Overall, I'm happy with the purchase. As I get more employees, I'd probably look at System76 first. I appreciate their US based manufacturing goal.
I purchased the Gazelle. It's mid-level. It's a 7th gen i7. It has 32 GB of RAM. Runs Ubuntu 18.04. Has 512 GB nvme ssd. The video card is an integrated Intel. This is perfectly setup for running 5-10 docker instances locally, VS Code, Android Studio, and other tools all at once. I never swap, even with Chrome. C++ compile times are acceptable. Go compiles instantaneously. I got all this for $1600, rounding up. Good quality for the money. Build-wise, I dislike a few things.
The plastic shell feels cheap. There are minor creaks as I lift and carry it around one handed by the corner.
The keyboard has a number pad, which I find annoying. Linux in general is terrible about turning the num lock on. Some apps will have it on. Other won't. This makes the Home and End buttons (accessed by my pinky) unstable: will I get 0 or got the end of the line? For a 15" notebook, there should be no pad. It should work like the MBP. It does have a backlight.
The screen is good. There are no dead pixels (unlike the MBP that had them since day 1 but not in great enough number to get a replacement). It's not 4k. Rather it's good old fashion 1080p.
Battery life is an interesting topic. Ubuntu is not geared for great battery life. XFCE is definitely not. As a result I really only get about 4 hours. In its day, the MBP got about 6 hours. My problem is the battery decayed quickly with the System76. I don't think, and I could be wrong, that the battery should be at 90% in one year.
As to support, they are a little slow to respond. I also think they have an odd process. As far as I can tell, I don't get emails about tickets. I have to manually login and check the status. That's odd. Another oddity is that I can't figure out how to close tickets. I asked a question about the fan. They answered in a reasonable period. The ticket is still open. There is not button, as far as I can see, that allows me to complete/close the issue.
Do notice the price tag. A similar MBP is about $3k. Sure, it has a better graphics card, but it's a linux machine. Gaming is not my priority. This price includes user-replaceable parts. I can buy a new batter without going back to System75. I can replace the SSD without going back to System76. All the parts are standard (I doubt I can add more RAM). If I got a more powerful video card, I could do all of this and save $1k vs MBP.
As a quick aside, I'd love to see System76 move the mouse pad to the top of the keyboard. I don't think most people need a huge pad. A smaller pad at the top would prevent the palm from hitting it, which is a problem in Linux. So if there are any System76 reps reading this, give it a shot.
I purchased the Gazelle. It's mid-level. It's a 7th gen i7. It has 32 GB of RAM. Runs Ubuntu 18.04. Has 512 GB nvme ssd. The video card is an integrated Intel. This is perfectly setup for running 5-10 docker instances locally, VS Code, Android Studio, and other tools all at once. I never swap, even with Chrome. C++ compile times are acceptable. Go compiles instantaneously. I got all this for $1600, rounding up. Good quality for the money. Build-wise, I dislike a few things.
The plastic shell feels cheap. There are minor creaks as I lift and carry it around one handed by the corner.
The keyboard has a number pad, which I find annoying. Linux in general is terrible about turning the num lock on. Some apps will have it on. Other won't. This makes the Home and End buttons (accessed by my pinky) unstable: will I get 0 or got the end of the line? For a 15" notebook, there should be no pad. It should work like the MBP. It does have a backlight.
The screen is good. There are no dead pixels (unlike the MBP that had them since day 1 but not in great enough number to get a replacement). It's not 4k. Rather it's good old fashion 1080p.
Battery life is an interesting topic. Ubuntu is not geared for great battery life. XFCE is definitely not. As a result I really only get about 4 hours. In its day, the MBP got about 6 hours. My problem is the battery decayed quickly with the System76. I don't think, and I could be wrong, that the battery should be at 90% in one year.
As to support, they are a little slow to respond. I also think they have an odd process. As far as I can tell, I don't get emails about tickets. I have to manually login and check the status. That's odd. Another oddity is that I can't figure out how to close tickets. I asked a question about the fan. They answered in a reasonable period. The ticket is still open. There is not button, as far as I can see, that allows me to complete/close the issue.
Do notice the price tag. A similar MBP is about $3k. Sure, it has a better graphics card, but it's a linux machine. Gaming is not my priority. This price includes user-replaceable parts. I can buy a new batter without going back to System75. I can replace the SSD without going back to System76. All the parts are standard (I doubt I can add more RAM). If I got a more powerful video card, I could do all of this and save $1k vs MBP.
As a quick aside, I'd love to see System76 move the mouse pad to the top of the keyboard. I don't think most people need a huge pad. A smaller pad at the top would prevent the palm from hitting it, which is a problem in Linux. So if there are any System76 reps reading this, give it a shot.