Lemur Pro or Starbook Mk VI?

Still not excited enough to get a new daily driver yet

It’s that time of the year again when I usually purchase my new daily driver yet, I am still patiently holding back and just keeping myself up-to-date on the latest offerings for a Linux catered solution that makes me excited enough to just say screw it and pull the trigger. However, even with the latest major refreshes, I am still not feeling that excitement yet. All I can say for now is that it’s most likely either a Lemur Pro or a Starbook but it’s looking more and more like it will be a revision farther into the future instead of now.

Why Lemur Pro and Starbook?

A lot can be said about these two ultra portable laptops to make this post last forever but to summarize it shortly instead, I would say that there’s just much to be said about companies that focus resources on the eco-system deriving the firmware, OS, and software that I use for my daily driver. On top of that, as much as people complain about the price, at the end of the day, they actually still fall right under the “bang for the buck” category given how much you pay versus what you get. Sure, it’s not an ASUS when it comes to pricing, but beyond that, can you get a comparable Lenovo X1 Carbon for cheaper? How many ultrabooks out there can do 40–64GB of ram? Furthermore, can you get thoughtful and relevant support from the manufacturer for running Linux on the hardware if it wasn’t System76 or Starlabs?

So what’s the problem?

First of all, I love love LOVE the fact that the Starbook will ship an AMD Ryzen 7 build with up to 64GB of RAM soon but upon looking further into it, it’s a Ryzen 7 5800u while the Intel option being an i7 1260p. That’s not quite apples and oranges as the AMD option is one generation older than the Intel one. But let’s say we forget about that for a minute. Let’s say I am ok with a Ryzen 5800u cause it’s already enough for what I do and I end up paying less for the laptop by choosing it. So I go and configure it and find out that it doesn’t have PCIe gen4 options for storage. Ughhh… Then let’s pony up the extra US$200 and go for the Intel option instead since it has the gen4 PCIe storage options right? I then happily go to choose a 2TB storage option because the…