Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

**GNU/Linux distribution notes at the end of this review. A very nice laptop and it feels premium. The material is mostly plastic but I appreciate that for the reduced weight. This is my first Ryzen machine, and I am mainly using it to run a Citrix environment (cloud-based VM). Today will be the first full 8+-hour day using it. The power brick is not excessively huge. About the width and height of a standard post-it note, and 1" thick. The cable is over 5' (my measuring tape only goes to 60") closer to 6'. It has a barrel connector so unfortunately, it is not easily replaceable with a USB C cable (next model, pretty please?) The keyboard is backlit, which is nice for the darker surrounding often found in my home office. Typing is okay, but there is a noticeably shorter key travel than other laptops/Chromebooks I have used. I'm getting used to it, but like with any new keyboard, there will be a small learning curve. I keep missing the home row and using the Caps Lock as the A key for some reason. I'm using it on a small folding table at the moment so that could be the reason. The screen is nice, it is a 16:9 full HD screen, and for me, I prefer 16:9 to the new standard of 2:3 (more of a square). It is not bright though. Not at all. Even with the curtains open, there are times when I am still trying to get more brightness out of this display. It's not unusable, but forget trying to use it outdoors. The touch is fine and works. I did not buy this to use as a tablet though but Windows 10 has some processing going on in the background that makes it easy to hit small buttons in applications without being terribly accurate. The pen is interesting to me as it is roughly the size of a real pen [*cough* Samsung*cough*] which makes it easier to draw/write without immediately cramping my hand. The Dolby Audio on the speakers leaves a lot to be desired. Some tweaking was needed to get the overblown sounds to subside. During the initial setup, it was hard to listen to. Turning Dolby Audio off though somehow reduces the speaker volume by 2/3... Not the actual volume percentage, but the actual sound. Dolby is using some sort of gain control so 20% volume sounds more like 40%. 4k video on YouTube looks great and only dropped 3 frames in a 2:44 video (Borderlands 3 FL4K FTW!) but that could have been from me trying to make it full-screen. I have not tried any games yet, but I did install Diablo 3, and World of Warcraft Classic. If anyone is interested, I will update this when I try them. With the Vega graphics, there is an automatic 2GB reduction in RAM availability. Couple this with the 8GB model and you are left with 6GB to run Windows 10 and any applications. Budget for the 12 GB model unless you are A) skilled with laptop hardware, and B) don’t care about the warranty. I’ve seen the tear-downs, and there is an open RAM slot. I usually don’t tear open electronics until a year after I own it (unless there is a reason to do so). The WiFi issue that is detailed on the 8GB model is non-existent for me. I feel like I may be more qualified to test that as Citrix requires a constant network connection and gives an immediate alert if connectivity drops for more than a couple seconds. No issues here, running the latest Windows updates. Overall I’m happy with this laptop, It is much lighter than my 15” Acer Predator and looks a lot more professional when traveling for work. EDIT 8/31/2020: I've been experimenting with GNU/Linux/Ubuntu distributions and I have a small list of what is NOT working with no additional modifications/installs. All of the images were flashed via Etcher (with verification) onto a PNY Elite Turbo Attache 4 and ran in live mode (no install). Tails OS 4.10 - I was not able to connect a Bluetooth mouse (only Bluetooth device I had available) and it did not appear to allow Bluetooth to remain on after moving to another settings screen. The dual mapped function keys worked for brightness and sound. Debian 10.5.0 (Cinnamon) - I was not able to see any network, or even manually connect to one. The brightness function keys (F11 and F12) display the icon as if it is changing the display brightness, but the actual brightness of the display remains at 100% Linux Mint 20 (Cinnamon) - Probably the most compatible distribution with this laptop without any additional modifications. My Bluetooth mouse connected without issue (MUCH quicker than on Windows) and the dual mapped FN keys work as expected with the exception of the built-in webcam disable (F8)