System76Reviews of system76.com

The HW is great, but it is missing System Serial Info, which is not coded in the Thelio MB. It makes our Ubuntu setup convoluted and time-consuming. This should be a requirement for all Thelio shipped. Thank you.

There needs to be more pro-active communication regarding the status of orders. Clearer communication on lead times for production at the time of order would also improve your customer experience. This can easily be automated via email or improvements on your account orders page to update your customers on the status of their orders. That said, I did receive a response within 24 hours after having contacted your customer support team to inquire about my order.

Honest overview of experience with System76's Thelio Mega machine after owning it for the first 2 months: Pros: * After you log in, machine is very fast and responsive. I have been able to run games like Cyber Punk 2077 at the highest graphics settings (going beyond Ray Tracing into Path Tracing) and still have smooth game play at 60FPS. * They have very good tech support (which is a blessing because you are going to need it). I've worked with about 5-6 different IT guys so far and they've been pretty patient and polite. * You have lots of options for desktop customization since it's a Linux machine and lots of the bloatware from OS like Windows and Mac are not installed. UI feels like you are using a Mac, so you don't have to use command line to navigate if you don't want to. Cons: * Expensive (mine cost over $10,000). It would be cheaper to build your own (save 25% or more) if you are engineering savy and are comfortable building the computer with the same hardware. * Time it took to receive custom machine after ordering it: 4 weeks * Initial setup experience for beginner Linux user: Terrible (setting up user profile was not straight forward and frustrating). Having to go through BIOS screens as part of account creation was intimidating. * Process of swapping primary graphics card: long (took over an hour and had to take apart half the computer just to unplug the initial one installed and put in a new one. However, they do have some detailed documentation to help replace it though, so that's a plus at least). * Downloading programs from their PopOS Shop are unstable. I was even told by their Tech Support not to use it, but to wait until they finished building their newest Cosmic Store for better stability. Instead they often give me commands to use to download it through command line - a bit of a learning curve if you haven't used Linux before. * Computer broke after putting in new graphics card and downloading new driver through their PopOS Store. I had to spend days with tech support to try different commands through command line to get it a stable driver. * Long boot up time: takes over a minute of seeing a black screen before a password prompt shows up (and this is with high end hardware - Threadripper PRO 9975WX, 256 GB ECC DDR5 RAM, 8 TB of SSD, NVIDIA 5080 RTX). After spending over a week with tech support, I was basically told that I couldn't speed up boot times on the system. * Lots of the BIOS settings are locked and tech support told me I couldn't upgrade my motherboard firmware because their hardware integrations would break. So trying to download new drivers is kind of like trying to defuse a bomb. * Even though this is a powerful machine, playing games on Steam is a hit or a miss because they don't always support Linux/PopOS. There is some community support to help mitigate this (Proton, libstrangle, Gamescope, Wayland vs X11), but I still have half of my games crash for random reasons. I spend more time trying to fix them on this machine so that I can play them properly instead of being able to just play them. * Game development programs like Unity will just crash for random reasons (2-4 times per session). So you have to save often and never feel quite safe when working. * Lots of hardware (like Logitech mouse, keyboards, microphones, speakers, etc) don't support Linux, so you have to download a lot of hacky community driven open source software to get things working as you want them to. TL;DR: I've spent more time setting the machine up and wasting time fixing problems with Tech Support and Google than I've had time to enjoy the computer. For the high price you pay for them to set up the machine for you, I would expect the user experience to be much smoother right out of the box, but that's simply not the case. I'm a 3D modeler, a game developer, and a programmer with over 10 years of experience, but I still have lots of difficulty getting this machine to work right. When it works, it works great, but when it doesn't be prepared to waste a lot of time trouble shooting.

The Oryx laptop is an incredibly nice piece of hardware. Great specs, looks nice, but could use a couple more USB ports. The Cosmic desktop is not-so-nice. I didn't realize the Oryx would ship with Cosmic Beta instead of the mature and fully tested Original PoP!_OS. Cosmic seemed fine at first, but running the GUI updater tool broke it irreparably after less than 2 hours of cursory usage. Faced with a reinstall, I decided to pick a different distro since Cosmic still isn't ready to come out of the oven. Paying a premium price for premium hardware and a Linux experience that just works is fine if you get both of those things. Right now, the Oryx is premium hardware with a premium price and a buggy Beta Linux experience that will definitely damage System76's reputation as Windows 10 refugees flee to Linux distros that claim to be "Windows-like" and "just work," but still need a lot more testing and polish. System76 tech support is very nice to communicate with and have been helpful, but helpful support only goes so far when the end user is paying to be a Beta tester.

No reply on support ticket. Computer was delivered mostly as advertised.

Very slow with processing return, the laptop was garbage and I'm out 56 dollars on shipping

Positives - the unit looks nice, is solidly built and after a good bit of help from a friend it is operational. Negatives - the unit arrived with the video card unseated. Having not worked with this box or type of box before, I reached out to System76 for help. The very generic response - re-seat the card - did not provide details on how to even get to the card. The box isn't a simple design and very detailed instructions should be provided. Considering response times exceed 24 hours between requests I cannot give better than a three rating at this time.

i tried to order a replacement battery for my Gazelle 17 inch laptop, purchased in 2020, but the only one listed on the website with a 17 in the name was a different battery. after it arrived it took about 3 months to have this sorted out (i.e., wrong battery returned, new battery ordered and delivered, reimbursement) with multiple emails. i understand that the customer service department may be understaffed, and am sympathetic to their situation, but as a customer it was not a pleasant experience.