In the middle of last year I reviewed System76’s Lemur Pro, a lightweight, battery-life focused Linux laptop. I concluded that the Lemur Pro did not have any big failings, and packed a few stand-out features such as the amazing battery life and open source firmware few – if any – other laptop makers can offer. Linux user or not, the Lemur Pro was a great all-rounder that could go toe-to-toe with competing Windows laptops any day of the week.
Since the publication of that review, System76 has released a new version of the Lemur Pro, focusing entirely on upgrading the internals of the machine. The casing, the keyboard, the trackpad, the display, and so on, remain unchanged, but this time around, it comes packing with Intel’s latest 11th Gen Core i5 or i7 processor – the 1135G7 or 1165G7 – and thus with Intel Iris Xe graphics, which should prove to be a massive boost over the previous generation’s UHD graphics.
This won’t be a full review – other than the spec bump, nothing has changed regarding the rest of the Lemur Pro. Aside from possible changes mentioned here, the review of last year’s model still applies. As such, I decided to use the term “re-review”, which I think better describes this article.
I opted for the Core i5 model this time around, since I feel the difference between it and the i7 are relatively small, especially considering the intended use case for a lightweight ultrabook such as this. This gave me some more financial room to max out the RAM at 40GB (DDR4 at 3200Mhz) and pick the 1TB SSD (M.2 PCIe gen4). The price of this specific configuration is $1613.00.
The remainder of the specifications are identical to last year’s machine. It has the same fairly standard 1920Ć1080 14.1″ 60Hz panel, which won’t win any awards, but isn’t bad in any way either. Much like last year, I do wish System76 offered higher resolution and especially higher refresh rates as options, since once you go high refresh rate, you just can’t go back. At the same time, however, I know a lot of people are still using 60Hz displays, and wouldn’t care one bit about sticking to it.
The ports situation remains the same as well, so you get one USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2 port (these names…), two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a MicroSD slot, an HDMI port, a barrel connector for the included charger, a combined headphone/microphone jack, and that Kensington lock thing for corporate or public environments. The Type-C port can be used a DisplayPort as well, and USB-C charging is supported as well.
The stand-out feature of last year’s model makes a return here, with the 73Wh battery once again delivering astonishing battery life. I can easily go over 10 hours of normal use – some browsing, some video, some basic document work – and for this model, they’ve fixed the issue I had last year where setting the laptop to battery-saving mode would cause signficiant slowdowns in playing video. I’m sure the brand new Iris Xe graphics play a big role here, and I just leave the battery-saving mode on at all times, since I didn’t notice any downsides.
Not noticing any downsides to the battery-saving mode is definitely one of the main advantages of the move to 11th Gen Intel processors and the Iris Xe GPU, but that’s not the only benefit – the laptop gets less hot too, which is great for those of us using laptops on our, you know, laps. Kicking in an open door, overall performance is improved too, with applications opening faster, complex web pages loading faster, and less fans spinning up, too.
This being a full Intel machine also means it’s already, well, ready for Wayland, without having to resort to workarounds or hacks. Sadly, if using System76’s own Pop!_OS, you need to manually enable Wayland by commenting out WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf/. Once you’ve done this, Wayland is an option in GDM and you can login. I’m taking Wayland compatibility into account when it comes to my purchasing decisions, and I figured I’m probably not alone in this.
I hope System76 makes Wayland easier to enable – or even the default – on its fully Intel machines soon, because it definitely improves responsiveness and performance across the board. This is hard to quantify, and people will understandably ask for proof, but on all three machines I’m currently running in Wayland – my Dell XPS 13 9370, this Lemur Pro, and a Blackbird POWER9 machine – there’s less stutter, less tearing, better video playback performance, and lower heat output when using Wayland compared to X.org.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this new Lemur Pro is a spec bump, and as such, the trackpad and keyboard are still the same. While the keyboard was already a solid one, I was less happy with the trackpad, and that remains the same here. It’s still of the diving board type, and its surface doesn’t feel nearly as nice as that of my XPS 13 – which has an excellent trackpad – or other competitors, such as the best-in-class trackpads found on Apple’s laptops. It’s not a bad trackpad, but it’s not particularly good or great either – just average.
In conclusion, this new generation of the Lemur Pro is by all accounts an excellent upgrade, with better performance, less heat output and fewer fan spin-ups – all without sacrificing the excellent battery life of its predecessor. If you have one of the earlier generations Lemur Pros with the same design, there’s probably not enough here to warrant an upgrade, but if you were on the fence last year, the spec bump definitely warrants a new, fresh look.
System76 took their already excellent all-rounder, and made it even better, without rocking the boat, without large changes in pricing, and still with System76’s unique open source firmware and coreboot which you’ll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
And that’s exactly what you want from a spec bump.
Question and I apologize if there is some use case I haven’t thought of…but what EXACTLY is the point of something like this during a pandemic? I mean I totally got having a compact very powerful laptop when there was many IT guys having to travel from job site to job site or even across the planet for various jobs having a lot of RAM and tons of storage for doing heavy computing on the go but…yeah ain’t nobody traveling thanks to the WuFlu so I really see no point in something like this over a similarly specced desktop that would most likely be cheaper and more powerful at the same time.
It’s hard to bring a desktop computer to the patio. Also, the pandemic won’t last forever.
Indeed. There are also usually multiple rooms in a house.
If you’re at home, especially in a large enough property with multiple rooms it’s possible to have one or more powerful machines in static locations, accessed remotely using thin and light (or static dumb terminals) devices.
I type this on a macbook air, which i carry around the house and garden as required, wake from sleep is instant, the laptop itself is silent and doesn’t get hot. There’s a powerful (and noisy) server in the garage which is more powerful and has more storage than any laptop while also having RAID and ECC memory. I can leave stuff running on the server without needing to worry about heat, noise or battery life.
Well I don’t have a good place for a desktop, and a laptop fits where I would want a new computer, so this is a good option.
Once the pandemic is over, you can’t carry a desktop around. Also, not everyone has the room for a bug hunk of plastic, metal, and wood (the desk). You can’t carry a desktop into different rooms, or outside in the yard, or to family which, depending on local rules, you may still be able to visit.
Thom Holwerda,
Sounds like someone who’s never experienced a lan party š
Wikipedia actually has a picture of one from the netherlands…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAN_party
Back in my day the monitor alone was 40kg.
Let’s bring back the LAN party!
NUCs are pretty small, and they can be mounted on the back of a monitor. š
If I had a magic wand an NUC on the back of my display would be my preferred desktop option. That or a Raspberry PI if it had the oomph and memory. I didn’t have the money at the time so went with a laptop and dock.. An NUC on the back of the display would be nice as it clears the mess away. Maybe another day.
If it makes you feel any better, my nucs keep dying on me. Fans, wifi, its always something. I’d recommend sticking to Intel if you make the leap, just for part availability. RIP my msi kubi with a dead custom fan.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
Now that you mention it, my parents went through a couple and they all ran hot and they all failed (I forget the brand). Eventually I just got them a SFF PC which is still working. With all the pressure to minimize size, it usually involves trade offs. I understand why people want small & lightweight, but for my money I prefer a good solid case with better specs/$ and large fans that run cooler and quieter. Not to mention being easier to upgrade & fix. I tend to reuse a lot of components from build to build.
Granted it’s less portable, and I have a laptop when I need it (ie go visit a client), but by and large I do my work in the same spot anyways, so portability isn’t hugely important to me. Of course there’s no one right answer since everyone has their own individual needs & opinions.
@Bill Shooter of Bul Gold Supporter
I discovered one NUC before Intel NUC’s began making bigger headlines which was designed to run fanless. That or it was the bare anodized black aluminium case with a huge heatsink and they recommended parts, I forget which. I think the GPU card was a Palit fanless card. This really appealed as I hate noise. Any noise. It cost too much and I didn’t have the money at the time hence a laptop. I can’t tell you how much my laptop fan is winding me up right now.
The RPi4 with 8GB of RAM might be usable.
I tried running a Rpi3 as a desktop (Fedora + Gnome3) at work for about a week, and the RAM was the limiting factor, which has been the case with a lot of my desktop experiments.
@Bill Shooter of Bul
NUCs do need better fans and cooling. That little blower on the regular NUCs is undersized, and it will get wound up when the proc is working hard.
Flatland_Spider,
I just pictured a NUC on the side of a huge 90’s CRT monitor. That would catch me off guard and give me a good chuckle. Throw in an IBM PS/2 keyboard for good measure š
That would be pretty funny. š I’m thinking of a 24″ Trinitron.
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-KV-24FS120-24-Inch-Trinitron-WEGA/dp/B00021XQIA
Flatland_Spider,
Now that I think about it, why bother with a NUC when Thom’s already got a perfectly good sunfire server? Just add a 24″ trinitron, PS/2 keyboard, an apple puck mouse, and Thom will be all set for his next big power point presentation. That would be too funny, haha.
I’m not sure I understand most people’s use cases to say if they make sense or not, but the cloud is pretty cheap for raw, when you need it horse power. All of that ram and cpu I used to need, not so needed anymore. Thin light and reasonably powered laptops are all I need now. Really waiting on a non Mac to be as powerful as the new ARM macs. That would be perfect for my needs.
The last desktop machine I used dates back in 2001 (with winXP beeing available). And honestly, I never missed it.
But I won’t spent any money anymore on a FHD notebook.
He Thom, having seen how far you’ve went to make Linux work for you (providing a valuable hints for non-programmer types that would like to jump in) I admit I’m deeply ashamed for having called you a windows fanboy back in the day.Egenia couldn’t have made a better choice. Mea culpa, man,
Thom get accused of being a fanboy for everything. Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD etc etc. It’s mainly because he’s actually quite objective and reviews everything based on it’s own merits. I’d like to say he’s unbiased, but he’s not, as he’s an absolute unashamed raving fanboy of BeOS and PalmOS, and openly admits it himself.
For work with frequent business travel there is still no alternative to laptops. However, at home I found it far more convenient and comfortable to use a desktop computer + tablet combo.
Nothing beats a TV or a tablet when consuming media whilst laying on a sofa. For creative work, even back when I used laptops, I would connect them to a 24″+ screen or two, good keyboard, mouse, wired network, sit on a good office chair, at a full size desk in a relatively isolated room. It is not about finding a bit of space on a coffee table to put my laptop on, it is about finding space for me to work comfortably and I am a 70kg bag of meat and bones.
Add to it performance (there is something about IO or thermal limits that cripples the performance of small factor computers exactly when you when you need it the most) and extensibility (I have collected a nice stack of laptops, which are still usable as a back-up but are too weak for daily usage) and I’m very happy I have switched back to desktops a couple of years ago.