Review for 14" Lafité® AI AMD

[daemon_nio]

Here the full specs of what I bought.
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I really like this little 14" Lafité® AI AMD.

It took a bit longer to arrive than expected as it was out of stocks when I bought it.
It arrived really well packaged, in a very nice and sturdy box and with many bubble wraps to not get any bumps.

It was super easy to install ubuntu on it (I have just one issue with the bluetooth).

It is super fast (I added fast ram and fast SSD) and it feels really good when I use it.
I haven't done anything heavy on it (I'm still wondering why I treated myself with such a powerful gadget).
I have never had high CPU and the system never overheated and was always very silent.
The battery really lasts for the full 8 hours as described.
One lovely perk: there is a tiny slide to hard cover your camera, so you don't have to tape it if you are a freak like me.

The charger seems a bit cheap and it's very big.
Maybe the team can check if this can be improved.

Really good experience with PCSpecialist.

Regards
Nio

 

[daemon_nio]

Here some photos.

 

[GuillaumeMobius]

Hello daemon_nio

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have more or less the same config as you do I believe : I didn't manage to make work the link you shared pointing at your spec sheet. The only difference is that I am not as proficient in Linux and hardware as you seem to be and my OS is Kubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. I'll leave my specs down this post.

I guess we will be doing the same experiences and so far it doesn't go as smooth as for you as I face 2 extra problems on top of the Bluetooth one :

1. plugging in a ethernet cable doesn't work. Though, if I plug the same ethernet cable through my docking station, and plug my Lafite to the docking station, it does work ! So I wonder is the ethernet port is working.
   
   
2. the most painful one and most difficult to troubleshoot is on the graphic card side. For some reasons, the main software I use doesn't seem to interact well with my current environment... Now it is hard to tell where the problem is.
   
   Kubuntu says it's all fine :

user@machine:~$glxinfo -B
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
Device: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi, gfx1103_r1, LLVM 17.0.6, DRM 3.57, 6.8.0-49-generic) (0x1900)
Version: 24.0.9
Accelerated: yes
Video memory: 2048MB
Unified memory: no
Preferred profile: core (0x1)
Max core profile version: 4.6
Max compat profile version: 4.6
Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):
VBO free memory - total: 826 MB, largest block: 826 MB
VBO free aux. memory - total: 30769 MB, largest block: 30769 MB
Texture free memory - total: 826 MB, largest block: 826 MB
Texture free aux. memory - total: 30769 MB, largest block: 30769 MB
Renderbuffer free memory - total: 826 MB, largest block: 826 MB
Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 30769 MB, largest block: 30769 MB
Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):
Dedicated video memory: 2048 MB
Total available memory: 33083 MB
Currently available dedicated video memory: 826 MB
OpenGL vendor string: AMD
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi, gfx1103_r1, LLVM 17.0.6, DRM 3.57, 6.8.0-49-generic)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

So what I understand is the graphic card is identified and in use. Moreover it seems to use the right libraries for my software : OpenGL
Doing a sudo lshw -c video returns amdgpu driver, which is the one I believe to be the right one.

Yet... In my software, it claims :

Hardware accelerated rendering not active.

And when I use the testing tools embedded in the software this is what I get :

***Graphics Report***
library: STAR Mesa OpenGL
KNOB_SINGLE_THREADED: 1 (single-threaded)
window: OSMesaOffscreenRenderWindow
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: SWR (LLVM 12.0.0, 256 bits)
OpenGL version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 21.1.8
OpenGL shading language string: 3.30

And I understand this as it uses Mesa libraries instead of OpenGL. And when I enforce the use of OpenGL, this is what I get :

MESA-LOADER: failed to open radeonsi: /usr/lib/dri/radeonsi_dri.so: Ne peut ouvrir le fichier d'objet partagé: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce nom (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
failed to load driver: radeonsi

So I don't really know what to conclude.
From what I can understand, it seems like either a problem of graphic card driver setup (with nvidia drivers, there were more options such as how each software could make use of it) or a software bug which seems a bit weird to me.
This is why I'm dropping my message in a bottle here and at the software editor customer service...

Plus I don't find the correct way to update the drivers for the integrated graphic card of the Lafite.

Few Specs :
Chassis & Display Lafite Series : Écran large LED mat 14 pouces 120 Hz sRGB 100 % WQXGA+ (2880 x 1800)
Processor (CPU) Processeur Huit Core AMD Ryzen™ 7 8845HS (3,8 GHz, 5,1 GHz Turbo, 16 AI TOPS)
Memory (RAM) 64 Go Corsair 5600MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 32 Go)
Graphics Card Integrated AMD® Radeon™ 780M
1st M.2 SSD Drive 1 To SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (jusqu'à 7450 Mo/R, 6900 Mo/W)

My usage: Intense CPU usage for engineering and computation, a bit of GPU usage for computation and basic renderings with ray tracing -> Workstation. Main software : libre office; Rhinceros 3D; Simcentre STAR-CCM+ and OpenFOAM.

 

[Mnemonic]

Thanks for the review.

Just one question: Is it possible to turn off "Secure Boot" in the BIOS?