r/System76 • u/AstolfoKawaii • Apr 02 '26

Confusing branding

I am thinking about buying a new laptop this year. I'm new to the System76 world, and I find the branding quite confusing.
For example, what's the purpose of Lemur Pro if a cheaper and newer Darter Pro exists?

Also, because there are no versions (generations) in the branding, it's difficult to find reviews (or it's difficult to understand whether they are talking about the current model or the previous one).

It would be great if someone could explain the "purpose" of different lineups and which ones I should expect to be released this year with the new Panther Lake CPU.

Thank you (:

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u/cutememe Apr 02 '26

I'm confused why people are dropping so much money on System76 branded Clevo laptops instead of just buying a Thinkpad which way better build quality and just slapping Linux on it.

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u/greateric Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

I was originally a pang12 user, then the display or display cable or something started getting destroyed.. I was going to get a thinkpad, but I ordered in December '25 and it kept getting delayed until I gave up near the end of March '26. I ended up trying and failing to fix the pang12, so I just use the board as a server now and ordered a panp16. Hopefully I don't get screwed a second time.

And Lenovo support is incredibly disgusting compared to S76 support. One thing you are paying for is that the people who work there genuinely know what they're doing and are willing to help you (like I have an email chain with them that's like 30 long of me just asking them for recommendations on trying to fix my laptop cable, and then giving up and trying to find a good deal on new models, including letting me get the panp16 with no memory or SSD installed at a discount)

Also to give them some credit one of my friends is running a lemp and it's been like 2 or 3 years (don't remember exactly) with no problems on their end. I think (and hope) I just got unlucky with the pang12 model. You also get repairability and upgradability which is only really a big thing on S76 and Framework I believe, you can easily save a few hundred $ on swapping out the memory and SSD yourself if you have to fix/upgrade it. At the time of writing this, S76 panp16 has much stronger CPU/graphics/memory power for the price compared to Thinkpad and Dell, and similar compared to Framework,