FINALLY, a Linux laptop with NO TRADEOFFS! Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen7 Review

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#laptop #linux #tuxedo

00:00 Intro
00:22 Unboxing
02:04 Design & Build Quality: solid and beautiful
03:49 Specs & Configuration Options: make it your own
06:17 Display: good panel, not a fan of the resolution
07:28 Keyboard & Touchpad: excellent
08:27 Webcam, Mic & Speakers: decent
09:36 Performance & battery life: all day workstation
11:36 This is the template for all Linux laptops
13:14 Support the channel

The chassis is a magnesium / aliminium alloy. It's really sturdy, but also really lightweight. My review unit came in black, and retains no fingerprints. You can also get it in silver if you prefer. In both cases, it's 1.7cm thick, and 1.3kg.

The laptop can be opened, and upgraded, you can switch out the RAM and the SDD as you like, with dual channel RAM slots, and an m.2 slot that supports PCIe4 drives.

My review unit came with a french azerty keyboard, but they have a lot of different layouts, and you can even send them your own to be laser etched, or have a blank keyboard. The super key has a cartoony tux logo, but you can ask for you own super key as well.

You can add an Nvidia RTX 3050ti to turn the laptop into a real workstation. In terms of ports, on the left side, you get the usual kensington lock, a USB C 3.2 Gen 2 port, which supports display port 1.4 and power delivery, a USB A 3.2 Gen 1 port, a full size SD card reader, and a 2 in 1 audio jack.

On the right, you have the barrel charging port, an HDMI 2.0b port, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and a thunderbolt 4 port, which also supports display port 1.4 and power delivery.

The display is a 3K panel, at 2880 by 1800, in a 16:10 aspect ratio. It's 14 inch, and has an anti reflective coating.

It covers 99% of sRGB, 74.7% of AdobeRGB, and 81.1% of DCI-P3. It goes up to 400 nits, the contrast ratio is 1500:1, and it runs at 90hz.

The keyboard feels really good. It's a chiclet style keyboard, with black keys, whether you have the black, or the silver variant. It's backlit, and has a tux super key that you can customize, as I said before.

The touchpad feels awesome, it's super smooth, covered in glass, and it's a joy to use with gestures, it's precise and responsive, and it clicks well.

The webcam goes up to 1080p30, and while it will need some amount of light to not be too grainy, it's far from the worse I've seen.

The microphone is a bit better. You'll need to lower the default gain, but the voice is clear, and you can't really hear fan noise, although it will pick up on touchpad clicks and keyboard presses. It's really not bad for a laptop mic.

As per the speakers, they're bottom firing, and they're also decent. They're not tinny, they don't distort at high volumes, and they get loud enough. Nothing fancy, but they do the trick perfectly for a youtube video or a movie.

The 12700H is a very powerful CPU, with 14 cores, and 20 threads, and a max frequency of 4.7Ghz. On geekbench 5, it gets 1781 in single core, and 8388 in multi core, which means it beats my desktop 5800H in single core, and gets extremely close in multi core.

It's cooled with a dual fan system, with 2 fans and 2 heatpipes, and uses liquid metal, which means temps never got high, staying at around 40 degrees Celsius at idle, and about 80°C under heavy load.

In terms of battery life, I got around 7 and a half hours of youtube video playback in a loop over wifi, at 50% brightness with bluetooth on. With a more regular workload of web browsing, listening to music, writing this script, and watching the occasional video or running a test or 2 on the laptop, I got 9h.

[TheLinuxEXP]

What do you think of this little beast? What do you think Linux laptops are missing?

[defnlife]

The ONE tradeoff is that it only has the ability to use NVIDIA GPU from the store. AMD would probably be more flexible considering how NVIDIA treats linux and BSDs

[nuibrio]

This thing is in the class of its own, with a desktop-like CPU, battery/weight ratio and <$2K price tag. It should be the template not just for Linux, but for ALL laptops.

[adch]

I hope Tuxedo does some of the work to set up the defaults on the officially offered distros at least. Fractional scaling is a pain to configure for all apps: native apps, electron apps and browsers can all want their own settings.

[vladimirdelima]

TUXEDO is making itself THE standart linux experience on a laptop.
It's very exciting to see brands like tuxedo or system76 offering the combo hardware+software for linux.
now it need just to improve price and availability worldwide.

Congrats for the video, as always so informative and exciting!

[torianjallen]

They did a really good job with this one. I hope System 76 starts to make this much effort with their laptop line. Desktops are great,

[zenbum]

Very impressive system. Looking at their website, I especially like the 16" version. The specs are not quite as good as my M1 MacBook Pro, but it costs $1000 less. And runs Linux natively. If I were in the market today for a developer laptop, this would probably be my first choice.

[mirage]

It does look like a solid little machine. I very much appreciate the 14 inch screen size. It's a nice sweet spot between portability and screen real estate.
Them allowing you to have your own layout laser etched on the keyboard and the case is super cool. Really allows you to make the machine your own. Linux is known for the option to customize it to taste and it's cool to see this extend to the hardware.

[mnoxman]

"All the vibrant colors of the German rainbow. There is Gray, Dark Gray, Berlin Asphalt and Accident in a coal mine." -- Spitting Image.

[HShango]

Looks perfect & I love the matte black/slim look of this baby

[Watchandlearn]

That screen resolution is perfect and I don't think it should change. Linux distros should be the ones that finally start supporting fractional scaling properly. I know fractional scaling is hard but Windows and macOS do it really well so there is no technical reason that Linux can't too. I know Wayland is a good first step and Gnome and KDE have a good start but there is a lot more to be done there for every DE.

[DanoFPV]

TLE: This is the best Linux laptop
TLE again: THIS is the best linux laptop
TLE again again: NO. NO FOR REAL GUYS THIS is the best linux laptop.

[cejannuzi]

Linux Desktop really needs the power of manufacturers behind it--like this.

[Regonarr]

Half-height arrow keys should be a criminal offence

[ericbrunel]

And if you're looking for a less compact laptop, they also have a 16" version for pre-order \o/. I tend to prefer this kind of size, since it also means we get a numeric keypad, which is very useful on a French keyboard.

[Necitero]

I am so glad Uwe won that contest - I am sure he really deserved it.

[altrogeruvah]

The aluminium/magnesium chassis looks pretty solid. Feels like the best Linux laptop, but I'm wondering how the upcoming AMD-based StarFighter will hold up, as it seems to be priced the same.

[bibasik]

I was considering buying this laptop, but they never made a Gen 7 US ANSI edition, so I ended up buying an M1 MacBook Air.

Don't worry, I still have Linux on my older MacBooks.

[JayMoog]

Really good review. It is nice to see a decent laptop running Linux that does not come with 'issues'. Though I've had lots of 'fun' trying to sort out the mess and inconsistencies of linux GUI apps and subsystems and how well they work with font scaling and high DPI. This continues to be something Linux vendors can't get right, pushing people away. Saying that my old 4K Windows 7 machine did not do a great job of this either.

[tomasnorre]

I had one off these for 6 months, had to get it repaired 3 times before returning it. Was amazing but a monday model i Think. I really wanted this to be the perfect laptop, but not this time. Consider trying Them again.