LyraNovaHeart
Gorts
Joined: 15 Apr 2025
Age: 27
Posts: 48
Location: Los Angeles, California
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 Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2026 5:42 am Post subject: 6 Months with a Boutique Laptop: What do I think now? |
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Heya~
Roughly 6 months ago, I got a laptop from what you would call a "boutique laptop":
Now, why specifically is it called that? Simple, it comes from a much smaller brand than say, Dell, HP, Asus, or whatever the fuck else there is, and I took that option, I'll explain in a bit.
What was I looking for?
Good question! I do have a LOT of laptops, but not all of them met the requirements quite well. I have my Legion Pro 7i for example,and it's by no means a crappy machine, it's great. Just a few problems though.... it overheats quite a lot due to its processor (i9-14900HX), barely lasts 2 hours on battery even with the dedicated GPU disabled, and its very heavy. While I am fine carrying that when I need such performance, 10lbs for a laptop every day does seem excessive...
I have other stuff like my Insprion 5720, that also has battery issues and has an aging processor, so do my other options, none of them fit the perfect mix.
That's when I went shopping, obviously, I needed something that fit... yet, where I looked, crap everywhere.... HP sells laptops at insane markups, Asus crams theirs with AI, Dell didn't want to offer the right processor, and Acer is just lol...
A friend of mine then told me to try looking for a magicbook... but then that stopped shipping to the US, fuck. So, we looked at some other options...
Eventually, we land on a small shop called "Juno Computers", and we looked around for a bit, and we landed on 2 initial options: Aurora 14in or Gemini 16in AMD, now, realistically, both would have worked, both are great, but why I went with the Gemini 16 AMD is for a few reasons
- AMD Ryzen 7 260 Processor, I wanted this because it's pretty damn good and efficient, a mix of power and efficiency
- AMD Radeon 780M iGPU, enough for more than just the basics, its able to play decent games in 720p/1080p with FSR
- 64GB RAM, if I was gonna carry something light, might as well add some good ram, right? It's intended to be a perfect mix, so I needed a good chunk of RAM
- 165Hz screen, it may not be the most color accurate or brightest screen in the road, but 60Hz feels god awful these days
Tech Specs (both fastfetch and on site)
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lyranovaheart@lyrajunogemini
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OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
Host: V5x0EU
Kernel: Linux 6.12.63+deb13-amd64
Uptime: 12 hours, 26 mins
Packages: 2488 (dpkg), 27 (flatpak)
Shell: bash 5.2.37
Display (BOE0B72): 1920x1200 @ 165 Hz in 16" [Built-in]
DE: GNOME 48.7
WM: Mutter (Wayland)
WM Theme: Adwaita
Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
Font: Cantarell (11pt) [GTK2/3/4]
Cursor: Adwaita (24px)
Terminal: GNOME Terminal 3.56.2
Terminal Font: Monospace (11pt)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 260 (16) @ 5.10 GHz
GPU: AMD Phoenix3 [Integrated]
Memory: 22.22 GiB / 60.64 GiB (37%)
Swap: 0 B / 24.02 GiB (0%)
Disk (/): 341.37 GiB / 913.24 GiB (37%) - ext4
Local IP (wlp4s0): 10.124.129.56/24
Battery (BAT): 98% [Charging, AC Connected]
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
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Now, not everything was completely good... the SSD was a bit crap, it was a Crucial P310 500GB before I replaced it, which is a god awful SSD with only 110TBW, and it did come with Ubuntu at first, which, is fine, Linux is what I wanted, but Ubuntu isn't great. I replaced that with Debian anyways.
Specs (Website)
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Processor
AMD 200 Series (Hawk Point) Zen 4
• Ryzen 5 240: 6 Cores / 12 Threads – 4.30 GHz (Turbo 5.0 GHz)
• Ryzen 7 260: 8 Cores / 16 Threads – 3.80 GHz (Turbo 5.1 GHz)
• TDP: 45W (Max. 54W)
Graphics
• Ryzen 5: AMD Radeon 760M (2600 MHz)
• Ryzen 7: AMD Radeon 780M (2700 MHz)
• Supports up to 3 active displays
Display
16" FHD+ (1920×1200) 16:10
• 165 Hz refresh rate
• sRGB color gamut
• Matte finish
Storage
2× M.2 2280 SSD slots
• Up to 4TB total capacity
Wireless
• Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210
• Bluetooth 5.3
Ports
• 1× HDMI (with HDCP)
• 1× USB 4.0 Gen 3 (Video Out / Power Delivery)
• 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (Power Delivery)
• 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (Powered)
• 1× USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
• 1× 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone/Microphone)
• 1× RJ-45 Ethernet
• 1× Micro SD Card Reader
• 1× Kensington Lock Slot
• Built-in Microphone
Webcam
720p HD
Keyboard
White backlit
Battery
80Wh Lithium-Ion
Charger
90W AC Adapter
Chassis
• Metal construction (bottom panel and display back)
• Resilient synthetic material (remaining parts)
Dimensions
14.10″ × 10.18″ × 0.71″ (358mm × 258.6mm × 18mm)
Weight
4.19 lbs (1.9 kg)
Operating System Options
• Debian Trixie (GNOME)
• Kubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Kubuntu 24.10
• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Ubuntu 24.10 |
6 Months in... how do I feel about it now?
Simple answer is, I love it, it's everything I mostly need. It's powerful when it's needed, efficient when it's not, and it actually lasts on battery too! 6-8 hours total on simple tasks, it runs Linux, runs VMs well, and it does mostly everything I would want to do when out, and it isn't obnoxiously loud so it doesnt disturb others.
Now, if there's anything I'd ask for?
1. A 5G/LTE Modem - this is subjective to many, as technically hotspot does exist, but hotspot is often limited, and I'd love to just be able to use 5G on it without the need to drain my phone's battery, and the antennas on laptops are often better anyways.
2. Decent Onboard Audio - the audio on here is... not great, you can bypass it via say an Apple Dongle, but it's not convenient at all.
3. More Ports - the port selection is rather limited at times, so more USB C/USB A ports would be helpful.
Overall though? I think it's a great laptop, I don't think I regret buying it and it serves me very well almost every day.
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I'm one day closer to being who I wanna be~ |
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