I’ve been using the System76 Gazelle 18 for a while and I’ve honestly really enjoyed it. Compared to the old 2015 Macbook which I used for a while, this thing blows that out of the water. Here’s my neofetch:
.',;::::;,'. errorcodezero@errorcodezero
.';:cccccccccccc:;,. ---------------------------
.;cccccccccccccccccccccc;. OS: Fedora release 40 (Forty) x86_64
.:cccccccccccccccccccccccccc:. Host: Gazelle gaze18
.;ccccccccccccc;.:dddl:.;ccccccc;. Kernel: 6.8.2-300.fc40.x86_64
.:ccccccccccccc;OWMKOOXMWd;ccccccc:. Uptime: 3 hours, 9 mins
.:ccccccccccccc;KMMc;cc;xMMc:ccccccc:. Packages: 3083 (rpm), 25 (flatpak)
,cccccccccccccc;MMM.;cc;;WW::cccccccc, Shell: fish 3.7.0
:cccccccccccccc;MMM.;cccccccccccccccc: Resolution: 1920x1080
:ccccccc;oxOOOo;MMM0OOk.;cccccccccccc: DE: Plasma 6.0.2
cccccc:0MMKxdd:;MMMkddc.;cccccccccccc; WM: kwin
ccccc:XM0';cccc;MMM.;cccccccccccccccc' WM Theme: Breeze
ccccc;MMo;ccccc;MMW.;ccccccccccccccc; Theme: [Plasma], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
ccccc;0MNc.ccc.xMMd:ccccccccccccccc; Icons: [Plasma], breeze-dark [GTK2/3]
cccccc;dNMWXXXWM0::cccccccccccccc:, Terminal: kitty
cccccccc;.:odl:.;cccccccccccccc:,. CPU: 13th Gen Intel i9-13900H (20) @ 5.200GHz
:cccccccccccccccccccccccccccc:'. GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile
.:cccccccccccccccccccccc:;,.. GPU: Intel Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics]
'::cccccccccccccc::;,. Memory: 3271MiB / 15829MiB
I honestly am enjoying this laptop. The only issues I’ve had are that the fans go a little crazy sometimes. It’s real fun sitting in chemistry browsing the periodic table and all of a sudden my laptop decides it’s a great time to begin to blast off. I also notice that the second I open steam, the fans start to ramp up(even if no games are launched). The funny thing is that once I launch a game, the fans will actually turn down a good amount of the time.
“Wait steam is being opened! Better prepare for the games that are about to launch. Oh wait it’s just hl1 never mind :D” - The laptop probably
Some other interesting quirk about the laptop is the usage of a barrel port instead of USB-C for charging. I honestly didn’t like it initially since I wanted to have one cable that I could use to charge both my phone and laptop. Not to mention that the port was located in the back of the laptop rather than the front. After using it for a while I can say with confidence that this is a genius idea. Being a barrel port, I can rotate the charger around depending on where the outlet is.
Obviously with more powerful machines like this, the battery life takes a hit. Even with the gpu disabled via NVIDIA Optimus, I can get an hour and a half of battery life The battery life is actually a lot better than that now that I’ve done some testing. With the gpu disabled, I can get around 6 hours of battery life. With the gpu enabled, I can get 2 hours. However, for my use cases, I think it isn’t actually that bad. One thing to consider is that I am never away with the laptop from an outlet for more than 30 minutes at a time. I also think that the additional performance and dedicated gpu make up for it. I don’t think it’s too bad. If I really need extra battery life, I honestly don’t even mind using a powerbank.
Conclusion
I really like this laptop. It works great for my daily tasks as well as some gaming. I would recommend this laptop for anyone who needs performance and is willing to sacrifice battery life.