- This is no ordinary laptop.
At least I don't think it is.
Certainly not the ordinary laptop
that you would find from the likes of HP.
Now it's just here in this nondescript FedEx box
but I can assure you that I've been looking forward
to actually covering this for well over a month now.
I've seen so much buzz around,
like on social media about this thing.
I haven't watched any reviews
or really looked up any information on it
cause I wanted to keep this a little bit fresh
but I've seen people just excited for it.
And so am I.
Ah, yeah.
If you've ever seen anything by System 76,
you will immediately recognize this.
This is a Launch keyboard, actually.
It's along with a HP mouse.
The HP 935 Creator Wireless Mouse.
Okay, I've never used one of these.
I'm not sure if it's any good
but I do know the launch is pretty good.
This is a configurable keyboard,
you can configure it from basically the key switches,
the key caps and the firmware.
Just completely 100% configurable.
It comes with, I think QMK by default,
I'm not a hundred percent sure on that
off the top of my head, but I think it's QMK compatible.
I know this is what I'm supposed to be looking at
but like it came with all this other stuff.
So let's get the HP mouse outta here.
The box isn't super heavy,
so I'm not sure if that's an indicator
of quality in lightness
or an indicator of lack of quality in lightness.
Oh it actually, it feels okay in the hand.
It's actually sculpted really well.
It feels a little bit like an MX MASTER.
This is the HP Dev One.
Oh yeah.
So this is actually really nice packaging.
It kind of sort of reminds me of,
no it doesn't remind me of Apple,
it reminds me of like Microsoft Surface or something.
This is very much more HP's speed.
Power cord.
Where's the adapter, in here?
Yeah, there we go.
That's about all you get in there.
Before I toss this aside, let's see what they have in here.
A super simple setup.
You plug it in, you power it on, you connect to network,
that's it you're done.
And here's the laptop itself.
That is really nice looking.
It's not like super duper thin
and I don't think they're going for that either.
It's got like a kind of a wedge shape.
And basically that means that
you're getting a tilt on the desk.
So it's easier for you to use for typing,
if you prefer having a raised typing surface.
The camera is right there,
there are two holes for what I believe are microphones.
You have a track point.
We've got a nipple, right there.
It feels really good, actually.
This one is kind of like indented,
so your finger kind of sits in it
and it makes it actually a lot easier
to push in any direction.
You have dedicated buttons for the touch pad
and the touch pad itself still clicks, so you can do both.
This is kind of a problem.
If you were to use this for navigating,
I'm not sure how much I like that.
Actually no, it's kind of okay.
Cause I can use my middle finger to do up and down
and my other fingers next to it to use side by side.
So maybe I could get used to that.
Now the left side for IO,
we have a security lock, Kensington lock connector.
We got two USB, I believe these are three point exports.
Yeah, that's a combo headphone
and microphone Jack for headsets.
Then on the other side, we've got barrel jack for power
which is eh, fine.
Full size HDMI and two USB type C ports.
Now I don't think these are Thunderbolt,
they don't have a Thunderbolt connection label next to them.
Both of these type C's are 10 gig
with power delivery and display port.
For developers Thunderbolt isn't super useful.
Overall, it's a very solid feeling laptop.
It's got a nice finish to it and everything is,
I would say pretty spot on for what you would want.
So let's power it on and get into it.
But first I'm gonna talk to you about our sponsor Linode.
Thanks to Linode for sponsoring this video.
Linode is a cloud computing service
that's affordable and easy to use.
Check out their large marketplace of one click apps
to quickly deploy servers for games
like Counterstrike or Terreria
or host your own website with easy
WordPress and Drupal integrations.
All plans are bundled and have monthly caps,
so there are no hidden fees.
Best of all Linode has worldwide data centers
and 24/7 human support.
With all this it's easy to see why Linode
is the top rated infrastructure as a service provider on G2.
Create a free account today
and get a hundred dollars 60 day credit
at linode.com/short circuit.
Oh the power is on the right hand side.
That's a little strange,
but honestly that's not that big a deal
because it's a right angle connector.
So you're not likely to ever run into it.
Having the type C ports and HDMI port
especially here is a little strange.
HP, oh, that looks like a nice display.
But here we are in POP!_OS.
Yeah, this is an HP laptop with POP!_OS.
This is a System 76 and HP collaboration.
It's kind of weird when you think about it
because System 76 they have their own laptops,
like the Oryx Pro and the Lemur
and all the other ones that they have.
Why are they partnering with HP?
Well, one of the things that most Linux users will tell you
is a problem in the Linux world is that
you just can't find very many Linux computers
that have Linux on them outta the box.
In this case POP!_OS is an operating system
that is very widely recommended
and one that I'm pretty familiar with myself.
And I kind of really like.
Also I really like this screen.
Is it a touch screen?
It is not a touch screen.
Okay, fair enough I guess.
Touchscreen would probably be better
cause I know touchscreen is the thing you can do in Linux.
The Steam Deck has it
and it's actually kind of useful sometimes.
It's got kind of everything you want here
and that's really the charm of Linux in general
is that you can do what you want with it.
And ideally that's what you're going to be doing
with the HP Dev One as well.
Now, unlike an normal System 76 laptop,
I don't think that the firm ware on the machine itself
is fully open source.
The management engine is probably not disabled,
you probably don't have core boot,
you probably don't have
the ability to remap the keyboard here,
but that's what the Launch is for.
So that's kinda what you have the deal with
in terms of what you're not getting
from System 76 versus HP here.
All right, let's set this up
and I'll get screen recording going.
Full disc incription outta the box,
that's something that you get with POP!_OS.
They just automatically tell you,
"Hey, you should probably do this."
And they have the check mark enabled by default.
Very useful for laptops, especially.
If this were Linus, this would be blown up by now.
There's still time.
While it was booting up here,
I just realized there's a little sticker on here
that tells you how to operate the camera shutter.
So there's a little camera shutter here
that you can barely even see.
It's like part of the bezel around it
but there's a little gap in the bezel here
and you can slide this shutter over.
And when you do that,
you enable and disable the webcam by physically covering it.
Great.
We are set up, welcome to POP!_OS.
Ehh, let's just do a center doc here.
Date and time, I'll throw that to the right.
I like that.
And there we go.
They're not asking you
if you want to give them your advertising ID and stuff.
Like I don't need to evangelize Linux here
but this is just the experience of setting up this laptop.
And yeah, analytics.
Okay, so this is different.
Normally analytics are not a thing that System 76
or really anybody when you install Linux will ask you for
but they actually show you, here we go.
They tell you what data they're sending.
They're showing you how it's formatted here.
They're gonna get your screen height, width,
the type of port that it's in, okay?
The Linux kernel revision.
So basically hardware information about your computer,
as well as the software environment.
It doesn't look like it's super identifiable.
So it's not like, sending your username
and passwords and stuff to HP.
Like you can tell what exactly is being sent to them.
Which I understand that this level of granularity
is a little bit more than most people are willing to look at
but for a developer laptop
this is exactly what you want to show them.
Analytics can also be things like,
how often do you use certain features?
They can tell what features they should actually
continue to implement and iterate on
versus, you know just kind of fumbling around in the dark
and not really knowing.
There we go, we're in POP!_OS.
Let's go ahead and hit it with some crab rave.
Also the keyboard feels perfectly fine.
The track point I just realized, I haven't touched
but it also feels perfectly fine.
I feel like I have a pretty good degree of control.
It's not as fine control as the touch pad is,
but it's faster control.
And again, the keyboard seems fine.
The stabilization on the keys seems pretty spot on.
Yeah, I can push right on the corner there
and it just goes right down.
This whole thing is made of metal.
The only way that I can get it to flex really
is if I like really, really wrench on it like that,
like under normal circumstances,
you're not gonna get any flex.
(beeping)
Oh, that's an interesting sound effect.
I feel like it has some kind
of spatial effect tuning for the speakers
because I heard that from like way over here.
(upbeat music)
Spatially it sounds very pulled,
very wide I mean.
(upbeat music continues)
Okay, so the bass doesn't go super deep,
but it's also like,
I don't feel there's any distortion or anything like that.
Like it all sounds very smooth, which is good.
So, it feels very balanced, well tuned speakers
and there's no special software drivers
or anything like that going on here.
It's just straight up stock Linux.
Now that's not to say
that there may not be something in the firm ware doing this
or some other kind of tuning.
You can't really see how bright this is, but it is bright.
Yeah, like that is super bright.
Apparently it gets to a thousand nits.
It looks really good.
Ariels are not amazing, but I think that's a feature.
In this case, I think it's actually like a privacy screen.
cause like, if I show you this off to the side here
and then move it over.
As far as LCDs go that aren't like QDL led
or anything like that or squantum dot in general,
I feel like this is pretty good.
Like a lot of people are gonna be looking
at stuff like this, you know, the terminal.
Which doesn't really matter what that looks like.
A compiler or something on one side,
you'd like your commands into and hit.
But yeah, like that's the kind of thing
that you would normally be looking at
is just mostly walls of text.
And for this like the extra brightness
definitely helps with that.
And as far as accuracy goes too,
like it seems like the accuracy is pretty good.
But yeah we could add a profile if you wanted to
generally it seems like it's pretty good.
Yeah, the colors pop, it looks bright.
You're not gonna be doing a whole lot
of color work on this anyway.
But if you do, then you can use ICC profiles
from like a colorimeter or what have you
to automatically adjust all that.
Right off the bat,
it looks like it's a pretty decent looking webcam
in terms of sharpness.
It might be a little bit blown out with this lighting.
Yeah, it could be this lighting.
Yeah, it's definitely the lighting.
If I cover my face, get me in some shade,
it's less blown out.
Looks like the details are actually pretty good.
I don't know what the microphones sound like,
so you guys are hearing this for the first time.
But overall, like this is actually a really good webcam
and I can say goodbye, just like this.
Woo.
Yeah, that-
When you uncover the webcam, after it being in darkness,
it's whoa.
Let's turn it off and take it apart.
I wanna see what I can upgrade in here.
Where are me torques at?
There they are.
Perfect.
These are captive.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's awesome.
You don't even have to worry about
which of these screws goes where.
Nope just comes off.
Okay, nice.
We've got a rather interesting.
Oh wow.
This is actually really well laid out.
We've got a nice big battery here
which tells us exactly where those screws go,
that hold it in.
We've got the wireless module here, which is a-
they got a HP sticker on it, so I don't know.
Can I pull this up?
Yeah, I can, there we go.
Nice.
We have two Sodimm slots and they're both occupied.
We've got 16 gigs of Ram here.
The CPU is a Ryzen Pro 5850U,
that's an eight core 16 thread processor
with a 4.4 gigahertz max boost.
And we have a one terabyte NVMe module,
which I presume is under here.
These shields have handy little pull tabs
that I can just pull it up like that.
Check that out.
And there it is, it's a full size regular NVMe port.
Oh, I love it.
It's so good.
And then the coolers right here,
you can probably just pull this off
after getting these screws out.
Yeah, this is very serviceable.
These ports on the side are on their own
PCBs it looks like.
Even the power jack is on its own, it's not on a PCB.
It's actually there with a wire coming off of it.
Thank you.
So often those power jacks come off the board.
That's why USB type C charging has kind of been a godsend
but if you're gonna do a barrel jack, do it like this.
Have it anchored into the chassis
and then have a wire coming off of it.
That way you can't fatigue it out of place.
Oh, this is good.
This speaks to me.
I guess the only thing that would make it better
is if HP were to release the specs.
Like the board specs,
which unfortunately, as we know from many, many vendors
is actually difficult to do
because of all the, the legalese with that.
But I really like this.
I really like the fact
they didn't go thin for the sake of being thin.
They have everything modular
they have, in my opinion a good choice of operating system.
1100 US dollars?
Oh wow, could this be my next laptop?
Okay, so it probably doesn't come with the launch keyboard
which is like $200 or so on its own.
For $1,100, like what Apple's selling for $1,100
and yeah it's thinner and yeah, it's got M2 or whatever.
Man, this is so much more versatile in my opinion.
It's almost not even a contest.
I've got a Linux desktop at home
and I feel like this would what pair really nice with it.
The Steam Deck is already pairing very nicely
with my Linux desktop.
So I don't know.
Oh, I forgot to put this back in, huh?
Well, all this is in here for is for RF shielding.
It's not actually contacting anything.
There aren't any heat pads or anything like that.
It's just RF shielding,
so I can leave it out if I wanted to.
It's just for FCC compliance.
And this is for you for having come here
and watched this entire episode of Short Circuit.
Thank you for watching
and make sure you watch other Short Circuits.
There's previous System 76 laptops,
there's the Apple MacBook Air
that I just compared this to because it's similar in price
although this is much chunkier.
And yeah, there's plenty of other stuff.
So make sure you get subscribed and thanks for watching.