Enlightening a System76 Galago Pro

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Sorry, I was testing my System76 Galago Pro’s keyboard, from the top left to the bottom right, without skipping the caps lock or cursor navigation keys.

Anyway, the reason I was testing it (and it really types perfectly fine) is that I put in a new battery. KDE had told me the old one was at 38% quality. To open up this laptop, you have to unscrew four screws underneath the keyboard. This keyboard is being held in place by plastic clips that can only bend so many times before they break. If not for them, the laptop would allow access to its innards by just removing twelve screws at the underside.

thefoggiest.dev/content/img/galp-no-keyboard.jpg No keyboard

This wasn’t the first time I replaced its battery, and it even has room for an SSD that I would perhaps want to add some time in the future, so by not putting back the four screws underneath the keyboard, I have made opening it much easier. Still, I was a bit anxious to know whether everything would remain in place and if the keyboard would drift away while typing on it.

It didn’t.

The battery came with a small manual, which told me in no uncertain terms to first fully charge the battery with the laptop powered down, then use the laptop discharging it to at most 10%, and repeating that at least three times.

thefoggiest.dev/content/img/galp-inside.jpg With room for an SSD

The much degraded old battery notwithstanding, this is in fact how I use batteries, although I would like to have the discipline to keep the charge below 80%. KDE is now reporting 100% quality, 88% charge and 2:47 to discharge. I suppose it needs to calibrate first before the latter two figures become accurate, though in that case I’d have thought to have to discharge is completely.

Still, three hours on a full charge really isn’t that bad for this laptop. The battery is too small for it. It always has been, and I even knew this before buying it. I was just blinded by the promise of all those ports at its sides, the HiDPI screen and the fact that it came with Linux pre-installed. Never had I hoped for such luxury before.

I had to wait for the better part of a decade for the proper operating system, but luxurious it now is. The keyboard has a tiny bit less travel than my Asus U36JC’s, but much more than my Acer Nitro 5. It is also perfectly inflexible, and the screen is better than the monitor I have attached to my PC.

With ~3 hours worth of battery charge, I could take this eight-year-old laptop, that now even weighs four screws less, to a café and use it for some writing, or hacking.