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Tuxedo Book XP14 12th Gen Review 2022-04-02 true

Fro the last couple of years, my main driver was a Macbook Air 13" from 2013. It was my sister's old laptop & I claimed it when she replaced it because it became too slow. Naturally, I put Linux on it and, after a few distro hops, settled on EndeavourOS. This setup worked well for about 3 years, but it was getting rather old. After about a year of using it myself I had to replace the battery, and after another two years or so that one became useless as well. It was time for a change, so I started searching.

Thanks to a recommendation from a friend, I found Tuxedo Computers and I just couldn't get them out of my head, so eventually I gave in and bought one! As the title already revealed, the model's a Tuxedo Book XP14 Gen12.

My specific version has a 120Hz display, 500GB of a Samsung 980, 2 x 8GB of DDR4 RAM, an i5-1135G7 & Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs.

Now that we've got the nerd stats out of the way, let's talk about the laptop itself.

The Good

The build quality is very solid. While the top half containing the display is made up of a solid metal casing, the bottom part consists of a sturdy plastic. There is some deck flex, but definitely not a level I would consider an issue.

The trackpad is very responsive & pairs nicely with the smoothness of the cursor on the 120Hz display. I personally think the keyboard is quite amazing. It's got a satisfying travel time & feels very solid for a membrane keyboard.

IO is more than enough, with a Kensington lock, SD card reader, gigabit Ethernet port, Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB 3 ports, another USB-C port, HDMI & two-in-one audio jack.

Under normal load the fans are completely silent, while at peak they're audible but not annoying or overly loud.

Battery life is quite decent; under light load with dimmed backlight it can go for about 6 hours. I do recommend properly configuring some energy profiles in the Tuxedo Control Center.