When comparing System76 Oryx Pro vs Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA, the Slant community recommends Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA for most people. In the question“What are the best USB-C laptops?” Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA is ranked 6th while System76 Oryx Pro is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA is:
The Aspire S13 is a decent laptop for most day-to-day activities for students or normal users. The 8GB of RAM and i7 CPU work amazingly well for web browsing, watching videos or working with files and documents.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great Linux support
All System76 laptops come with Linux out of the box. The Oryx Pro comes with either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10. But that does not mean that other Linux distributions are not supported, quite the contrary. Most Linux distros should work without any major problems with the Oryx pro and most (if not all) drivers are available.
Pro Excellent choice for gaming on Linux
The Oryx Pro is probably the best laptop with Linux support out of the box that is great for gaming as well. This is mostly because of the NVIDIA graphics cards. It comes by default with the GTX 1060 but for $289 more, you can add a GTX 1070 instead. The default 8GB of RAM is good for gaming but the 16GB RAM is ideal.
Pro Amazing overall performance
The default 6th generation i7 Processor coupled with the 16GB of RAM (even better with the versions with 32GB and 64GB) make for an absolutely amazing machine. It has a dedicated SSD for the OS only which massively increases startup time and for anything else you can choose up to two SSDs or HDDs of varying sizes. The Oryx Pro is perfectly capable of doing some heavy-lifting including 4K video editing and gaming at highest settings without a hitch.
Pro Good speakers
One of the bonuses of having a larger body is that you get to use good speakers instead of some small ones stuck underneath the laptop. They are also angled toward the user and the sound is crisp and loud enough, even though it lacks some bass.
Pro Good keyboard
The keyboard is very nice, it's not amazing by any means but quite comfortable to work with. The keys are pretty thick, thicker than what you may find in laptops today and with a nice springiness to them. The keyboard also supports multicolor backlighting.
Pro Good display
Has a 1080p matte display with an optional IPS matte display version. With great colors and brightness and almost no eye strain even when it's used for extended periods.
Pro Very customizable
Before buying the System76 Oryx Pro from the System76 website, you get to customize almost every aspect of the laptop as far as specs go. The price depends on what you choose to put inside your laptop and prices vary from $1475 for the basic version to $7000 for a laptop with a 17.3" Matte IPS Display, a GTX 1070, 6th Gen i7 CPU, 64GB RAM, and two SSDs of 5TB and 4TB respectively.
Pro Good performance for casual use
The Aspire S13 is a decent laptop for most day-to-day activities for students or normal users. The 8GB of RAM and i7 CPU work amazingly well for web browsing, watching videos or working with files and documents.
Pro Has a top-notch display
This laptop's display outshines most of the competition, from various lab tests it managed to score 106.8% sRGB color gamut. Which is better than the average for this display size (83%).
The display is quite bright as well. At 327 nits you can clearly see what's on the screen even under direct sunlight.
Pro Has both touch and non-touch display options
The Aspire S13 can be ordered with either type of display. They are both 1080p but the non-touch version is a bit brighter.
Pro Good build quality
Most of the chassis is covered by a textured nano-imprint cover which adds a very "premium" feel to it and is great to the touch. The keyboard and wrist area are made of aluminium, which looks great when the laptop is opened.
Pro Great design
The Aspire S13 comes in two colors, obsidian-black and white. Both of them have a nano-imprint cover, which gives the laptop a nice and slick aesthetic.
Cons
Con Very heavy and bulky
Weighing at 5.5lbs for the 15.6" version it's relatively heavy and it's one inch thicker than the XPS 13. But the extra space is not put to waste, considering how it has an Ethernet port, SD card slot, 2 Mini DisplayPrts, HDMI port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports, 3 USB 3.0 Type-A ports and headphone and mic jacks. The GTX 1070 version also includes a headphone amplifier. However, the power brick that comes with the charger is ridiculously large at 2lbs which understandably adds to the weight of the laptop since most of the time you have to carry both with you.
Con Customer service could be much better
System76's technical support is pretty bad. When there's a problem that should be solved by them, they usually resort to sending replacement parts instead or blaming third-parties (even if those third-parties are not at fault) of something that they should be fixing.
Con No 4K option
It lacks the option to have a 4K display. While not a deal breaker, it's a shame that a laptop with a display as good as Oryx Pro's does not have a 4K option which would also be a great plus for gamers.
Con The touchpad has accuracy issues
This laptop's touchpad works fine with two-finger scrolling but has issues when navigating around the desktop. There's some slight stuttering with the cursor and it's easy to accidentally select text if your palm brushes the touchpad by accident.
Con The thick plastic bezel around the display is a bit off-putting
The display is surrounded by a thick plastic bezel which should have been avoided as it makes the laptop seem cheaper and less attractive than it should be.
Con Slight sound distortion on high volume
There is some slight sound distortion when volume is over 90%. Below that level everything sounds perfect.