A Linux gaming Laptop isn't as crazy as it sounds: Slimbook Hero review
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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
Sponsor: Start securing your CentOS 7 fleet now
02:06 Slimbook Hero
03:32 Design & Build Quality
04:45 Specs and options
07:02 Performance & Gaming
09:25 Display
10:06 Keyboard & Mouse
11:20 Software Experience
12:36 Linux gaming laptop?
14:10 Support the channel
#Laptop #Gaming #Linux
It’s a 15 inch device, with a 1440p display that refreshes at 165 hertz, with an aluminium chassis, a 13th gen Intel i7 CPU, an RTX 4060 GPU, as much RAM as you could cram into a laptop, and very solid I/O.
So, this thing is chunky: it’s not meant to be an ultrabook, it weighs 2.1 kilos, or 4.6 pounds, and it’s pretty damn sturdy. Not much give or flex to this chassis, thanks to the aluminium.
The hinge is really solid as well, with minimal wobble when typing. It’s a 16:9 form factor. Of course you can open the laptop, and access the 2 M.2 slots for SSDs, the 2 DDR5 RAM slots, and the battery, which is 62 Wh. You can also buy spare parts from Slimbook, including the bezel cover, touchpad, lid, battery, keyboard palm rest, display, and more.
Now, in terms of specs, this laptop is well equipped, with a core i7 13620H, and an Nvidia RTX 4060, with 8 gigs of VRAM.
You can spec the rest up to your liking, with up to 64 gigs of DDR 5 RAM, at 5200 Mhz, and up to 4TB of PCIE4 storage.
You can also choose to dispose with the gamer branding and use a more unified black keyboard instead of having the white accents on the WASD keys, and you can pick any keyboard language you want.
As per I/O, on the left, you get a kensington lock, a USB 2.0 port, probably for a mouse, a mic jack, and a headphone jack. On the back, you have a mindisplay port, USB C 3.2 gen 2 with dusplayport support, HDMI 2.1, a gigabit ethernet port and the barrel charger, since charging this thing over USB would be a challenge. And on the right, there’s an SD card reader, and 2 type A USB 3.2 ports.
On top of all that, you get Bluetooth 5.2, Wifi 6, a basic webcam and onboard mic that won’t blow your socks off, dual speakers that are pretty decent, and a backlit keyboard with RGB, because, gamer.
In terms of benchmarks, the CPU get a score of 2733 in single core and 11625 in multi core on Geekbench 6.
https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/3787232
Battery life is decent, with about 7h of generic office work with wifi on, 50% brightness, and using the silent mode.
In Horizon Zero Dawn, at the native 1440p resolution, without any upscaling, and at the ultra preset, the Slimbook Hero managed a super smooth 60 FPS.
For Shadow of the Tomb Raider, also at 1440p without upscaling, and the ultra preset, I got 99 FPS on average, sometimes going down to about 80, or up to 120.
The display is really solid, it covers 100% of SRGB, it has a refresh rate up to 165hz, and it’s 1440p.
The keyboard is solid enough. The keys are very stable, and they have good travel. They’re quite clicky, and the sound is pleasant, and they bounce back super fast, it’s very nice to type on.
The touchpad is ok. It’s smooth enough, and precise, although it’s very off center, which I find annoying in day to day use.
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Design a gaming laptop for linux with intel+nvidia it's the dumbest thing ever seen, because all gaming support today available on linux is basically developed by Valve with only amd+amd design reference in mind.
Of course now nvidia drivers are reasonably free of issues, but of course being stuck on X11 is currently a too huge limitation for any kind of use except gaming.
And a gaming laptop is good for gaming but obviously is not meant to be used only for gaming, otherwise there are plenty of better solitions out there other than laptop.
On amd+amd design it would have been a really interesting product, a gaming laptop officially linux supported, but with this hardware, well, there are so many other options.
PS: I don't know if it's the footage but the screen appears to be VERY low on quality. For the price (i configured one to try) it's reasonable to expect something better.
thank you for the review, although it is a paid review, i strongly believe it's very it is reallly necesary to have differenet options besides the main brands.
40 Hz is too low for any use case? Have you never watched a movie? Used a spreadsheet? A terminal? 🤷♂️
SteamDeck means that soon Linux wont be just an after thought anymore.
I hope to see more games native to Linux…
Then Windows will be released as a Linux distro, then MacOS will be also just another distro… then the world?!
But I'll settle for games for now.
I'm still running W10 on my main machine because I'm unlucky on some very specific stuff 😭
I need Adobe Acrobat for some specific pdf forms and the few games that I play have anti cheat that are not supported on Linux and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I really want to use Linux on the daily, and seeing the Deck and those laptop gives me more hope than ever. I just have to be patient, or set up a better dualboot situation
Maybe when it is time to upgrade my laptop and desktop I'll consider a linux tailored laptop or framework and go back to gaming on consol, who knows.
Still, very hopeful since performance is achieved on those machines
nvidia no thanks
If you told me "Gaming laptop" followed by "Linux", my answer would be "Tempting, if I needed one."
Nothing weird about using the arrow keys for gaming. It all depends on the genre of game. You use WASD for FPS games and arrows for platformers. IF the developers haven't gotten sucked into a "WASD is God" mentality. So many platformers have been ruined by developers making them use WASD instead of the arrows. It makes your left hand do all the work, whereas with the arrows to move, it's more balanced. Always make movement and jumping controlled by different hands!
Why did the benchmark show Windows 10 as the OS?
hey fyi you never gave out the link for this week of the member's only podcast
I really wish the linux community would get over their hate boner for Ubuntu. There's a reason why everyone who wants their customers to actually like their experience typically just ships ubuntu or a flavor of it.
It would be cool to compare this against Tuxedo's and System76's ones, since they also focus on Linux Laptops
Dang where was this when I was buying my laptop 3 years ago?! I'm pretty happy with what I've bought, but, although this is a little less powerful, it's SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, and it has Linux-supported hardware (mine took a little tweaking to get working effectively). Only thing is it needs a 17"+ display. It's a gaming laptop after all. You want as big a screen as possible when gaming on the go.
NVIDIA prime (dual gpu, which most laptops including this one have) support is incredibly poor on most distros, no matter if on x11 or on Wayland. They offer many distros to ship the device with on which setting it up would be a nightmare, unless im mistaken or they ship the laptop preconfigured with drivers.
I wish at least one of these companies would start producing them in different colors.
As a AMD Radeon User i game entirely on Wayland (Plasma KDE) that may be bad with Nvidia, but i still wondered about the broad statement like noone anyway would game with wayland nowadays.
For me wayland was better for gaming since i used it continuesly (a few yerars ago). Yes before that switching to it plasma wayland had too many bugs for me, but now it is better than X11 for me.
Me when I've been running Mint on a gaming laptop (Acer Nitro) for months
idk i can't justify buying a brand new laptop anymore. you can find so many good secondhand ones out there for a good price its hard to justify. Plus its helps stops waste.
I like that the user can choose to omit the logo! That's a brilliant feature which should be available on all laptops.
Regardless, if it's not as easily repairable and doesn't have as mucb USB-C as a framework, I have little use for it. After purchasing a Fairphone 4 and Fairbuds XL, I don't want to get anything different.
Now that starfield runs on my Manjaro PC I have no need to boot windows
Steam on Linux works great
How's Nobara and Cachy performance?
Being stuck to use X11 because of the nvidia GPU is a no go for me. I moved away from nvidia on my desktop for this reason already and because my distro (Fedora) is also moving to Wayland.
Even if the Green GPU Vendor starts to make perfect drivers for Linux, I do not want to touch it because of what it represents as an entity. I'm eyeing that all-AMD Tuxedo jewel once the time comes for my current laptop to be replaced.
I did some gaming on my old work laptop running Ubuntu. Not strange at all, just a bit limited frame rate with an underpowered GPU. If it runs Elite Dangerous, I'm happy.
Bah, this keyboard. Like Tuxedo/Schenker/XMG. Good feel,, but why this horribly bad Layout without spaces … like Lenovo or Apple.
btw: I miss the dancing crab at the speaker comparison. 🙂
The LTT copycat stuff with the sponsor segways is extremely cringe.
I just bought an Asus TUF15 for my fedora… i does'nt feel idiot.
I want one!
Great to see Linux entering the gaming laptop market. Personally I use a rog zephyrus g14 2022 laptop with fedora silverblue, and everything works like a charm with the amd gpu. I would recommend the zephyrus for anyone, who wants to have a well working gaming laptop with linux.
Linux simply Rocks, I use RichARCH btw. With it I was able to get Arch Linux up and running simply and quickly with kickstart like automation features.
Nvididouche?
Nvidinever.
I do all of my gaming on linux these days, but most of it is on deck because I don't want to use my Tuxedo laptop after I used it all day for work. And my pop os tower is in California but I go to school in Hawaii
"Is a Linux gaming laptop possible"
Me with an old Dell workstation with Nvidia Quadro playing Monster Hunter Rise at 1080p 60fps on Linux Mint:
"Idk maybe"