Because that’s how people buy them?

Home users want cheap garbage with fast graphics for gaming. Business users want consistent reliability at a moderate price. Creators want high res graphics and don’t care what they pay.

I've used a bunch of HPs over the years. Some of them ProBook, mostly Elitebook. Either way, the keyboards were always awful. If you want to be 100% sure each key press registers, you have to press surprisingly hard.

If you've always used Dell and Lenovo, this kind of thing sounds completely absurd. It's something that would never even occur to you. Why would you even think about whether the key presses register with 100% reliability? Of course they do. You press the button, a letter appears. That's all there's to it, right?

Wrong! HP thinks there should be an element of surprise if you type normally. Unless you hammer the keyboard like a wild animal, there's no way to get to 100%. Even if you get the fanciest model, the keyboard still has this HP trademark suckiness.

I have had exactly one HP laptop in my life, which luckily was a hand-me-down so I didn't spend any money on it, but it was enough to convince me to never get another HP product ever again.

20-odd years and the boycott is still going strong lol.

I agree. About 10 years ago I had a some unstable dependencies hit in the middle of a major crunch/product release at work. When it was vital I was productive, I was instead trouble shooting my laptop. I moved to mac the next day and was surprised how far the OS had come, and that I could run zsh, nvim etc. Not to mention since apple silicon its rare I need to take a charger with me anywhere.

I still have a linux thinkpad for personal use, and all my personal servers are linux. My heart is linux, but a lot will have to change to take me away from a macbook.

Hehe.. top notch screen.

I agree with everything you said, and I use a MacBook Pro for the same reasons. I made a similar comment but you have articulated the points much better.

I bought a current gen Framework 13 earlier this year and love it. Fedora 42 has been working great on it.

I would echo all the same points.

I've got a Framework 16 and love it.

Framework are nowhere near the scale of any of the large manufacturers, and they've had to spend a huge amount of time and money on R&D, so their laptops are probably always going to cost more. IMO it's worth the price though, given you can keep updating it over time.

I've been getting annoying amdgpu crashes every now an then. I've tried all the various BIOS and kernel params but so far nothing has worked. Next step is rolling back a kernel version, at least that's what I've gathered from all the threads about it. It's bothersome but not frequent enough to be a real pain.

(This is an amd framework 13 with fedora 42 / wayland)

Another vote here for framework 13. Love mine.

I've had mine about 4 months, minimal issues. I got a 7840U slightly on sale when the new AI 300 series came out.

I'm also running fedora 42, but it's Bluefin, based on silverblue. Everything works out of the box.

My biggest complaint is the sleep battery drain, iirc it's something like a few percent per hour, so I just get in the habit of turning it completely off if I'm not home with it plugged in. Otherwise it's dead when I need it, which sucks.

Also the fan can be a little loud and overzealous under barely moderate load, though I've found keeping it in power saving mode helps keep things cooler. Though I've been using it for note taking during some schooling this week, and it's been stone cold and silent, lasts all day on a single charge. So it definitely depends on your load. I appreciate having the power available when I need it, but wish it was better at keeping itself underclocked (or whatever it needs to do).

And finally the stock Wi-Fi 6 card in it gives some people problems with certain routers. Though I've only ever had problems with my parents starlink router 🤷‍♂️
That's a quick $20 upgrade though, to Wi-Fi 7, I just haven't needed to 🤷‍♂️

But still I'd buy another in a heartbeat.

Keyboard is great. Screen (2.8k) looks great to my eyes, though others say it has issues. No flex in the body. Touchpad is a little funky, but still great.

Plus when I want to upgrade the platform in a few years, or any component breaks before then, I can just fix it or upgrade it.

Highly recommend.

The worst customizable keyboard and wireless mouse will still be better than whatever the laptop has built in.

Unless you have a laptop with a good trackpad and keyboard, then you don't need to carry around a bunch of extra stuff.

Hmm I have Serval WS which quality is top notch.
The keyboard feels nice.
The screen is 4K 144Hz.
All of the elements are aluminium so there is no bending. (Except some parts like probably keycaps of the keyboard and so on).

Sorry to hear that you have this experience. However I think you can count on System76 because they give for their laptops lifetime support.

The Serval WS is also more than twice the price of my Pangolin... and I had a one year warranty, so I'm not sure what you mean with lifetime support. As for the specs (i.e. the screen etc.), yeah, they are great. But the case is very poorly designed on my pang12, and gets bent out of shape, which can cause mechanical failure in the hinge, quite frequently, despite the aluminum chassis. My complaint is just that it is far from rugged, which is problematic for me, as I travel a lot with it. But your mileage may vary.

PS: one more thing that really bothers me is the known problem with the touchepad on the pang12, which regularly fails. Mine also came with a faulty motherboard, which suggest bad quality control. Over all, these issues have caused me to lose faith in System76 hardware.

I understand.

Regrading warranty I meant lifetime support for problems related to your System76 laptop. The warranty for a hardware is gone I think but I guess when you describe your issues correctly and they won't resolve it maybe they will suggest you something friendly.

And I get your point with the case. Tbh looked like it.

Hmm do you have up-to-date firmware? I had similar issue resolved by it.

Also faulty motherboard sounds like manufacturer issue not yours.