Received 31st August 2022
Updated 15th September
Received my DIY 1240p after 3 monthes of wait
. using ubuntu mate 22
Slaped in the Samsung 980 and everything worked.
I had to unactivate secure boot to be able to boot kernel 5.18 (or 5.19)
Impressions compared to my plastic thinkpad edge 590:
CONS :
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The screen reflectivity is VERY bad : it is very mirror like (not matte), especially if you use low backlite setting like I do. Inevitabely you need to increase the back light level to compensate even in a dark environement if you have a light behind. I need also to orientat the screen to not see my self sometimes. I am definitely not a lover of those mirror screens. I cannot get use to it spending all the time moving the screen to see something. A review comparing it to a macbook show it is even poorer quality than mac

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WIFI : needs improvement in stability.
Had issues on a sketchy wifi at coworking and ended up using my phone s tethering … another guy next to me on a Macbook had no issue.
Another day I couldn t view a video on the internet for 30 min and had to reset the computer for it to resume.
The Wifi is even worth than on my E590 and way worse than a Macbook. I hope this comes from the linux kernel and not the hardware itself. -
Brightness buttons don t work OOB
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CTRL + tarckpad 2 fingers slide up or down doesn t activate the zoom in chrome
PROS :
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“Feels premium” like a mac or Thinkpad T
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Stability : after using it 2 weeks it feels as good as the old thinkpad E590 under linux. It solide and Its my daily driver for work, I don t feel like my laptop will fail on me in the middle of a meeting with 10 persons ! Only issue arround for me is kernel 5.18 needing a patch for OBS studio (v4l2loopback/0.12.5).
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13,5" with 3:2 : I was afraid it was too small coming from a 15"; after a day I can say it is (after scaling the screen) very usable as the height is the same as on 15".
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The hinge works perfect , no wobble at all.
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The frame itself is very sturdy feeiling; expect the screen that could be a little more compared to my E590
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Keyboard feeling as good as thinkpad. I was afraid of the up down arrows, but it workes perfectely
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Trackpad is better than E590
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Fan cannot be heard on basic web surfing, on gaming it higher but acceptable (deactivated turboboost and ecores)
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HIDPI on ubuntu mate is wether 100% = too small OR 200% = way too big => solution hidpi X2 + xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --scale 1.4x1.4
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Sound much better than on thinkpad edge 590. But not as powerfull as a friends macbook pro 15" 2018. This is a game changer since I can now really listen to music without starting my sound box. I can watch films without head sets !
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can do fn lock to change behaviour of top row keys
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Powerfull and snappy beast with many cores. But I ended up deactivating most of the Ecores since it is not yet optimized to be usefull in the linux kernel. Why would you need efficient cores to consum more power ? (loosing 1Hour work with 1éth gen)
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The module thing is actually more interesting than I though: if you have your énd screen on the right, place the HDMI on the right !
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Played for 2 hours the game metal gear solide V in 1280X800 it is more than 30FPS in medium. The fan kick s in at a reasonable volume but cannot keep the laptop on my lap, it s hot

CPU with 8 Ecore deactivated from BIOS, is arround 30% , still lot of room there
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Battery drain on suspend is comparable to E590 no complain (like 11th gen had).
Battery unplugged is better than my old computer something like 5-6 hours. Would have been nicer to have a 9 hours to be able to do a full day work
1 hour video = 15%. So 6hours video playback.
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SSD samsung 980 1TO (was 1600 Mo/s on 2018 E590) the spec of the SSD are 3500 mo /s which is reached here.
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Brightness keys don t work OOB but can be fixed. I note that I use brightness a lot because it is mirror like screen, so it needs to be much brighter to not see myself in a mirror : [SOLVED-GUIDE] 12th gen not sending XF86MonBrightnessUp / Down - #28 by Iann_C
Ready to work :
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Wifi with good connexion to the router + fibre:
Encoding 2 VP9 videos at the same time doesn t sloww donw the computer that much, it is still quite responsive even at 100% on the Pcores only








