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Tuxedo InfinityBook: a review

Christian Kruse,

Tuxedo InfinityBook with pre-installed ElementaryOS

The InfinityBook comes with a i7-6500U. This processor is of Intel's new Skylake architecture and reduces power consumption a lot: it now consumes 15 W. And this is something you definitely notice: the battery lasts round about 10 hours in normal operation mode when using the powersave governor. Normal operation means that I surf the web and listen to music, maybe write some email. When using it in „development mode“ (Rails development with PostgreSQL as backend, Elixir/Phoenix development, also with PostgreSQL as backend) it reduces to round about 6 hours. Very nice!

The notebook comes in a aluminium unibody case which feels very sturdy and is a real beauty. It is wedge-shaped and reminds a bit of the Macbooks; on the other hand it looks very different and you won't confuse it with a Macbook. The torsional strength seems reasonable and good. And with 1,4kg (about 3lbs) it is very light.

The only thing which really made me upset was the silly Intel Inside sticker; wtf, why would one ruin the look of such a beautiful notebook with an Intel sticker?!

The display is an IPS panel and provides Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels). That's nice for this screen size, but it could be more: the Macbook Pro 13" has 2560×1600 pixels, it would've been nice to have something not from Apple competing with that. On the other hand it is bright (very bright), sharp as hell and matt - the last thing is something I totally miss in the Macbook series so I'm glad to have a matt display again :)

The keyboard feels nice; it has a clear pressure point, it feels a bit like the keyboards used in the old Macbooks (the keyboards before the butterfly bullshit). Not so nice is the placement of the keys; the up and down cursor keys are small, the order of the control keys on the left side is wrong (Ctrl, Fn, Super, Alt) and the Fn key on the right side is next to the right shift key.

Tuxedo InfinityBook unboxing

The function keys work out of the box, including the Wifi key, the standby key, the eternal monitor key and the display on/off key (which really surprised me). The volume keys and the mute key are not yet working with my Arch installation, but I am in contact with the Tuxedo support and hope to get a solution for that.

Update: volume keys work now. I don't know what changed, after a restart of the X11 session (because of some locale and group changes) they simply worked.

The touch pad has a clear pressure point and reminds a lot of the touch pads used in the Macbooks; heck, it even looks like one. I like it; a small critic: when clicking on the right side it feels a bit cheap and clacks a bit.

I installed Arch Linux on this box, and as promised, everything but the volume keys work out of the box. Yay! :)

When working in „normal mode“ it is quiet; you literally hear nothing. When working in „developer mode“ I sometimes hear the fan, but most of the time it is quiet. When the CPU really has something to do, the fan noise is clearly audible; comparable to a Macbook Pro 15" when under high load.

The performance is unbelievable. The Skylake i7 is freaking fast! And with 16GB of RAM and a Samsung PRO 256GB this box screams. Finally a fast notebook again! :)

I hope I mentioned everything; if you have questions just drop me a mail.