[lp-ca-on] Libreboot x200 vs. ThinkPenguin (was: Re: FSOSS 2015 Accepting Presentation Proposals)

[Sergio Durigan Junior]

On Tuesday, July 14 2015, Stephen Paul Weber wrote:

>>I'm looking into this too, actually. With a recent hard drive failure, I'm
>>starting to look at at the Gluglug LibreBoot X200... and maybe with another
>>stable primary laptop, sending my current ThinkPad X60 in for a Gluglug
>>LibreBoot install...
>
> I have a Gluglug X60 (though I've been using my Novena more recently) -- 
> very nice machine.  The X200 looks even better.  Definitely worth it.

Hey,

As I mentioned before, I have been saving some money to buy my next
personal notebook, and I can't really decide which one to get.  Since
we've mentioned this topic here I felt like sending this message and
asking for opinions :-).

LibreBoot x200 seems like a decent machine that was carefully designed
to contain as much Free Software as possible nowadays.  I understand
that it is unfortunately impossible to be 100% Free; when we consider
microcode and read-only firmwares we're almost always stepping in
proprietary land.  However, it is truly awesome to think that the
Gluglug guys went as far as porting libreboot (the software) to X60, and
then to the x200; it's a real piece of Free Software love :-).  Of
course, I am also taking into consideration the fact that the machines
are refurbished, which is something that *may* be more problematic
(OTOH, you're helping to reduce tech garbage out there by "recycling").

ThinkPenguin's Snares Penguin notebook is really awesome, too.  It does
come with a proprietary BIOS, but they've removed some pieces of Intel
hardware that were really problematic in terms of freedom (ISTR that
Gluglug also did that).  I've read they are also quite involved with the
efforts of liberating more devices.

The specs of the ThinkPenguin notebook are really great:

- Intel Core i7-4700MQ Processor (2.4GHz, 3.40 GHz turbo)

- 16 GB DDR3

- 500 GB SSD

and the price is not so bad:

1,218.00 USD

although it's much more expensive than the x200.

So I've been thinking...  Which one do you prefer?

Cheers,

-- 
Sergio
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