This is a rebranded laptop from an ODM [1]. It is also available from Schenker [2] and was reviewed by the Notebookcheck [3]. It looks really good, but I would love a few things to be fixed/updated: better 16:10 screen, Ryzen 4000, more USB-C ports, USB-C charging and dual-channel memory.
Clevo and Tongfang are the ODMs for most of these white label laptops. I assume minimum orders are in the hundreds if not thousands of units, which is the main reason not to buy direct. That and you’ll have no warranty or other support, have to do your own customs, etc etc.
Most shops are just resellers but System76 and Purism do firmware and software attainment and development for some of their hardware. In that case you are paying to support the industry by buying a computer with comprehensive whole stack software support rather than it just being one of the lucky off the shelf OEM makes without major bugs.
And an eraser stick with the option to disable the trackpad in the BIOS. This is what keeps me coming back to Lenovo.
EDIT: This is not intended as a shameless plug for Lenovo, I just have so many false touches with trackpads, and I wish eraser sticks were more common, outside of a diminishing percent of Lenovo and a small percent of Dells.
I think you are using the phrase "shameless plug" incorrectly. "shameless plug" is normally used to advertise _your own_ merchandize. For example, a Youtuber talking about his/her other Youtube channel shamelessly.
However, in your comment I think you meant to say "a dig" instead of "shameless plug".
"This is not intended as a dig on Lenovo...", or "I'm not trying to pick on Lenovo..."
cheers
I’m in exactly the same boat. TrackPoint 4 life, yo.
What’s extra weird is that the first TrackPoint laptops appeared more than 20 years ago, so any IBM/Lenovo patents on the technology must have expired by now...
A square trackpad being required for laptops by Microsoft or something.
Also third party TrackPoints don’t have that magical touch, they’re hard or slippery or drifting more often or combinations of them. Some UMPC models from Sony, Fujitsu, OQO, Palm ARM laptop prototype had it I think, recently GPD had it.
I think I've read or heard Panasonic rep say a rectangular trackpad is Windows 8 requirement from Microsoft, Lenovo also added trackpad and Windows Logo Key(ﾐ田) right when they inherited ThinkPad from IBM. So I'm sure there are more design requirements to Windows than publicly discussed, and IBM was exempt from some of it for historical reasons that Lenovo isn't.
With trackpad being a requirement, rationale for having redundant pointing device is weak I imagine.
> And an eraser stick with the option to disable the trackpad in the BIOS.
I used to love these, but with my last 2 X1 Carbons from Lenovo, I could not get the mouse to move fast enough in Ubuntu, even with all settings maxed out. I've since moved back to using trackpads.
Some of the 4700U laptops perform better than you'd think from the nominal 15W TDP. Partly just to be expected from the spec (still >4GHz single-core boost and 8C), and also seems most of these run at a 25W TDP-up when plugged in (often noisily so, under load).
Would be nice to see these put into better designs; right now I'm mostly seeing 14-inch 1080p machines. Previous gens of AMD chips had the same issue, but it's especially annoying when, in terms of performance, battery life, and weight, you can see the elements for a great laptop are there.
I noticed single-channel memory and was about to bring it up. Unbelievable that a supposedly high-end laptop's RAM operates on single channel. But no USB-C charging I didn't notice, and that really is the deal breaker. Wtf Tuxedo
What are the keyboards like on these things? My previous laptop (bought May 2014) was Clevo¹ (Horize W550SU-1), and its keyboard was OK but not great at the start, poor within one year (lost all crispness of feel) and close to unusable (spongy all over, activation issues in a few of the most commonly typed keys and especially the space key) within two.
Now I have a Surface Book, whose keyboard feels great, but it has two major problems: ① a modal Fn key (where tapping it, which happens all the time by accident, toggles its mode); and ② its matrix is awful: typing at full speed, it likes to drop and transpose letters in some words (e.g. “mouse” may come out as “moes” or “moeu”!) because it can’t handle even 3-key rollover properly.
For my next laptop I’d consider a Clevo build because they do tend to check the boxes nicely in most regards (e.g. https://www.metabox.com.au/store/b249/Metabox-Multimedia-Pho... looks great on paper: AU$2,000 for 15″ with 4K IPS and other good specs; touch/pen support is the only thing I would expect to miss), but unless I have reason to expect the keyboard is better than the one I experienced, I’m leery.
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¹ At the time I was price-sensitive but wanted a decent screen, my first laptop having been a second-hand HP 6710b with a 1680×1050 screen; I was not willing to accept 1366×768. For a 1920×1080 IPS panel, the cheapest brand-name option was around AU$1,400, but a Clevo one at AU$1,000 had better specs all round save for using integrated graphics rather than a dedicated graphics card, which was plus for me as I didn’t need dedicated and would prefer to save the battery life, weight and bulk.
I probably don't use my keyboard enough to really know. My system76 laptop is a desktop replacement and 99% of my use with it is with external keyboard/mouse/monitors.
This laptop is a Tongfang chassis and it’s basically the same laptop as the Schenker Via 15. Someone already linked to the comprehensive Notebookcheck review, but here’s a review of how the Schenker plays out of the box with Linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/fmzch5/schen...
Note, the internals are similar to the 14” (Walmart) Motile M142s that have been selling for as low as $300 since last winter. There’s a 4000H refresh of the 14” being released next month as well (Mechrevo S2 Air), see my previous post for links to the details.
They sell the same devices, but often have subtle differences regarding the exact available configuration, e.g. which SSD models are available or what the default warranty terms are. An apples to apples comparison is usually within 20€, but here it's 785€ (Schenker) vs 860€ (Tuxedo).
Hmm. It's weird that they allow for such large arbitrage opportunities given that they're part of the same tronic5 company group.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_design_manufacturer
[2] https://www.schenker-tech.de/en/schenker-via-15-en
[3] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-VIA-15-Laptop-Review-...