Penguin GNU / Linux Laptop /w 1920x1080 Matte Screen Now Shipping

32 replies [Last post]
Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

As usual 25% of the profits will go to Trisquel project if you use the link below:

http://libre.thinkpenguin.com

We finally have a laptop with what is probably the most requested feature. A high resolution matte screen. Not just 1600x900 either. It's a full 1920x1080. It is by far our highest end system to date and at a lower price point than the Penguin Emperor. As usual it works great with the latest version of Trisquel (6) and there are no non-free dependencies to worry about.

There is one other feature that sets it apart from the Emperor Penguin. It's ultra ultra thin. Less than 1" thick.

icarolongo
Offline
Joined: 03/26/2011

Very good, Chris!
Wonderful.

The best laptop free software friendly.

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

It's awesome. I think people are really going to take a liking to this model.

alucardx
Offline
Joined: 02/29/2012

That is a great looking laptop! The price is really nice as well. I think when I finally do buy a laptop this will be the one I go with. It's very classy! Nice work Chris!

ahj
ahj

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 06/03/2012

Excellent stuff Chris! I wish you all the success you can get with this model.

I may even buy one myself eventually.

onpon4
Offline
Joined: 05/30/2012

Now when I mention Think Penguin to someone, I won't have to deal with "Bah, only 1366x768! Full HD or GTFO!"

Also, looks really nice. It'll be my top choice next time I'm in the market for a new laptop.

grvrulz
Offline
Joined: 09/23/2010

This is awesome. I'm saving for a new laptop, and this is the perfect machine for me(with the i7 :D). But I have a few questions.
1. Can I get one with a dvorak keyboard?
2. What are the approximate shipping charges to India? Also, do I have to pay the 36% custom tax like I have to do on most imported things?

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

1. No. We are just aiming for better support for Spanish at the moment. Things have been delayed as far as rolling out a new site go and all sorts of other stuff. Significantly delayed. Maybe 3-6 months... again. Very frustrating as we got 99.2% of the way there with the new site and are basically stating over.

2. I believe there is a total of about 21% in taxes which will be collected on delivery for India where laptops are concerned. I believe this is less than the norm as laptops are 'duty free'. Although there are some lesser duties and other taxes still which add up to 21%.

The shipping cost depends on where you are in India although DHL usually runs 1-4 business days. The price varies a bit depending on where you are and the order itself. A heavier or at least larger laptop will cost more to ship. We do try to keep the size of the package down to reduce shipping while still maintaining sufficient protection to avoid damage. The risk is low though anyway. The shipping time can extend to about a week for some countries/remote areas too. One laptop to one location in NEW DELHI runs about $120 USD. For large cities in countries with more problematic shipping / customs conditions it runs around $130 USD usually. For instance: Japan, Germany, Italy, India. Less problematic countries like the Netherlands, UK, Spain, France, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, etc it tends to run about $70 USD.

grvrulz
Offline
Joined: 09/23/2010

Whoa.. so the $1500 laptop is going to cost me around 1900. And I was suddenly so happy :(

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

Yes- some countries area easier than others.

muhammed
Offline
Joined: 04/13/2013

Oh wow, I was looking for a laptop with a high res screen, and settled for the Gentoo a month ago =(. This hurts a little more than the Ogg Player v2 coming out right after I bought the original Ogg Player.

It's a great looking computer!

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

There is so much uncertainty I have a hard time revealing what might be any more. If I had anticipated this and been more certain about it I would probably have said something had you inquired about it.

muhammed
Offline
Joined: 04/13/2013

Thanks for the reply Chris. I inquired last month

https://trisquel.info/en/forum/free-software-compatible-laptop

alucardx
Offline
Joined: 02/29/2012

I would love to have a little GNU on my super key.

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

It's not happening at the moment even though I'd love to do it. Stickers are expensive and I can't offset the risk easily with these. The tux keyboard sticker was a bit less risky as there are millions of GNU/Linux users who recognize the character. We do have powered by GNU case badges though:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/powered-gnu-aluminium-case-badge

These were less risky as I could merge the risk of them not selling with other case badges. I'm not sure if we are going to break even with this stuff as a whole as it is. Not everything is selling that terribly well even though we get quite a few orders every day. The problem is we have not correctly guestimated the demand for each sticker. It could take many years to break even if we ever do.

aliasbody
Offline
Joined: 09/14/2012

I just want to say, Ive looked at the price of the laptop WITH all the options I need (i7 with HD4000, SSD Hybrid 500GB HDD and 16GB of ram) with a 1920x1080 matte screen and that gorgeous design for 1,467$ (or 1,154.38€) ? It's just wonderful :D

I think I will buy one in the near future (even knowing that I already have a laptop :D with that size but with 4GB of ram and a Core 2 Duo which cost me the same price a few years ago).

Nice work Chris (And ThinkPenguin at the same time) !

t3g
t3g
Offline
Joined: 05/15/2011

Seeing that Chromebooks use Coreboot, how realistic is it in the future to have all your laptops and deskops use Coreboot?

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

I think there was progress made since I last investigated although it's still a significant issue. The most important thing we should be focused on right now is increasing sales. That means better support for other languages, a bunch of fixes all over the place, etc. Then marketing...

Where money flows development (potentially) happens!

ssdclickofdeath
Offline
Joined: 05/18/2013

Is it the same as a SIM card, or is that a different technology?

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

GSM devices rely on SIM cards.

riddled

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/30/2013

I am not in the market for a laptop right now but I am buying a wee 3 on the first when I get paid. Do I need to do that through the link on the trisquel page for trisquel to get the 25%?

Chris

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 04/23/2011

As long as you order through libre.thinkpenguin.com we'll know to make a donation to Trisquel. A reminder is helpful if you place the order by phone/email.

capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

I am relatively new to Linux, about 4 years now so i know less than some and more than others at this point.

I decided on a buy for A Snares come the end of the month, it will replace my husbands T60 Thinkpad, which I bought for him as a stopgap last June. Eventually we will all get thinkpenguins.

Prior to that we were running off a 2009 Toshiba Satt and it was a nightmare from the gate. 3 months in Vista it crashed, recovered with disk, 3 months later BSOD. I installed our windows Xp copy, but low and behold this model does not support ANY drivers for XP. Only Vista. So, left with nothing I googled free operating system and found 10.04.

I went through 4 Linux OS's before I found somthing that would work(due to its proprietary nature) Ultimate edition, and that OS still needed bandaids here and there and reinstalltions. I moved to keep everything important on a side drive, due to frequent installs.
Terminal became my best friend

I would loose the wifi card, the graphics, in the end it wasnt even able to communicate with the dvdrw, this thing went down in flames.

We paid 1K for it out the door in June 2009.

So last year I went on Ebay and bought 3 T60 Thinkpads for our family. One for each of us. After much time looking at high end dated machines, I found these the most likely to be freeware compatible.

Then I found MInt.

So over the past year I have looked at the options for freeware laptops (We will never waste our $ like that again), and thinkpenguin is the only truely free option at this time that I have found.

I considered this,
If you buy a windows machine, you now lease both hardware(due to the new BIOS locks) and software.
If you buy freeware machine that has hardware restrictions, essentially you are leasing the hardware and are subject to security issues as well as OS compatibility issues.

The options are limited, but the information for making decidions is vast.

Mass produced is ALways the cheapest option. That is basic economics.

Personally I think thinkpenguin is very well priced for what it is. I look forward to our build and delivery from Thinkpenguin.

ahj
ahj

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 06/03/2012

>I am relatively new to Linux, about 4 years now so i know less than some and more than others at this point.

>So last year I went on Ebay and bought 3 T60 Thinkpads for our family. One for each of us. After much time looking at high end dated machines, I found these the most likely to be freeware compatible.

Freeware =! Free software.

Free software is software that respects your four essential freedoms [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html]. Freeware may or may not be non-free, aka proprietary software, so the term doesn't adequately describe Free software.

Likewise, Linux is a kernel. The Linux kernel is often used with the GNU userland, so the system is basically GNU plus Linux, or GNU/Linux.

Cheers

capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

I see what you are saying, that makes sense. Thank you for the clarification, I learn more and more all the time.

I made the order the Snares a few days back, I will post Pictures when it arrives.

Have a good one

capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

We got our order in for our Snares on Friday afternoon. I told Chris I would throw a review up.
+
The keyboard is spaced perfectly(not crunched up like on others)
The OS was installed and works great right out of the box.
The screen is crystal clear, the finest of details are visible
The graphics are supreme, this Graphics card (Intel) surpasses the prior ATI GTX card we had in our Desktop, and the Nvidia card we had in our previous Toshiba.
Load time is typical of linux(what, 8 seconds)
It makes it a pleasure to do computing on.

-
Non

we are going to buy 2 more over the next 9 months. IMHO, This is a solid investment. The guys at TP have done a really good job with this one, and deserve some thumps up in the efforts to put together a laptop that is freeware based.

Thank you for all you do, Chris,Alex and crew!
The McCallum family

Screenshot 1.png Software Center.png
muhammed
Offline
Joined: 04/13/2013

Free software is not the same as freeware. Free software is about certain user freedoms. It can be commercial or gratis.

Freeware is gratis. The instructions that make up a piece of freeware may be free (freedom-respecting) or proprietary (secret).

Linux Mint exists because of the GNU Project's contributions to software freedom. The GNU Project contributed the free software philosophy, and practical things like a window manager, desktop environment, web browser, and other stuff that we need for our computers to be useful.

Linus Torvalds contributed a piece too: the kernel Linux. Linux was originally proprietary software; Linus later released it as GNU General Public License software.

Linux Mint contains:
(1) free software (GNU and similar software that respects users' freedom),
(2) Linux (open source ... a mix of free stuff and proprietary stuff), and
(3) proprietary software (secret instructions)

How come you're using Mint? Operating systems like Trisquel and gNew-Sense are free in the freedom sense, and will work with the Snares Penguin hardware.

Thanks for posting the hardware review by the way.

capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

Shot 1

SAM_0981.JPG
capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

Shot 2

SAM_0977.JPG
capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

Shot 3

SAM_0978.JPG
capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

Shot 4

SAM_0979.JPG
capitalkid
Offline
Joined: 09/07/2013

muhammed
Mint is where I arrived at after going through several others over the course of several years. It has worked so far, and anything that will make my life a bit less complicated is welcomed.

I can go with Trisquel on the next laptop buy(which will be mine), I have this one setup for my husband who is moving from XP Pro as of this build, over. So I need it to be somewhat, user friendly. (He does not have any idea on how to use terminal ect..)

I will probably dable more, but I do have a ceiling on what I can dedicate for time for the learning curve each distro has when you move over. I HS my son, as well as run a household,make nearly every meal at home, balance the budget, maintain the computers and get all the shopping done(ect..).
One of the things decided on in 2010 was moving away from anything windows, thus this is the first step in new hardware. my goal is for us all to move over within the year, to *new* hardware and hopefully, as well, work to have more distros under the belt. (which is the wonderful aspect of buying hardware that can be used on just about any distro out there)

Appreciate the suggestions. Thanks.

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Joined: 07/24/2010

For somebody "moving from XP", Trisquel is more "user friendly" (i.e., more similar) than Mint. You need not master the terminal to use Trisquel and Trisquel perfectly drives ThinkPenguin's hardware.