04-17-2020, 07:50 PM
I've been using my PBP regularly since January. It's a great hobby machine. Structurally, everything has held up well. No cracks or breaks in the casing. The whole thing travels well in a backpack, it's so light weight. No keyboard issues and the screen is probably my favorite feature. So much real estate.
A few things worth noting. The power charger that came with the machine never worked, but powering and charging through USB-C has been flawless. I experienced a noticeable performance increase across the board when switching from the default Linux install to Manjaro. I was really surprised at the difference. I've been using the ARM port of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and the difference was night and day. On the default install there was a noticeable lag in typing before characters would appear on the screen. It was just about unusable. That type of lag was common across a lot of apps before switching to Manjaro.
The only real issue I've had with the PBP is the trackpad. It's an incredibly frustrating experience. Trying to drag cells in spreadsheets and resize windows takes 3-4 times as long as any other pointing device. It's quite painful and slows my work down tremendously. I'd be curious how modular that component is. I'd love to get something else in there. Even a simple old school pad that only does x and y position, no gestures, would be better.
Other than the trackpad, I really like this machine. It's great for general web use and light coding. I've been keeping an eye on the Gentoo thread and looking forward to getting that going once the install process is a little more manageable.
A few things worth noting. The power charger that came with the machine never worked, but powering and charging through USB-C has been flawless. I experienced a noticeable performance increase across the board when switching from the default Linux install to Manjaro. I was really surprised at the difference. I've been using the ARM port of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and the difference was night and day. On the default install there was a noticeable lag in typing before characters would appear on the screen. It was just about unusable. That type of lag was common across a lot of apps before switching to Manjaro.
The only real issue I've had with the PBP is the trackpad. It's an incredibly frustrating experience. Trying to drag cells in spreadsheets and resize windows takes 3-4 times as long as any other pointing device. It's quite painful and slows my work down tremendously. I'd be curious how modular that component is. I'd love to get something else in there. Even a simple old school pad that only does x and y position, no gestures, would be better.
Other than the trackpad, I really like this machine. It's great for general web use and light coding. I've been keeping an eye on the Gentoo thread and looking forward to getting that going once the install process is a little more manageable.
