I'm so excited to talk about
this little precious Galago Pro! I like to name my laptops, and
nothing is more fitting for this machine (in my use case) than the
name ‘Princess’ because my experience with the Galago so far has
been royally spectacular. After more than a month of frequent use,
I’ve found the Galago to be an excellent choice for the mobile
worker. I’m frequently on a train, plane or bus, so portability
is an absolute must-have for me. Although the portability is my
favorite feature, I’m fond of a few other things the Galago Pro has
to offer.
Look and Feel
She’s so pretty
and shiny with her smooth aluminum body. She sports a touch of class
with the metallic accents bordering the touchpad adding the perfect
amount of elegance to remind you what you’re working on just before
you start typing. I feel 'elite' just working on the Galago Pro,
knowing that whoever is on the other side of the display is envious
of my prized gem of a laptop.
Keyboard
Princess caters to
what I need in a keyboard. I can type 80 wpm which is my normal average, with few mistakes- if any. I love that there’s no numpad on the right because I’m
not trying to use this for massive spreadsheets or calculations, so
that space isn’t filled with unnecessary keys. Instead, it makes my
little Precious even more portable. Love the Home and End keys on the
side of the Enter key. Just a pinky distance away. Fabulous!
Size and Portability
The size is perfect.
This is my second trip with the Galago Pro. I couldn’t pick a
better travelling partner! She’s .56” thick with a 13” display
and 2.87 lbs. On the flight, the Galago positions perfectly on the
tray table. Since it’s so
thin and light, I didn’t have to bring anything but my laptop bag
for this trip. I had plenty of room for clothes, my curling iron,
makeup bag and hygeine bag. I’m pretty psyched to slim my trips
down to one laptop bag! I’m used to carrying my 17” laptop which
I thought was pretty portable for a 17”, but I don’t think I’ll
even be taking the bigger one out of the house anymore since the
Galago is much more portable. Another great feature- the power adapter is tiny! It’s .2
lbs and 3.5”x 1” x.75”. Slimming down to the more portable
Galago Pro for my trips leaves room for an entire other outfit!
User-Serviceable
Guess what? If you
have your own hard drive or RAM, or just can’t afford to max out
your Galago Pro when you purchase, you can add your components down
the road. I took Princess apart to show you how wonderfully easy and
quick the Galago Pro is to service. Check out below.
Battery Life
My workload while
travelling consists of writing with Libre Office, web browsing (lots
of Tweeting!) in Firefox with multiple tabs and responding to
System76 customers in Chrome. I also enjoy some video action on
Netflix and YouTube. I got a solid 4 hours of battery life
consistently off a full charge, with multiple suspend sessions in
between. My first flight was 3.5 hours. I was able to comfortably
work on the Airplane tray table the entire flight, minus the
mandatory tray tables up and airplane mode sessions. For me, the
battery life is perfect as frequent flyer. It’s rare that I even
work on the laptop for an entire flight, so the battery life is
actually more than enough for a trip, especially when you factor in
the usual in-flight beverage, snack and bathroom break. Being able to
suspend properly by just closing the lid is extremely convenient.
With as many times as I have to stop doing what I’m doing quickly,
I love to be able to just pick up right where I left off just as
quick as it was to close the lid. With that said, you’ll likely get
3.5-4 hours with the 36 Wh battery on the System76 Galago Pro.
The first set of
pre-orders start shipping this week. I’m anxious to hear everyone’s
feedback and see their reviews online. If you are one of those lucky
customers, feel free to share your review with me by email or in the
comments! I'm Emma@System76.com
Have a fab day in
the freedom land of open-source!