As computer prices are skyrocketing due to the as-of-now not yet burst AI bubble, I decided to get a newer and more capacious computer, as most of what I have is old, as in last decade. I might not be able to afford one next year.
As I’ve been delighted with the StarLite mkV, and especially with the support from the StarLabs team, I pre-ordered a StarBook Horizon, which arrived yesterday.
After twenty-five years with Debian, which StarLabs doesn’t offer pre-installed, I did the installation myself as soon as it arrived.
The StarBook Horizon
The computer is quite compact. It has a 13,5″ display, with little bevel, and also rather thin, so it is small and cute. The whole thing weights less than 1.1kg.
It has an Intel N305 chipset, with 32Gb ram and 2Tb NVME storage.
I expect prices to rise because those two last components are destined to go up in price, as a handful of billionaires destroys the global environment with their fancy auto-completion systems.
Some people have complained online that the CPU is too slow, but as I’m used to decades old computers, I find it very fast and snappy.
I read and write, edit websites and photos, answer emails and do my accounting, so I’m not an extremely heavy user, but I do tend to have numerous documents and programs running, spread over a dozen desktops.
As one should justifiably expect from a computer made for Linux, Debian Trixie installed easily, and everything just works.
I literally cannot point to one single problem during installation. It was so easy. Considering the struggles I, and many others, have had over the years with installing Linux on laptops and whatnot, it almost felt like cheating.
Status
- Debian Trixie install ✓
- GNOME / Wayland ✓
- Touchpad with 2- and 3-finger gestures ✓
- WiFi ✓
- Bluetooth ✓
- Kill switch (but that’s in hardware) ✓
- Sound ✓
- Camera ✓
- Suspend ✓
- Hibernate ✓
- External display over USB (two ports on the left) ✓
Not exercised yet
- HDMI output
Battery time
I haven’t tested this yet, but I’ll go for a coffee and a snack later, to do the test properly, in the right settings of a local café.
Problems
The only real problem is that the keyboard, which is very light touch, often reacts double. It is especially the space bar, but other keys does it too occasionally.
The text above will be full of double spaces, as I gave up on fixing them all the time. I hope the problem isn’t mechanic.
It is not key repeat in the OS, as I’ve disabled that entirely.
Otherwise, it is a very nice keyboard. Little key travel, backlit, and quite silent.
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