Recently converted to their hardware after a rather long line of Macbooks. Completely happy - everything. just. works. First Linux laptop I've had where I didn't need to fiddle with anything, way less than macOS.
Regarding their business model, they do design the laptops (even if they don't produce them themselves), but I get their impression their competitive edge are two different things:
1. Branding/marketing (to non-mainstream users, but we're talking about them right now, so I guess it's working)
2. Software: Ensuring everything works smoothly. It's not just firmware and drivers - having their own distribution seems quite key, otherwise it's trickier to cater to _their_ users needs. Keeping it close to the most popular distributions seems smart to me.
Pop OS clearly is a big deal for (2), but I think it even contributes to (1). Since they make money (apparently sustainably so) from selling hardware, and given that it appears Pop OS is an important driver of that business, I'd wager it's not going anywhere as long as they have a working hardware business.
They seem to. They sell computers (with Ubuntu or Pop!_OS). I'm at least the 2nd one to get one at my work (that I know of). They're not "cheap", and if you know what they are and what you are doing you could just buy a similar model for a bit less and install linux on that.(they're rebadged clevos, I've replaced a fan on one..)
But if you buy from them it comes with linux pre-installed (yeah!) which saves time and stress. It was easy and they do support you, and my 2 experiences with support where very good (Os and hardware). Plus Mat screens.
I was skeptical about yet another distro, but after using I kinda like Pop!_os despite the name. Its my daily driver now. The "Pop shop" where it does upgrades and software installs is decent enough. It seems to let me choose "flatpack (flathub)" or "debs" for most software. I haven't had any issues with either, though looking though my list its vscode and gimp which are my flatpack installs..
One great thing about Ubuntu and variants is that it’s got a lot of software that works well with it.
I've had a System 76 laptop for a few months now and I'm pretty happy with it. They've done a good job with Pop!Os, it's the only distro I've found that has made Gnome usable for me out of the box.
The only downside over my previous laptop (Dell XPS) is that I can no longer run 2 external monitors, the System 76 hardware just doesn't seem to be able to handle it.
Its a little wierd but they seems to exist only to sell to resellers, although clevo-computer.com seems to order a whole bunch.
in my case the "clevo" id is on the sticker on the back (along with a lot of other info). I think System 76 specs the parts the work with linux and orders the machines that way. I have no idea how the supply chain works in this case.
Regarding their business model, they do design the laptops (even if they don't produce them themselves), but I get their impression their competitive edge are two different things:
1. Branding/marketing (to non-mainstream users, but we're talking about them right now, so I guess it's working)
2. Software: Ensuring everything works smoothly. It's not just firmware and drivers - having their own distribution seems quite key, otherwise it's trickier to cater to _their_ users needs. Keeping it close to the most popular distributions seems smart to me.
Pop OS clearly is a big deal for (2), but I think it even contributes to (1). Since they make money (apparently sustainably so) from selling hardware, and given that it appears Pop OS is an important driver of that business, I'd wager it's not going anywhere as long as they have a working hardware business.