if the EU would force my company operating with small margins to have 2 versions of my packaging workflow.
Maybe they should just "encourage" good behaviour? With a law that is less forcing, ie just say: "If you offer a version without charger, the price must be the same as with charger. " That would (slightly) encourage leaving it out, while not forcing companies' hands.
The laptop is being shipped anyway, so I assume the charger in there may be a "sweet deal" if you need one. 65W GaN chargers are a nice sweet-spot at the moment (size/power/price-wise), ie Ikea has one at 14 eur), wouldn't mine having one or two extra.
The easiest option to implement would be to have separate SKUs for the charger and the laptop. And not three SKUs: laptop with charger, laptop without charger, separate charger.
If you ship to multiple countries you can reduce the SKUs even more as the laptop SKU isn’t country specific anymore.
Offering a version without the charger for the same price would not reduce ewaste which is the point.
Why are "premium" laptop vendors still putting vents on the bottom of their machines? Did they never try actually putting their laptop on their laps and realise how much that design sucks?
Excellence. I like everything, and the open warranty is nice: "Our 1-year limited warranty allows you to take your computer apart, replace parts, install an upgrade, and use any operating system and even your firmware, all without voiding the warranty."
I'd love to see more than 5 years of updates, but there is so much to love here, I can look past that!
They don't sell you your OS, that's the big surface area that companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc have to swallow.
They also don't make these computers and are at the whim of their ODM, so unless you opt for Coreboot/Libreboot, there wouldn't be a possibility for that.
I have been using this for about a month and I love it. The screen looks great, the keyboard is great, the trackpad is great (I have been using Lenovos for ~20 years and though I couldn't live without the trackpoint). The battery life is more than enough for my usage during my daily commute and way better than the mere 1.5 hours I could squeeze out of my old Thinkpad P1.
I genuinely don't think there is anything I would want changed on this laptop.
I am not sure since I have never gotten to zero. But I would think I could easily get 6-7 hours out of it, although it depends a lot on the type of work I do and whether I am in meetings. I use IntelliJ and run heavy test suites all the time, and that does drain the battery faster.
On the other hand, full size arrow keys make this a non-starter for me. I need to position my fingers over the arrow keys without looking at them, and half-size allows me to do that by touch feeling.
For that exact same reason I've been avoiding half-sized up/down keys and full arrow keys, as well as mate screen and weight, have been my first filters when browsing for laptops. How annoying must it be to design those machines with such a variety of tastes :)
Most devices still support S3 sleep, it's just disabled by default as s2idle (modern standby) has become the default. You can almost always re-enable S3 sleep if you really want to, but on modern devices it typically only takes a few seconds to resume from S4 (suspend-to-disk) which technically is safer and more reliable. Also you can always use suspend-then-hibernate if you really want fast resume during the day, but long battery life when it's more than an hour or so.
My Thinkpad p16s does not have s3 sleep. And s2idle lasts for a couple hours before it dies because every device has to sleep before it goes to true idle, but can never get all the USB devices to sleep. It's crap. S3 worked fine and was robust.
I really like the detachable webcam gimmick - I'm sure that, like all gimmicks, it could prove frustrating sometimes, but it's a novel way to have both a decent webcam and thin bezels without notches, nose-facing cameras, etc.
I like it both for the peace of mind that the webcam is off, but also because I anyway have a dedicated external webcam both at the office and at home, so I really don't need a webcam lens in the lid except for the rare occasions where I need to take a meeting on the go.
I can't imagine the supply chain challenges inherent to startup laptop manufacturers. I think it's "go with what you have access to at reasonable prices, or forget about it. "
I think Framework is a good example of how smaller laptop OEMs end up shipping late, often on the order of three quarters. This is something else entirely, if any of these configurations are recent arrivals (I don't think they are).
I don’t believe they actually make the hardware. I know sytem76 always just rebadges Clevo hardware. You were basically paying for Linux to be preinstalled and for the Linux focused support.
EDIT. Actually it looks like I was wrong about that. They do apparently at least make their own chassis’s unsure about the motherboard’s or screens though.
I have the Intel Core i9 in my 2019 MBP, and it gets so damn hot. How do the ones offered here compare? I'm not one to upgrade frequently, but the heat of this thing makes me go looking. Luckily, it sits on a stand on a desk with more 9s than github is up.
A 2019 MacBook Pro would have an Intel Skylake processor (N-th re-release), made on Intel's stagnant 14nm process. The older Intel option for the StarFighter has its CPU cores made on an Intel process two generations newer, and the rest of the chiplets made by TSMC. The newer Intel option moves the CPU chiplet to TSMC as well. They're in a very different league for power efficiency than your current machine, both from the fab improvements and from having a microarchitecture that's not from 2015.
I recently switched from Linux to freebsd on my work computer and things have been mostly working. With linux chroot I can use the few apps missing BSD port.
I did this because I manage a fleet of BSD based server (BSD runs zfs and bhyve with VM on it) and I wanted the same base system for me.
I wonder how BSD friendly those laptop are.
In any case I am so happy to see some open hardware solution.
100% agreed. it upsets me when i see companies like framework advertising themselves front and centre as Linux-first, yet won't sponsor a coreboot port. starlabs, system76 and novacustom actually walk the walk
Framework plans to eventually support coreboot, as far as I am aware. (Or open source the current one they purchased).
It just wasn't the main priority.
They focused on making a repairable laptops ecosystem first.
Switching to different firmware later isn't ruled out.
This is lovely. I'd love it if this or the Framework Pro also had OLED options, though.
My aging Thinkpad P1 (1st Gen) has a great LCD, but it's also the last non-OLED screen in my life, and I don't think I can buy another laptop without it. In fact it would be a purchase decision driver/upgrade incentive for me. This and longer battery life.
Even though I build lots of C++ code, I still don't think I need more than the Xeon in the P1, horse-power wise.
Same-size cursor keys (with the whole line and without any distinction) is such an ill-design decision. Nice to show in the presentation slide deck, but hard to actually use blindly.
I happen to be looking around for a 15 or 16 inch laptop, but these look pretty unsuitable for me. Odd CPU choices, and no apparent way to configure one with 16GB ram in this time of AI-fueled cost crisis. All but the standard are way out of my budget range - especially considering none have a dGPU. Also for idiosyncratic reasons I need a numeric keypad.
FWIW I have had a StarLite Mk IV for three years now and haven't run into a single issue with it (except maybe the speakers being quite poor).
Unfortunately the company stopped releasing firmware updates for it soon after they launched Mk V. I don't know if it can be still built from source for the older devices.
One of the best investments I’ve ever made was to get an 8TB drive for my laptop. Never having to worry about disk space again is so nice. Consider it if you’re in the market for a new laptop.
Does it ever worry you that all 8TB could fail in one place? Do you have redundant drives (like two 4TB or four 2TB drives)?
I'd be worried about having all of my storage in one place. I like to back up data to more than one place if it's important, and never have huge on-device storage because if something happens to damage it, I'm assuming it's game over for all on-device storage (rather than only part of it). I'd rather my storage was safe and cozy in some place far from where my laptops go.
But if you're not all that worried and happen to do data-intensive work or something, awesome, 8TB sounds like a dream.
If you want to use it on the beach you will probably need an e-ink display because no laptop screen can compete with the sun. But matte is still infinitely better than glossy for less than ideal conditions such as working on a train where there might be sunlight coming in from the side.
Glossy screens are, in my humble opinion, a stupid gimmick because they look a bit better at ideal viewing conditions. For mobile devices the viewing conditions are most often not ideal, so it really doesn't make any sense unless the screen has to be a touch screen. I have had one laptop with a glossy screen and I ended up putting a glare reducing sticker on it because the glare was intolerable.
Based on my experience with the System 76 Lemur Pro coming from a Macbook Pro, matte helps a bit. You won't have mirror glare like on the Macbook, but the sun will still wash out the matte screen.
Is this an improvement on how long whatever it's talking about usually gets updates for, or is putting a limit on it at all a bad sign? I've only seen this with regards to mobile phones before.
There are no guarantees your laptop will ever get a single update (let alone 5 years) unless they state as much. Most do not state any guarantee or less than 5 years.
Not sure who the target market is.. but on the homepage it only lists the CPU's in the era of AI/Models etc I'd put the GPU and VRAM somewhere on mainpage as well.
Even when I view "Tech Specs" still don't see the VRAM ?
Just some feedback.
Does it mean this machine has the potential of having amazing battery life since it can be fully programmed? I am talking as close to MacBook Pro level (not accounting for arm vs intel/amd difference).
The Framework 13 absolutely does not touch the MacBook Pro battery life in any of its current configurations, though the upcoming 13 pro promises to.
I have a Ryzen 5 AI 340 powered machine and average about 6 hours. I might be able to stretch that to 7 if I dimmed the screen a bunch and only did light web browsing.
This is closer battery life to MacBook Neo, not an Air or Pro under the same workload.
Sad for the processor, it has a "16-core Intel Ultra 9 285H" which is from what I understand intel 15th gen, while the 16th gen, "Panther Lake", seems to be the one giving battery life around as good as the M1 in the new Dell laptops.
Yes, the MNT Reform and Pocket Reform both have trackballs[1]. They're very different products from the StarFighter laptop though, in that they sacrifice a lot of potential processing power in exchange for a platform which is much more amenable to customization.
I must also mention that I'm happy to see the UHK has a ball-retention ring; this used to be normal for trackballs but companies moved away for it for some reason.
It is still a crazy question though because if you seen most laptops in the last 15 years there is basically no room for them except on the large workstation thinkpads or large gaming laptops.
Those are nice looking machines. I don't see any mention of high-end GPUs, though. Do you offer any models that include heavy-duty GPUs for the more usually beefier AI stuff?
There isn't exactly a lot of design freedom in a black rectangle with a screen a keyboard and a touchpad. A real Macbook copy would include Macbook misfeatures, like:
- control key in wrong place
- camera notch
- half sized arrow keys
It doesn't. It looks like a slick laptop, but it is as similar to Macbook Pro as it is to a modern Thinkpad. The hinge in particular stands out and looks like a Thinkpad hinge as opposed to the hidden hinge of a Macbook. Other than that, there is not much design freedom left when the whole industry has kinda agreed that a big trackpad and rounded corners is the way to go.
I had a Starbook for three years. It was constantly plauged with power issues. As long as I had it plugged in via the barrel connector, everything was fine. But if I tried to charge it over USB-C, it would often fail to boot, lock up, require hard power cycling, and still not come back stable. If I left it completely shut down for a week, the battery would be dead and I couldn't get it back until it had charged (with the barrel connector charger, it would not charge from dead in USB-C) for at least 10 minutes.
Everything else about the computer I loved, but the power issue often meant it was not available when I wanted it. I eventually sold it on eBay (with full disclosure of the issues).
Looks like they're UK based. I don't know, but apparently tariffs etc are factored into the shipping fees shown on their site.
If you're not sure if you want to go Linux yet, it's probably best to try a live USB stick of a few distros on your existing hardware. Get a feel for what the interface is like, how things work, how it works on your hardware, etc, without actually changing anything. Seems like a better bet to me than buying all-new hardware.
As the other commenter said, evaluate a live usb with any distribution with KDE Plasma Desktop, for example Fedora, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, or Endeavour OS (Arch Linux based). You can also try something like Fedora Kinoite or Bazzite, so called immutable distributions which make it really easy to use for non-technical people.
A long time ago. But I ran into all sorts of issues. It was a struggle getting things like Bluetooth or WiFi working. And I just couldn’t get myself to feeling like I could ‘trust it’. Like that I wouldn’t break it and somehow lose all my data in th process.
Tried and failed to beat Framework to market. Frankly I'm hopeful that Framework beats this offering out, though I'm happy for the competitive pressure.
Starlabs is older than framework and their machines are *at least" as repairable. I have been using a really good one for 4 years or so. And their firmware is open source.
That was a Panther Lake based laptop. Lunar Lake laptops can also last well over 12 hours, even in Linux. This StarFighter offers neither Lunar Lake nor Panther Lake, so 18 hours is probably only under really ideal circumstances.
I have no experience with cachyOS, so can't comment there, but I don't see the point in offering pre-installed Arch. I'd say most Arch users are fairly picky and opinionated about their setup, and would choose to reinstall anyway.
I never used it. Well, I lie, I did use it back in the day for playing some DOS games where you had to share your keyboard with your friend...
But all my keyboards have been TKL over the past 15+ years and I don't miss it. I don't know why anyone needs to use a numpad unless they're in a job where they work a lot with numbers. And if you're not in such a role, what is your hobby exactly that demands so much number punching?
I bought a bluetooth 10-key. I use the home/end keys religiously when editing in an NLE, and it drove me crazy trying to be a road warrior without it. After having the external, I prefer it as it is full size instead of trying to squeeze it into the laptop frame size. So not having the numpad on the laptop is a-okay for me
Numpad makes notebooks unnecessarily wide (I don't like widescreen, 4:3 was the best aspect ratio), but classical Thinkpad arrows and home key block layout is what I really miss (and Trackpoint with proper drivers and cursor kinematics as it were in linux circa 2005)
I never use my numpad. I use the numbers in the top row of the keyboard.
I'd be super happy to yank my numpad out of my laptop, move the keyboard a little bit to the right and center align it with the center of the screen. My head would be centered with the middle of the screen too.
Unfortunately I had to settle with that keyboard because every other laptop was a worse tradeoff.
I only use a number pad for playing a few games, and for bulk data entry. Neither of those use cases are something I prefer using my laptop for, and even on my desktops they're rare enough that I'd much rather have the number pad separate and largely out of the way.
What do you use a number pad for often enough to not only see it as mandatory for you, but to leave you unable to imagine how anyone could live without it?
Absolutely hate numberpads on laptops - if you're sitting with the laptop directly in front of you it means your arms and hands are slightly offset to the left for normal typing.
Looks generic, and has the stereotypical abysmal keyboard and trackpad as any laptop made in the past 10+ years. Put this in a room with a few other laptops and it'd be hard to pick it out from the crowd. The only thing it has going for it are the raw specs, but it's eventually marred by the price for what is a poor typing and trackpad experience.
Oh, is this actually out now? If so, great, but I took a quick look and didn't spot any third party review yet. For those interested in this laptop, personally I'd still wait for some reviews from some real world people.
Some history on this laptop:
- The StarFighter 16 was originally announced back in November 2022 with an original delivery timeline of 3-4 months: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjYJS5AJZpE
So, 3.5 years later, the chassis is still neat, and good on them for plugging away I guess, but for anyone that actually needs a new computer, there's no shortage of higher-end Linux-centric laptops with a better shipping track record (Framework, Tuxedo Computers, Slimbook, etc).
> 01. Removable Webcam With its easy-to-disconnect magnetic connector, you can simply unplug the webcam whenever you want to ensure that no one can access it.
What about the microphone though?
The camera issue has been solved years ago by a simple analog hack of physically obscuring its field of view, with some business units having a physical switch built-in.
The same is much more difficult for a microphone, hence the appeals of privacy-conscious folks about it, mostly unanswered.
What an unfortunate time for these niche hardware companies to be launching new hardware. Framework, StarLabs, System76, (I wonder if Tuxedo will release something). The RAM prices must be killing them. Even if they increase prices to accommodate, I know quite a lot of folks who are simply punting any purchasing until things calm down.
I just ordered my Framework without any memory or storage, hoping that by the time it arrives, I'll be able to pick up some RAM and an SSD for a more reasonable price. If not, I'll just grab something from a drawer and use it underspecced until prices normalize.
Sensible thought. I very much hope there is a glut of one-three year old ram and GPUs on the market in about one year when the AI market "cools" and the ear-marked components return to the market.
The banks that lent the AI industry the money are already trying to sell their debt.
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Smart move!
You have lpcamm2 just sitting around in a drawer? Or did you get last-gen?
Always the play if you're comfortable sourcing and installing your own because their store will always have a decent markup.
True, but contrary to the fruity models, some of these are upgradedable.
My Asus netbook started with basic configuration and was maximised during its lifetime, just like any PC desktop.
Except that if you want to save on RAM you'll also have to pick the lower resolution screen and lower rated CPU. These aren't easy upgrades later on.
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This page shows an image of a laptop motherboard with socketed memory https://us.starlabs.systems/cdn/shop/products/B5i7PCB-01x200... but it actually has BGA soldered LPDDR5X.
I wonder why the price difference between the 8845HS and the 285H is more than the cost of some complete 8845HS based systems. Also a shame one can't opt out of the storage or accessories like (yet another) measly 65W USB C+USB A GaN charger.
Other than those things, it actually looks decently exciting. I love the 16:10 + high resolution. Screen brightness isn't amazing, but also better than average. Glad to see 120 hz+ across all of the options. Privacy kill switch is great but the removable magnetic webcam seems a bit overkill/complicated given the kill switch (a simple physical slide would have been plenty as well). The hardware options aren't too bad for an open/Linux focused device. 6 USB ports + HDMI + audio ports is great, given the thickness it would have been cool to throw in a built in ethernet port, SD slot, and DP out to negate most of the need for the dock.
If I hadn't already bought a laptop this year this would probably be high on my list.
i would highlight two non-tech strengths of starlabs as well: they're based in Europe and from personal experience they have really good customer service
They use the same image on their mini pc's page. https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/byte
I’m unable to order this laptop without a charging brick which is now illegal in the EU.
Same goes for the standard one year warranty. Should be two at minimum.
I had my country configured to Belgium while testing this.
Do they actually have a business presence in the EU?
If not, how would those rules apply to them?
Edit: tbh, the new "user friendly" idea of automatically converting US prices to the local currency of the visitor in spite of the company not having any connection to the visitor's locale always makes me think of drop shippers, not of legitimate businesses.
Especially if i'm in a non USD non EUR country, I am fully aware that there are different currencies in the world, I already have an established process for converting between those currencies and it's likely to be more to my advantage than whatever Stripe offers so please cut it down.
They are mandated to provide 2-year legal guarantee under EU consumer protection law when they target EU consumers -> i.e. operate an eshop that ships to EU and sells in local currencies. Regardless of where they are located.
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They sell to the EU, so they have to follow their regulations. If they don't, the devices can be seized by customs.
Tbh there are more issues if they wanted to be compliant with EU regulations. I'm fine that they aren't compliant (they aren't in the EU, after all), but it's something to be aware of when ordering from them.
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It's not warranty, it's Gewährleistung.
doesn't charge by USB-C ?
USB-C is required from 2027 on
Wait til you hear about Hacker News' level of compliance with the GDPR
I'm curious: why is hacker news non-GDPR-compliant?
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They are free to charge you extra for taking the charger out of the box. So I'd grant them a bit of civil disobedience on this one and just take that nice GaN charger.
I can see the EU's take on this, and maybe overall this will even be good. I have some nice Anker chargers and can charge everything we have at home with them (added some USB-C to ligthning/micro-USB thingies here and there), but I'd be a bit annoyed if the EU would force my company operating with small margins to have 2 versions of my packaging workflow.
Maybe they should just "encourage" good behaviour? With a law that is less forcing, ie just say: "If you offer a version without charger, the price must be the same as with charger. " That would (slightly) encourage leaving it out, while not forcing companies' hands.
The laptop is being shipped anyway, so I assume the charger in there may be a "sweet deal" if you need one. 65W GaN chargers are a nice sweet-spot at the moment (size/power/price-wise), ie Ikea has one at 14 eur), wouldn't mine having one or two extra.
The easiest option to implement would be to have separate SKUs for the charger and the laptop. And not three SKUs: laptop with charger, laptop without charger, separate charger.
If you ship to multiple countries you can reduce the SKUs even more as the laptop SKU isn’t country specific anymore.
Offering a version without the charger for the same price would not reduce ewaste which is the point.
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> The laptop is being shipped anyway, so I assume the charger in there may be a "sweet deal" if you need one
You do realize you’re paying for the charger, right? And you don’t like the option of not having to purchase the charger?
The prices are still way too high.
You're better off buying a Dell XPS on sale, I saw one for about 800$ the other day with 32 GB of ram.
Dell has committed to actual Linux support.
I don't feel like paying a Linux nerd tax when most Windows laptops are fine.
Lenovo seems to have the best support here. Otherwise enjoy the adventure in driver land!
Why are "premium" laptop vendors still putting vents on the bottom of their machines? Did they never try actually putting their laptop on their laps and realise how much that design sucks?
Excellence. I like everything, and the open warranty is nice: "Our 1-year limited warranty allows you to take your computer apart, replace parts, install an upgrade, and use any operating system and even your firmware, all without voiding the warranty."
I'd love to see more than 5 years of updates, but there is so much to love here, I can look past that!
They don't sell you your OS, that's the big surface area that companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc have to swallow.
They also don't make these computers and are at the whim of their ODM, so unless you opt for Coreboot/Libreboot, there wouldn't be a possibility for that.
https://doc.coreboot.org/mainboard/starlabs/starfighter_mtl.... The previous version is already upstreamed, apparently.
I have been using this for about a month and I love it. The screen looks great, the keyboard is great, the trackpad is great (I have been using Lenovos for ~20 years and though I couldn't live without the trackpoint). The battery life is more than enough for my usage during my daily commute and way better than the mere 1.5 hours I could squeeze out of my old Thinkpad P1.
I genuinely don't think there is anything I would want changed on this laptop.
How does it compare to a MacBook Pro? (if you ever used one)
I'm looking get rid of my MacBook Pro, and I'd like to switch to a Linux laptop, but I'm really worried about battery and trackpad.
Would you like to have a version with a TrackPoint even if you have managed to live without it?
With all these boutique laptop brands, I hope that one of them will eventually produce a pointing stick keyboard offer a route off Lenovo.
what's your average battery life?
I am not sure since I have never gotten to zero. But I would think I could easily get 6-7 hours out of it, although it depends a lot on the type of work I do and whether I am in meetings. I use IntelliJ and run heavy test suites all the time, and that does drain the battery faster.
A framework competitor! Most of all I love the keyboard. Full size arrow keys as well as home, end and page up/down nearby.
I wish framework laptops could come with multiple possible keyboard layouts like the one on the picture.
StarLabs predates Framework by a couple years. Framework just does advertising to geeks better.
Older than framewank, and more replaceable parts.
On the other hand, full size arrow keys make this a non-starter for me. I need to position my fingers over the arrow keys without looking at them, and half-size allows me to do that by touch feeling.
For that exact same reason I've been avoiding half-sized up/down keys and full arrow keys, as well as mate screen and weight, have been my first filters when browsing for laptops. How annoying must it be to design those machines with such a variety of tastes :)
I feel the opposite -- with half-size up/down keys, it's too easy to mis-press them. I guess it's a matter of habit.
I clicked on the link half expecting to see a scale model of the (in)famous Lockheed Starfighter (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104).
Does it suspend to RAM with echo mem > /sys/power/state and stays there for a couple of weeks on battery?
If not, I will keep my Intel Thinkpad T14 G2, The Last of the Mohicans that can.
Most devices still support S3 sleep, it's just disabled by default as s2idle (modern standby) has become the default. You can almost always re-enable S3 sleep if you really want to, but on modern devices it typically only takes a few seconds to resume from S4 (suspend-to-disk) which technically is safer and more reliable. Also you can always use suspend-then-hibernate if you really want fast resume during the day, but long battery life when it's more than an hour or so.
Dunno about other manufacturers, but Thinkpads removed S3. Stock BIOS on some T14 G3 had S3 had it, but it was removed by subsequent BIOS updates.
The notebook market is dead for me if the notebook can't sleep on 0.3% battery per hour and if it can't wake up within a second or so.
So far only macbooks and >5 years old Intel notebooks can.
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Modern devices generally do not have s3 anymore
My Thinkpad p16s does not have s3 sleep. And s2idle lasts for a couple hours before it dies because every device has to sleep before it goes to true idle, but can never get all the USB devices to sleep. It's crap. S3 worked fine and was robust.
I really like the detachable webcam gimmick - I'm sure that, like all gimmicks, it could prove frustrating sometimes, but it's a novel way to have both a decent webcam and thin bezels without notches, nose-facing cameras, etc.
I like it both for the peace of mind that the webcam is off, but also because I anyway have a dedicated external webcam both at the office and at home, so I really don't need a webcam lens in the lid except for the rare occasions where I need to take a meeting on the go.
Is there something new here? The processor options seem to be two generation old Intel, one generation old Intel, and one generation old AMD.
I can't imagine the supply chain challenges inherent to startup laptop manufacturers. I think it's "go with what you have access to at reasonable prices, or forget about it. "
I think Framework is a good example of how smaller laptop OEMs end up shipping late, often on the order of three quarters. This is something else entirely, if any of these configurations are recent arrivals (I don't think they are).
I don’t believe they actually make the hardware. I know sytem76 always just rebadges Clevo hardware. You were basically paying for Linux to be preinstalled and for the Linux focused support.
EDIT. Actually it looks like I was wrong about that. They do apparently at least make their own chassis’s unsure about the motherboard’s or screens though.
This might be driven by coreboot support?
I have the Intel Core i9 in my 2019 MBP, and it gets so damn hot. How do the ones offered here compare? I'm not one to upgrade frequently, but the heat of this thing makes me go looking. Luckily, it sits on a stand on a desk with more 9s than github is up.
A 2019 MacBook Pro would have an Intel Skylake processor (N-th re-release), made on Intel's stagnant 14nm process. The older Intel option for the StarFighter has its CPU cores made on an Intel process two generations newer, and the rest of the chiplets made by TSMC. The newer Intel option moves the CPU chiplet to TSMC as well. They're in a very different league for power efficiency than your current machine, both from the fab improvements and from having a microarchitecture that's not from 2015.
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I recently switched from Linux to freebsd on my work computer and things have been mostly working. With linux chroot I can use the few apps missing BSD port.
I did this because I manage a fleet of BSD based server (BSD runs zfs and bhyve with VM on it) and I wanted the same base system for me.
I wonder how BSD friendly those laptop are.
In any case I am so happy to see some open hardware solution.
Coreboot is amazing, more machines should have open firmware--especially those intended to run FOSS OSs.
100% agreed. it upsets me when i see companies like framework advertising themselves front and centre as Linux-first, yet won't sponsor a coreboot port. starlabs, system76 and novacustom actually walk the walk
Framework plans to eventually support coreboot, as far as I am aware. (Or open source the current one they purchased). It just wasn't the main priority. They focused on making a repairable laptops ecosystem first. Switching to different firmware later isn't ruled out.
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This is lovely. I'd love it if this or the Framework Pro also had OLED options, though.
My aging Thinkpad P1 (1st Gen) has a great LCD, but it's also the last non-OLED screen in my life, and I don't think I can buy another laptop without it. In fact it would be a purchase decision driver/upgrade incentive for me. This and longer battery life.
Even though I build lots of C++ code, I still don't think I need more than the Xeon in the P1, horse-power wise.
For sure, once you go OLED you don't go back. It's like going back to a mouse with a ball.
You know, I’ve actually gone back to a mouse with a ball. And it’s gorgeous!
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackball
I mean you have those ergonomic Logitech trackballs that are praised by devs!
Same-size cursor keys (with the whole line and without any distinction) is such an ill-design decision. Nice to show in the presentation slide deck, but hard to actually use blindly.
I happen to be looking around for a 15 or 16 inch laptop, but these look pretty unsuitable for me. Odd CPU choices, and no apparent way to configure one with 16GB ram in this time of AI-fueled cost crisis. All but the standard are way out of my budget range - especially considering none have a dGPU. Also for idiosyncratic reasons I need a numeric keypad.
FWIW I have had a StarLite Mk IV for three years now and haven't run into a single issue with it (except maybe the speakers being quite poor).
Unfortunately the company stopped releasing firmware updates for it soon after they launched Mk V. I don't know if it can be still built from source for the older devices.
One of the best investments I’ve ever made was to get an 8TB drive for my laptop. Never having to worry about disk space again is so nice. Consider it if you’re in the market for a new laptop.
Does it ever worry you that all 8TB could fail in one place? Do you have redundant drives (like two 4TB or four 2TB drives)?
I'd be worried about having all of my storage in one place. I like to back up data to more than one place if it's important, and never have huge on-device storage because if something happens to damage it, I'm assuming it's game over for all on-device storage (rather than only part of it). I'd rather my storage was safe and cozy in some place far from where my laptops go.
But if you're not all that worried and happen to do data-intensive work or something, awesome, 8TB sounds like a dream.
Data only in one place is bad no matter how big the drive is. Sync it to a NAS, PC, online, external drive, other laptop, or multiple of those.
Nice but Switzerland and the EU by law require a minimum of a 2 year warranty. You can't sell a device with less.
To consumers. You can sell to businesses.
They don't seem to be trying to stop me from placing an order as a consumer.
Jeez what an amazing month for premium Linux laptops.
What else came out?
Framework pro
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I like to use laptop in the beach. No glare means I can see it even with the sun light reflecting?
If you want to use it on the beach you will probably need an e-ink display because no laptop screen can compete with the sun. But matte is still infinitely better than glossy for less than ideal conditions such as working on a train where there might be sunlight coming in from the side.
Glossy screens are, in my humble opinion, a stupid gimmick because they look a bit better at ideal viewing conditions. For mobile devices the viewing conditions are most often not ideal, so it really doesn't make any sense unless the screen has to be a touch screen. I have had one laptop with a glossy screen and I ended up putting a glare reducing sticker on it because the glare was intolerable.
Based on my experience with the System 76 Lemur Pro coming from a Macbook Pro, matte helps a bit. You won't have mirror glare like on the Macbook, but the sun will still wash out the matte screen.
Finally someone made a laptop with PgUp/PgDn/Home/End column, like Toshiba! Thank you!
3575EUR seems like a steep price for a znver4 processor from 2023 to be honest.
> 5 years of updates
Is this an improvement on how long whatever it's talking about usually gets updates for, or is putting a limit on it at all a bad sign? I've only seen this with regards to mobile phones before.
There are no guarantees your laptop will ever get a single update (let alone 5 years) unless they state as much. Most do not state any guarantee or less than 5 years.
Looks nice ! :) I like the design and name
Not sure who the target market is.. but on the homepage it only lists the CPU's in the era of AI/Models etc I'd put the GPU and VRAM somewhere on mainpage as well.
Even when I view "Tech Specs" still don't see the VRAM ? Just some feedback.
Any public reviews?
The key on the top right corner of the keyboard being the poweroff button instead of the Delete key gets an instant NACK from me.
An ISO keyboard with the big enter key is definitely a plus!
I noticed they offer all the storage upgrades at or below retail cost. Nice.
Opensource firmware?
Does it mean this machine has the potential of having amazing battery life since it can be fully programmed? I am talking as close to MacBook Pro level (not accounting for arm vs intel/amd difference).
The Dell XPS and Framework laptops already far exceed MacBook Pro battery life.
The Framework 13 absolutely does not touch the MacBook Pro battery life in any of its current configurations, though the upcoming 13 pro promises to.
I have a Ryzen 5 AI 340 powered machine and average about 6 hours. I might be able to stretch that to 7 if I dimmed the screen a bunch and only did light web browsing.
This is closer battery life to MacBook Neo, not an Air or Pro under the same workload.
O'rly? Also when suspended to RAM? Framework AMD versions specifically?
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Very happy to see a 4K display. Framework take note!
looks exactly like my MBP M3 - and that's a compliment!
No fingerprint sensor.
Every new $3000 computer I see just makes me glad I bought a Snapdragon X2 laptop.
Sad for the processor, it has a "16-core Intel Ultra 9 285H" which is from what I understand intel 15th gen, while the 16th gen, "Panther Lake", seems to be the one giving battery life around as good as the M1 in the new Dell laptops.
For the price I was expecting actual wifi 7 (802.11be standards compliant) and USB3.2 10 Gbps capability on the type A ports.
does anybody do built-in trackballs anymore? I really like those.
Yes, the MNT Reform and Pocket Reform both have trackballs[1]. They're very different products from the StarFighter laptop though, in that they sacrifice a lot of potential processing power in exchange for a platform which is much more amenable to customization.
[1]: https://shop.mntre.com/
The MNT Reform has a trackball option.
https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform
Ive always wished for a UHK-style trackball in a laptop: https://uhk.io/product/trackball
Do you know what kind of bearings that has?
I must also mention that I'm happy to see the UHK has a ball-retention ring; this used to be normal for trackballs but companies moved away for it for some reason.
https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform
you mean like the thinkpad trackpoint?
I assume they mean an actual roller ball (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Contura )
It is still a crazy question though because if you seen most laptops in the last 15 years there is basically no room for them except on the large workstation thinkpads or large gaming laptops.
Not the OP, but some older laptop designs had a small trackball where modern machines have a touchpad, e.g. the early PowerBooks[1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_180
Those are nice looking machines. I don't see any mention of high-end GPUs, though. Do you offer any models that include heavy-duty GPUs for the more usually beefier AI stuff?
It would have been better if they didn't make it look a little bit too inspired by the Macbook Pro.
There isn't exactly a lot of design freedom in a black rectangle with a screen a keyboard and a touchpad. A real Macbook copy would include Macbook misfeatures, like:
- control key in wrong place - camera notch - half sized arrow keys
>There isn't exactly a lot of design freedom in a black rectangle with a screen a keyboard and a touchpad
No, every laptop does not look exactly the same and they are not all macbook clones.
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It doesn't. It looks like a slick laptop, but it is as similar to Macbook Pro as it is to a modern Thinkpad. The hinge in particular stands out and looks like a Thinkpad hinge as opposed to the hidden hinge of a Macbook. Other than that, there is not much design freedom left when the whole industry has kinda agreed that a big trackpad and rounded corners is the way to go.
I think in reality it will look/feel a fair bit different due to the ceramic-coated material.
Asus has similar materials in recent models I believe; I rather like it.
What a boutique criticism
And what design would you rather them emulate?
why?
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I had a Starbook for three years. It was constantly plauged with power issues. As long as I had it plugged in via the barrel connector, everything was fine. But if I tried to charge it over USB-C, it would often fail to boot, lock up, require hard power cycling, and still not come back stable. If I left it completely shut down for a week, the battery would be dead and I couldn't get it back until it had charged (with the barrel connector charger, it would not charge from dead in USB-C) for at least 10 minutes.
Everything else about the computer I loved, but the power issue often meant it was not available when I wanted it. I eventually sold it on eBay (with full disclosure of the issues).
They aren’t US based right? Does that mean tariffs for US shipping?
Are these a good pick for a non-programmer who is interested in Linux but intimidated by it?
Looks like they're UK based. I don't know, but apparently tariffs etc are factored into the shipping fees shown on their site.
If you're not sure if you want to go Linux yet, it's probably best to try a live USB stick of a few distros on your existing hardware. Get a feel for what the interface is like, how things work, how it works on your hardware, etc, without actually changing anything. Seems like a better bet to me than buying all-new hardware.
As the other commenter said, evaluate a live usb with any distribution with KDE Plasma Desktop, for example Fedora, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, or Endeavour OS (Arch Linux based). You can also try something like Fedora Kinoite or Bazzite, so called immutable distributions which make it really easy to use for non-technical people.
Have you tried it out?
https://askubuntu.com/questions/629632/can-you-boot-ubuntu-s...
You can also use Ventoy to boot the ISOs which is somewhat easier in my view.
A long time ago. But I ran into all sorts of issues. It was a struggle getting things like Bluetooth or WiFi working. And I just couldn’t get myself to feeling like I could ‘trust it’. Like that I wouldn’t break it and somehow lose all my data in th process.
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Check out System76 and Framework, they're based in the US and ship Linux machines.
Oh look, another generic Macbook clone.
Lol these are the most refined Linux flagship hardware manufacturers in the world. No clone.
Tried and failed to beat Framework to market. Frankly I'm hopeful that Framework beats this offering out, though I'm happy for the competitive pressure.
Starlabs is older than framework and their machines are *at least" as repairable. I have been using a really good one for 4 years or so. And their firmware is open source.
lol Up to
18 hrs
battery life
if you put it in sleep mode maybe. why do people keep lying about battery life?
A couple weeks ago, Framework livestreamed a rundown of their 13" laptop lasting over 20 hours on a charge. I can believe the 16" gets there too.
That was a Panther Lake based laptop. Lunar Lake laptops can also last well over 12 hours, even in Linux. This StarFighter offers neither Lunar Lake nor Panther Lake, so 18 hours is probably only under really ideal circumstances.
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With wifi and usage? I have never gotten more than 3 hours with wifi and regular usage. Maybe this one is different.
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Light usage on low brightness? Nice to know it will last for a long flight.
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No cachyOS or Arch install options. Proposing Manjaro in 2026 is major clueless
I have no experience with cachyOS, so can't comment there, but I don't see the point in offering pre-installed Arch. I'd say most Arch users are fairly picky and opinionated about their setup, and would choose to reinstall anyway.
Can't imagine how tough it must be to be someone who, when offered a choice of nine different operating system, chooses to whine about it
Says nothing about AI capability or even graphics. I am skeptical about the value.
Lmao what do you mean the specs are all there
This is satire, right?
No, AI capabilities of some sort are obviously important. But I know a lot of people don't appreciate that.
But you aren't seriously suggesting that graphics hardware is irrelevant are you?
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Off topic but I like your username! Ironically I have matching 2003 CR85 and CR250's but not the 125 :P
Can I run local LLM models on this? There's no reference to it in the marketing.
You'll have to use your brain unfortunately to figure it out
I don't know how anybody can stand not having a numpad.
I never used it. Well, I lie, I did use it back in the day for playing some DOS games where you had to share your keyboard with your friend...
But all my keyboards have been TKL over the past 15+ years and I don't miss it. I don't know why anyone needs to use a numpad unless they're in a job where they work a lot with numbers. And if you're not in such a role, what is your hobby exactly that demands so much number punching?
I bought a bluetooth 10-key. I use the home/end keys religiously when editing in an NLE, and it drove me crazy trying to be a road warrior without it. After having the external, I prefer it as it is full size instead of trying to squeeze it into the laptop frame size. So not having the numpad on the laptop is a-okay for me
Numpad makes notebooks unnecessarily wide (I don't like widescreen, 4:3 was the best aspect ratio), but classical Thinkpad arrows and home key block layout is what I really miss (and Trackpoint with proper drivers and cursor kinematics as it were in linux circa 2005)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/IBM_Thin...
(though I prefer ISO enter, eg. Hungarian, German or Swedish layout)
I never use my numpad. I use the numbers in the top row of the keyboard.
I'd be super happy to yank my numpad out of my laptop, move the keyboard a little bit to the right and center align it with the center of the screen. My head would be centered with the middle of the screen too.
Unfortunately I had to settle with that keyboard because every other laptop was a worse tradeoff.
I've learned to love numpad when I spent some time working in France. On AZERTY layouts you need to press SHIFT for each regular number.
I only use a number pad for playing a few games, and for bulk data entry. Neither of those use cases are something I prefer using my laptop for, and even on my desktops they're rare enough that I'd much rather have the number pad separate and largely out of the way.
What do you use a number pad for often enough to not only see it as mandatory for you, but to leave you unable to imagine how anyone could live without it?
I do number entry with the number row. 8 fingers > 3 fingers.
Easy - by moving numpad to your main keyboard with a modifier so you don't need to move your hand just to type numbers
Ah yes, I remember those keyboards. Maybe in the 90s?
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I do not understand why a numpad is considered a necessity by some. I never used it when I had them. Do you work in data entry?
Because it's way more convenient to type numbers, and no, you don't need to work in data entry to enter data / appreciate this convenience
Absolutely hate numberpads on laptops - if you're sitting with the laptop directly in front of you it means your arms and hands are slightly offset to the left for normal typing.
For serious work, I'm docked and using a large monitor, split keyboard, etc. Many people make concessions when on a laptop.
What do you use yours for? All I’ve ever missed it for was the default Blender keybinds for the camera perspective
Looks generic, and has the stereotypical abysmal keyboard and trackpad as any laptop made in the past 10+ years. Put this in a room with a few other laptops and it'd be hard to pick it out from the crowd. The only thing it has going for it are the raw specs, but it's eventually marred by the price for what is a poor typing and trackpad experience.
The hardware is designed in house and is the only trackpad that approaches macbook levels
> Looks generic, and has the stereotypical abysmal keyboard and trackpad as any laptop made in the past 10+ years.
I wasn't aware that generic laptops had moved to haptic touchpads and up-firing speakers over ten years ago...
They claim it has a haptic trackpad, so I don't think that's what most manufacturers use.