Today I saw someone once again trash System76 for rebranding Clevo machines and writing that off as some kind of deceptive business model. Ultimately, they’re not “just rebranded Clevo…”, but even if they were, the ignorant douchebag posting this misguided rant fails to acknowledge that EVERY SINGLE LAPTOP OEM does the same. Yes, HP, Dell, Lenovo - fucking all of them!
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This would be more appropriate over on https://lemmy.world/c/system76
We do manufacture our Thelio desktops at our factory in Denver. We also offer tour guides for anyone that wants to schedule to see how everything is manufactured and assembled.
Our laptops are not entirely Clevo though. Some of them are manufactured by Emdoor. These companies do not sell systems directly to retail consumers, so they are not technically rebranded. They do work with us to give us the necessary schematics and documentation so that we can port our Coreboot firmware to them.
Either way, their quality is no better or worse than any other ODM out there. In fact, I’ve had Dell, ASUS, and Lenovo laptops with lesser quality than a Clevo. It will largely depend on the model that you buy as to what materials are used. I distinctively remember some YouTube reviewers mistakenly assuming some models were using plastic, when they were actually using magnesium alloy.
All good points, and thanks for the company info and clarifications. Apologies, I didn’t know about system76 community on lemmy.world instance.
How would someone schedule a tour? I’m not far from Denver and would LOVE to see how my thelio was made!
You can send an email to [email protected]
Whenever I price something, I look at the whole package. If I like what a company is doing, I don’t mind paying extra to support them. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. With System76, I feel like I won.
They were the only company I found that was offering Canadians any laptop with Linux pre-installed. (I think Lenovo or Toshiba had something, but they weren’t available in Canada.) Having fought mightily with various distros on a wide range of hardware for years, it was critically important that my new daily driver not suck up my time just getting it running and keeping it that way.
Nearly 5 years later, the laptop is still going strong. On top of that, my hopes for their distro have far exceeded any reasonable expectations. I was prepared for the likelihood that I would ultimately need to switch to another distro, but their ongoing development and contributions to the Linux ecosystem have kept me on board and excited for the future.
In the end, I wasn’t buying a laptop. I was buying a system, and I’ve been extremely happy with the outcome.
That said, I suspect my next laptop will be a Framework. Again, it has less to do with the detailed specifics of hardware than in supporting a company in their attempt to do things the way I think they should be done.
You’re correct in pointing out that whatever hardware you buy usually mandates an ecosystem to work within. It took me a long time to completely sever with the Apple ecosystem. Their ‘planned obsolescence’ model and ‘walled garden’ experience are really expensive when you consider the entire deal. Forcing people to retire perfectly good hardware by manipulating software with the solution being to purchase more of their hardware is insidious. Microsoft aren’t much better these days, but their ecosystem has many other expensive
featuresfaults.
The criticism is from two angles. First, Clevo is known for products that are not on the high end of the quality spectrum. They don’t try to be. Which currently is an obstacle for improving the quality of System76 laptops. System76 however has be working with suppliers to increase the quality of the products and doesn’t source everything from Clevo for their laptop lineup. Second, System76 doesn’t have the order volume of other brands allowing them to have more control over what their suppliers will supply while keeping per unit costs low enough to satisfy System76 margin expectations and keeping prices attractive enough to customers.
System76 has been making good decisions over time to address these challenges and produce better value for customers. But I don’t think it’s unfair for people to be critical of the current situation. System76 laptops aren’t cheaply priced so customers should expect System76 laptops to meet expectations in line with the prices. Not everyone will agree that System76 is or can do that with their current product offerings.
Unfortunately, the economics of laptop and desktop retail sales has subsidies from software based services built into the price expectations of customers. I like that System76 is moving against those headwinds. It means that System76 is not making decisions to try to get you to sign up for services and respects that the hardware you purchase is for your personal use and gives you autonomy to use it as you’d like without creating hurdles. But it also means their products aren’t going to be as compelling to those that are willing to deal with hurdles in exchange for lower prices.
Good points on clarifying the source of the criticism and the challenges this company face. We still need to explain why so many people trash System76 with this particular garbage. Other small suppliers face the same challenges, and we don’t see this “just a rebranded …” rant applied to them. Some examples would be Purism, Tuxedo and Star Labs. Why aren’t people trashing these companies with the same rhetoric? If anything they do much less to the ODM machine than System76.
Purism, Tuxedo and Star Labs
I think System76 has much less of a perception problem than the others. For Purism, I read much more damming critiques like waiting 3 years for your order. For the others, I nearly never read about them unless I go out of my way to find people discussing them. I would say those are much bigger problems for companies to have.
Yeah, I know Purism gets trashed for reasons they are actually accountable for. And good point about lack of business being a major worry, but in your search did you happen to see anyone trashing these other companies with “It’s just a rebranded [whatever]”?
I’ve had a system 76.
It was an utter disappointment.
OK, sure, whatever, but that’s not relevant to the topic.
Virgo will be completely different story. Mechanical keyboard with trackpoint.
I am looking forward to Virgo. I don’t care so much about the track point (I don’t see what everyone sees in them) but I hear it will come with three mouse buttons, and I’m really happy about that.
Once you go woth trackpoint, you’ll never go back.
It is so great for stopping you completely from moving your wrists when needing for a mouse.
I keep hearing that, but I have a Thinkpad, and I can’t imagine a situation where i would use the trackpoint. It’s just so slow and inaccurate that I can’t stand it.
Change the speed and make sure the acceleration is set to flat. I have always set my trackpoint to max.
I use touchpd only for edge scroll with my right thumb. Very rarely moving my wrists.
Are you looking for anything here in particular? There is a lot of this in the industry (Foxconn makes a lot of rebadged stuff).
That being said, Clevo are not a good quality manufacturer in my experience.
Not looking for anything except an attempt to clarify the industry standard practice that System76 are not doing anything different to ALL other computer suppliers (OEM). They’re all using ODM for manufacture. If the quality isn’t great that’s another topic, but trashing them in threads for the reason stated is ignorant and uninformed.
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Acer used to do exactly that until they spun that business segment off.
From what I’ve read, yeah, Acer/Asus used to be the exception.
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Bad joke.
