System76 Gazelle (gaze18) Review: A Portable Linux Powerhouse
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CloseSystem76 sells desktops and laptops built specifically for Linux, and the Gazelle (gaze18) is one of the company's workstation laptops. It was recently updated with new hardware, and it might just be worth the asking price if you're in the market for a Linux PC.
The System76 Gazelle has been around for years, but the latest iteration ships with an Intel Core i9 processor, NVIDIA RTX 3050 graphics, up to 8TB of storage, up to 64GB of RAM, and a 15 or 17-inch 1080p display. That hardware is paired with an array of ports and connectivity options, plus the luxury of a fully supported Linux experience.
If you're looking for a powerful laptop built for Linux, the Gazelle might be for you, but there are some drawbacks to consider.
Design and Connectivity: An Absolute Unit
There's no getting around it: the Gazelle is a big laptop. The model with the 15.6-inch screen I was provided for review is 14.15 inches across (359.5 mm), 9.37 inches tall (238 mm), nearly an inch in depth (22.7 mm) when closed, and 4.39 pounds (1.99 kg). This is less convenient to lug around with you to work, classes, or a coffee shop trip than a typical ultrabook, especially since the wall charger has a standalone power supply. I'd recommend a laptop bag if you don't have one already.
The entire laptop is coated in a black matte material. It's a much more subtle design than you'd get from most gaming laptops or even some other workstation laptops---the only visible branding is a System76 logo on the back. There's plenty of room for stickers on the rear shell.
My main complaint with the design is that the Gazelle doesn't feel like a $1300 laptop, at least to me. There's a decent amount of flex on the top panel---probably because there's no glossy glass panel to keep it rigid---and you can see the same effect if you press down hard enough on the keyboard area. I'm sure that going with a more rigid metal material would make the laptop even heavier and more expensive, though, and this laptop is already over four pounds.
CloseI don't have any issues with the keyboard, which has a full function row and a number pad on the right side. There is a backlight, which can be toggled with the Fn+* keyboard shortcut. You can also switch between a few color options with the Fn+/ shortcut. There's no way to change the backlight color or brightness through the Settings app on Pop!_OS, which seems a bit strange.
The trackpad below the keyboard is also fine. You can't easily click from the top area, like you can on modern MacBooks, but it's large enough for comfortable use. The right-click is a two-finger click (or a tap with two fingers) by default, but you can change it to a one-finger click in the bottom-right corner in Settings. However, the trackpad is positioned to the left of the laptop (directly under the spacebar) rather than centered normally. I didn't really mind that, but it's worth mentioning.
The port selection is one area where the Gazelle is unquestionably excellent, especially in comparison to most modern ultrabooks. You get two USB Type-A ports (one USB 2, one USB 3.2 Gen 1), two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connectors, a microSD card reader, gigabit Ethernet, full-size HDMI with HDCP support, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, individual headphone and microphone audio jacks, and a Kensington lock. You almost certainly won't need a USB-C hub with this laptop.
The display is another strong point for the Gazelle. It's a 1080p panel with a refresh rate of 144Hz, so you get plenty of space to work in at the default 100% scaling, with super-smooth animations. The higher refresh rate also comes in handy for some gaming---more on that later.
You can replace or upgrade many of the Gazelle's hardware components, including the RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module, and battery. System76 even has documentation with photos to help you along the way.
Audio and Video: Bring Your Own
The System76 Gazelle has a dedicated microphone jack, as well as a combo jack, that can be used for headsets or regular headphones. USB seems to be more popular for microphones and headsets these days, but no matter what you have, you can probably plug it in without any adapters.
The built-in microphone is not great. At the default input volume, my voice comes across clearly in calls and recordings, but there's a lot of static, and any keypresses and clicks are too loud.
You can turn down the volume in the Settings app, but then you have to speak louder to compensate. The noise cancellation options in services like Discord and Google Chat might help.
The integrated camera is what you would expect from a normal PC laptop. It's only 1 MP, with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720. The quality is passable if you have lighting from above or behind the laptop, but in more challenging situations (like dark rooms or sunlight behind you), it falls apart.
CloseMost PC laptops are a similar story, but for a computer that costs at least $1,300, I would have expected better. A 1080p resolution feels like the bare minimum, even though the sensor matters more than the resolution.
Software: Pop, Or Not?
You have two choices for the pre-installed operating system when buying a Gazelle. The main choice is Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, which is developed by System76 itself, or regular Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I primarily tested the laptop with the default Pop!_OS installation since that is supposed to be the most integrated experience.
Pop!_OS is a desktop Linux distribution created by System76 and based on Ubuntu. For the moment, it's still using a modified version of Gnome Shell with many Gnome applications, but the company does have grander plans for a fully custom desktop environment. There are a few exclusive features aimed at improving productivity, like window stacking and better keyboard navigation than stock Gnome. There's also an application dock, like the app dock on Ubuntu or macOS, with view customization options. It can also be turned off completely if you want to reclaim that screen space.
CloseI've used Pop!_OS on and off over the years, and I do prefer most of the changes System76 has implemented on top of the Ubuntu base---you won't find any of those pesky Snap applications installed by default, for example. Pop!_OS also has excellent support for online account synchronization, largely thanks to its Ubuntu base. For example, you can sign into a Google or Microsoft account in the Settings app, and your emails, contacts, and calendars will automatically appear in the respective applications.
Pop!_OS also has the proper drivers for the Gazelle's Nvidia graphics pre-installed, complete with a graphics mode switcher at the top-right control panel (click the battery menu). In addition to the usual power settings, you can change the graphics to only use the integrated Intel graphics, only use the dedicated GPU, or run in a hybrid mode.
The Pop!_OS experience isn't perfect, though. It doesn't fully support fractional scaling, so if you want to avoid increased power usage and reduced sharpness, the only display settings are 100% or 200% scaling. The default 100% size at 1080p gives you plenty of room for multitasking, but text and some other elements are a bit too small for my preference. The KDE desktop generally has better fractional scaling support, which is one of the reasons I prefer KDE Neon on laptops.
Thankfully, because the Gazelle has hardware specifically picked out for Linux, you should be able to switch to most other desktop Linux distributions. I tried the live USB images for Fedora Workstation and KDE Neon, and both immediately detected all available hardware, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the full 144Hz refresh rate. However, your graphics experience will depend on if you're using X11 or Wayland, and which GPU drivers are in use. Pop!_OS uses NVIDIA's own proprietary drivers (packed by System76), while many other distributions use the open-source Nouveau drivers by default. You might also have different (or no) options for hybrid graphics on some other distributions.
CloseWindows should also work fine on this laptop, though I didn't test that out. System76 has links to the best drivers for Windows, which has not yet been updated with links for this latest Gazelle (model "gaze18"). Dual-booting Windows and Linux on the included SSD may be possible, but that can cause problems that compromise the experience of both operating systems. The Gazelle has two M.2 slots for SSDs, so you could theoretically have one operating system on each drive.
Battery and Performance: Like a Gaming Laptop
The System76 Gazelle ships with a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H processor, which has six performance cores and eight efficiency cores. In theory, the operating system is supposed to move processes between those cores to maximize battery life, but Linux still isn't great at that yet. Linux kernel 5.18 included some fixes from Intel for that, and my review unit with Pop!_OS 22.04 was running an even newer 6.2 kernel. There's also a dedicated NVIDIA RTX 3050 mobile graphics card (GA107M), which gives you more GPU power than most ultrabooks, but the Gazelle is not a high-end graphics workstation.
The rest of the hardware is configurable when you order the Gazelle. You can choose up to 64GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory and up to 8TB of storage across two M.2 slots (1x PCIe Gen4 & 1x PCIe Gen3). The model I received for review has 16GB RAM, the base 250GB PCIe Gen 3 SSD, and no additional storage. The laptop starts at $1,299, but the 16GB upgrade I have pushes the price to $1,348.
I tried the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, and in the "Balanced" battery mode with the Gazelle plugged into the wall, the laptop earned a single-core score of 2,501 and a multi-core score of 10,960 (full results). For comparison, Apple's M2 MacBook Air (which normally starts at $1,200) has similar results.
In real-life usage, I don't have any complaints about the Gazelle's performance. It only takes a few seconds to go from powered off to a login screen, applications open quickly, and the 144Hz screen makes the entire experience feel more responsive. Granted, I'm not doing anything that should push the limits of a workstation laptop---mostly a mix of Chrome tabs, Geary email, Slack, and Discord. I did work on a Dart project in Visual Studio Code, which also isn't a super-demanding workload, but I had no issues there either.
I also tried a few games on the Gazelle. Thanks to Valve's recent work on the Proton compatibility layer, you can run plenty of Windows-only games on Linux distributions like Pop!_OS. I played some "Planet Coaster" and "Deep Rock Galactic" (the Steam versions of each), and in both games, I was able to reach the laptop's full 144Hz refresh rate after some trial and error with the graphical settings. Again, the RTX 3050 is not a powerful graphics card---you won't get Xbox Series X or PS5-level performance out of this laptop.
The Gazelle is built like a gaming laptop, and that includes fans that can get loud after extended heavy use. That problem is unavoidable and also present on most gaming laptops. However, I did notice a problem that affects the laptop while it's plugged into the wall: the fans will kick on at full speed for seemingly no reason.
The sudden loud fan noise happened once while the laptop was sitting idle while downloading a Steam game, and another time when I was installing software from the Pop!_Shop, both in the "Balanced" power mode. In the latter event, CPU usage was under 50%, and GPU usage was close to 0%. The problem did not happen when running from battery power in my testing, so my guess is that there's a bug with the power management or fan curve somewhere. Some gaming laptops allow you to set a custom fan curve, but that feature is not available on the Gazelle, regardless of what operating system is running.
Battery life is also what you would expect for a gaming laptop. I reached around three hours on a single charge while primarily working in Chrome and Slack, and anything CPU or GPU-intensive (compiling code, gaming, etc) is going to drop that further. A full workday out of the Gazelle will almost certainly require the power cable.
Should You Buy the System76 Gazelle (gaze18)?
The System76 Gazelle (gaze18) is positioned as a mobile workstation with a fully-supported desktop Linux experience, and it meets that goal. The performance is excellent, the 14-inch display gives you plenty of room to work, and Pop!_OS works well. The extensive array of ports, user-upgradable storage, and (single-zone) RGB keyboard will be the envy of your friends and coworkers with MacBooks and Dell XPS laptops.
However, the Gazelle is built like a gaming laptop, which means you have all the downsides that come with most gaming laptops. It's large and heavy, with a power cable that has a brick in the middle for the power supply. The fan noise can also be annoying at times. If portability is a top concern, you might want to think about System76's Lemur Pro instead or something else entirely.
System76 is selling the Gazelle at a starting price of $1,149, but that model ships with 8GB RAM, which I would strongly recommend against. If you select the 16GB RAM option, and leave the rest of the hardware options alone (giving you the same configuration reviewed here), you'll be paying $1,348. That's definitely an expensive laptop, but it's not too far off from Windows laptops with similar hardware.
There are also modern MacBook Air and Pro models to consider, especially the M2 MacBook Air. Yes, those laptops don't have the same user-upgradable hardware and extensive library of PC games, but they're thinner, lighter, and nearly silent. I was primarily using desktop Linux myself until I bought an M1 Air and Mac Mini in 2022, and between cross-platform apps like Visual Studio Code and command-line tools from Homebrew, it wasn't a difficult transition.
If you need a powerful laptop that is built for Linux, and you are willing to trade some portability for a large screen and plenty of ports, the Gazelle might be for you.
System76 Gazelle (gaze18)
8/ 10Pros- Great performance
- Large display with a smooth 144Hz refresh rate
- Excellent connectivity options
- Limited battery life compared to most ultrabooks
- Fans can be loud sometimes
- Built-in webcam and microphone are sub-par
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