# New Hardware Review

It has now been about a month since I got some new equipment.

* System 76 Serval WS
    
* Pixel 8 Pro
    

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After 15 years of being an MacBook user I went back to my Linux roots.

When thinking about which new laptop to buy, I decided that I had had enough of Apple's high prices and lack of customization options.

I've considered getting a Puri.sm laptop but I wanted a bigger screen, a faster CPU and more RAM.

System76 seemed to embrace the open-source philosophy much more strongly.

I'm giving the Ubuntu based Pop!\_OS a try but I might install a different distro at some point.

Yes, I had to use the terminal to do various customizations, but I actually like that!

My old MBP had only 2 USB-C ports but in addition to that i now also have 2 old-fashioned USB ports, an SDcard slot, an Ethernet port, HDMI and video out port .

I got 96 GB DDR5 5600 MHz RAM and 4 TB PCIe4 M.2 SSD storage which is more than i will be needing in the foreseeable future. There's space left for a second SSD.

It has a state of the art i9-14900HX CPU and i'm not experiencing any speed issues

I got the 17.3" Matte 2K QHD (240Hz) display. They also have a higher resolution one but I really dont need it. It's ginormous compared to my old 13" MBP.

One thing that I don't like so much is the loud fan.

Occasionally the track pad seems to get stuck for a second, and I have not yet figured out why this happens.

Although it's purely cosmetic, I love the colorful keyboard backlight.

System76 fully supports the right to repair.

![](https://tech-docs.system76.com/models/serw13/img/components-highlighted.webp align="center")

[https://tech-docs.system76.com/models/serw13/README.html](https://tech-docs.system76.com/models/serw13/README.html)

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I've been using a pixel 5 since January 2021 and it stopped receiving security updates so it has become unsafe for the most critical tasks.

Decided to get the pro version of the Pixel 8 as it has a telephoto and ultrawide lens.

I enjoy the AI features and I'm eager to see how these features will improve in the future.

This phone is supposed to get 7 years of updates so keeping the battery between 25~75% to make it last 7 years.

Since the latest update, it allows connecting to an HDMI device, so I want to try out desktop mode