Updated: February 21, 2023
My laptop fleet is quiet old. Excluding the other Slimbook in my possession, which I use primarily for work, the youngest laptop dates back to 2015. The machines are anywhere between fourteen and just eight years old, and most have fairly modest specs for today's standards. The only truly capable machine is the Y50-70 rig, which still pulls its weight, but the mechanical disk is slow, and nine years is a respectable time to look for a replacement.
And so I decided to get myself a new laptop - a Slimbook Titan no less. Why? Well, first I wanted a powerful mobile system that I can use for all sorts of purposes, including gaming. After all, that's what the Y50-70 did for a fair share of its life span. Second, I wanted a Linux-only machine so I can fully and totally prepare for the inevitable move away from Windows sometime in 2025 or so. I already did a lot of preliminary work in this regard, and even just recently turned the previously dual-boot Y50-70 into a Linux-only system. Highly encouraged by that experience, including the hybrid graphics support, I decided, yes, I want a new machine, a powerful machine, with solid graphics, and it's going to be Linux only, and I'm going to tweak it into a total productivity host equivalent to what I get with Windows. Slimbook Titan, it is.
For now, a stock image from the Slimbook website, until the laptop lands in my hands, that is.
Let's talk a bit more about the Titan
I am mightily pleased with my Slimbook Pro2. It's a great machine, but more than that, the Slimbook folks have always been very attentive in their support, which is a sign of good customer care. Over the last couple of years, I wanted some additional peripherals and whatnot for the laptop, and every experience was good.
Once I logged in to grab the hefty Titan, I noticed another pleasant surprise - 20% off for a loyal, returning customer! That's awesome. I had not expected that, and I'm more than grateful for the massive discount. Then after the checkout, the Slimbook team contacted me, to ask me about keyboard choices. Normally, I prefer a US ANSI layout wherever possible, but I'll settle for the UK ISO one if I have to. On their site, the Slimbook only offer the UK layout, but even so, they went an extra step, and they were still able to find a US ISO layout for me. Brilliant. No complaints.
So what is the machine spec I went for? Well, I decided to go for 32 GB of RAM, and chose two 1TB Samsung NVMe drives. Along with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and the Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics card, this should make for a solid punch, and for quite a few years to come. My most important goal is to make the system usable for everyday stuff (easy), and then install as many games as I can, use the Steam Proton layer, and slowly wean myself off Windows, or at least get into a state where Linux can provide 98% of my daily needs, and I only ever rarely need to use Windows for the leftovers.
Conclusion
There we go. I got myself a nice gift. I'm quite confident everything will work well, as the Slimbook team does thorough hardware compatibility checks, so the drivers support should be top notch for the selected components. If my Pro2 experience is an indicator, it ought to be great.
I will write more in the follow-up articles, of course, including the unboxing and first setup, the choice of the operating system, the slow and steady configuration to my needs, the import of user data and profiles, encryption, gaming setup, and then some. Will I be able to figure out Office through WINE or such? Maybe. That's another nice little challenge. Some things may not work yet, but there are three solid years until Windows 10 goes EOL, and even then, it will merely mean the end of mainstream patching. Hardly an issue. Still, I'd like to get into a superb place with Linux, and with this machine, I'll give it all I can. Stay tuned for the updates.
Cheers.