My new “penguin ready” laptop: TUXEDO-Book-BC1507

Here I am, writing all this from my new TUXEDO-Book-BC1507. On today’s article I’ll provide a brief impression of the new computer and tell you about the purchasing experience.

TUXEDO Computers is a German company that builds Linux ready laptops. In fact, if you want that thing called windoze or something like that (I don’t remember) you need to pay more. If you’re fine with an English or German keyboard, it’s possible to ask for a penguin on the META key!

But I wanted a Spanish keyboard so… the little window. Oh well.

Buying the computer was incredible easy. TUXEDO offers many payment methods: not only credit card, but also paypal or even a bank transfer. In fact, I payed with a SEPA transfer (if you live in Europe, you know what I’m talking about). You just fill the form on the web page, they send to you the bank coordinates and five working days after the payment is effective, you get the package directly to your door. Every laptop is mounted on demand!

Just one thing: the email confirming that everything was moving on was in German… a small ops! moment, I think.

The design is really nice and it feels solid. Even if the chassis is not on aluminum it keeps cool. The fan is really quiet and the air flow goes to the back part, not to the sides (or even the bottom) as in many laptops. The battery provides several ours of autonomy. There is an option in the bios called FlexiCharger that, when enabled, stops charging the battery after a certain percentage is reached: in this way it’s not needed to remove the battery when you need to work for a long time while “plugged in.” Finally, every component in the laptop (memory, disk) can be easily accessed so the computer can be updated/repaired without problems.

The keyboard is really comfortable and surprisingly quiet. Even the touchpad keys (yes, it have real keys in the touchpad!) are quiet. Also, the keyboard is back-lighted and the light intensity can be easily regulated. Some light “leak” from the borders of the key, though, it not only goes through the symbols on them, but that’s a minor point and with a low intensity it even looks cool.

Only issue I had? They say they send a preinstalled system, but in reality they put in a “net-install” and that was a problem for me: for the one part it came with the beta of Leap 15.1 instead of the final version, and for the other part there was a huge problem in my zone with the internet provider the same day the computer arrived, so no network to end the installation!

But no problem at all: I also got an external DVD writer (this model does not have an internal one) so I “burned” the installer for openSUSE Leap 15.1 in a DVD-RW from the older computer, started the new one with the same driver attached to the usb port and the system was perfectly installed and running when the internet  was back.

This model accept up to two disks, one SSD and the other a traditional one. Because I was already over budget I decided to pick only a traditional 1 T disk and get more RAM instead (16 GB). The processor is an 8th generation i5 with four cores. Back lighted Spanish keyboard, screen of 1920×1080 and 96dpi… a great system. For now I’m very happy and everything works perfectly.

Anyway, who would have said 10 years ago that we would now have companies like TUXEDO or Slimbook, offering products so well made and penguin ready!