Star Labs Systems Reviews 48

Owner of a Starlite, Byte and two Starbooks.

More or less the same experience as other Linux computer manufacturers. It helps that StarLabs is based in UK.

I had to replace the keyboard twice, one time under warranty and one without. Quite replacement service. Within one week.

A part of that, I am happy with my purchases.
Byte is used as a server. Cheap and quiet.

Suggestion:

1) Better shipping estimation
2) A more powerful Byte or, even better, a desktop computer
3) Better cooling
4) Trade in offers
5) More AMD recent CPU options
6) More accessories, including keyboards to have a complete ecosystem

I bought my laptop from Starlabs a few years ago and was impressed by the quality of their products as soon as I received it. I have also been very impressed by their customer service. I have used the live chat a couple of times to get information and support. On the last occasion I had to send the computer to them to fix, which they do free of charge as part of their service. They are by far the best technology company I have dealt with. Very highly recommended.

Up and running super fast, really nice experience so far.

Excellent service. And a great product at a great price.

I play music on software synthesizers and use them to write special compositions mainly for Meditation and Relaxation. I was struggling for a very long time to find the right hardware for what I was trying to achieve. after a long search and research I discovered the Byte from Star Labs. After chatting to Star Labs I decided that this was a perfect device for my projects. I am 100 % happy. and would give 10 stars

I am delighted with the BYTE computer. I like the uncluttered layout of the Linux Ubuntu OS and the BYTE handles everything very quickly.
I therefore rate Star Labs highly.

The PC turned up faster than expected and without wasteful packaging. We'll presented and with the current version of Linux up to date.

Silent and unassuming, just what I wanted. It is only doing 3840 × 2160 resolution at 30 FPS but that may be down to the HDMI cable being an old one and this box wasn't bought for anything other than light word processing and web browsing. All good.

I needed to replace a failing HP Windows PC after only 3 years and decided to use a Linux box for the extra privacy and security. I have worked on Linux servers for many years in my website business, so I was comfortable with the environment. I researched many prebuilt Linux systems and liked the expandability and price point of the Byte. It arrived in a few days in the US from the UK and it took me minutes, not hours to have everything set up and functional. Excellent quality in the box and the Ubuntu preinstall was a breeze to prepare my user, add apps (Firefox, Chromium, Thunderbird, Brave, LibreOffice), and configure my printer. It automatically sensed my keyboard, mouse, monitor, webcam, speakers, and microphone.

I'm looking forward to purchasing their StarLite tablet and/or StarBook laptop in the near future.

Product: 5/5
Byte2 are excellent devices. Reliable and stable. Running two of them now with LTS OS releases. One desktop, one server. With the specific bootloader it runs with no probs.

Helpdesk 5/5: Always nice to have aftercare people who are genuinely approachable and helpful with queries. Glad that I found Star Labs.

Easy and getting the expected.
I wanted something very simple to run my local server and it is running really great.
Very clear any customization I could do.

I wanted a small portable system coupled with a portable monitor which would fit into carryon luggage.

Main reason was to run Lightworks video editor while on location or away from my office.

The unit with bluetooth phones and mouse /keyboard and added ssd storage.

It was impressive to see how the unit worked with Zorin OS 17 professional, I was pleased at the configurability and stability of the system.

I have been moving away from micro$oft and closed systems for years.

My only complaint was that such a unit wasn't available in the last century when working with a point of purchase information system.

This was hosted on a custom hardware and software (Amiga derived) and contained an mpeg display card offerinf FMV on a television with tuning removed to render a site TV licence unneeded

Each unit was controlled from a single desktop with commands sent to a countrywide network of display units by a radiopager signal.

Back to the BYTE from Starlabs.

I would heartily recomend the system to anyone using Linux. With Zorin OS (other flavours are available) the system is a must look at for much graphics and display operations.

David Liddle
Edinburgh

I purchased the Starbook MK VI laptop (AMD) from Star Labs with high expectations, particularly because it was marketed with the promise of coreboot support. However, two years after its release, we are still stuck with only AMI BIOS versions, which feels like a major letdown.

What’s even more frustrating is the developer’s dismissive attitude toward these concerns. Their response to user feedback is unprofessional and reminiscent of childish behavior, as demonstrated in their GitHub issue #65 on their firmware repo. Instead of addressing the issues or providing updates, they seem to ignore valid customer concerns since release.

As a customer, I expected transparency and commitment to their promises, but I have found neither. I regret my purchase and cannot recommend the Starbook laptop until they fulfill their coreboot promise and improve their communication with users.

Excellent products for Linux with great service and quick delivery of products in stock. Thank you!

I bought a Starlite V recently - initially I selected the wrong options to receive one immediately. Odin contacted me straight away and cancelled the order so I could re-order correctly - it was then dispatched within a day of ordering and arrived within three working days - super fast!

The device is great fun, a pleasure to play with. (I got the additional keyboard and pen - I would say the keyboard is almost essential, and the pen is fun and works very well; essential if you are into art using apps like Krita). The screen is a great size and the system is very snappy and fast - I now have everything configured to my liking and am very happy... many thanks guys!

I believed on it, but frustrating experience.
Good feeling with support, worst experience with the hardware and Linux compatibility.
After 4 years and twice travel on the Labs, (one of them 160 euros of duty taxes for a warranty repair) the laptop MKIV is definitely dead.
No way to fix it.
A four years old computer - around 200 hour of use - is not repairable anymore.
-Linux native but firmwares problems with Linux from the beginning.
First the audio speakers, then the wifi, the battery, last but not least the switch off.
Economic chassis. Look like cheap charger and cables.
Good support, very good, fast and friendly communication but no hardware and too much problems for a native Linux laptop.
It look like I have partecipate to test a beta laptop.
They offer me a downgrade hardware, but new model. No thanks, no tests anymore.

They won't sell to me unless I provide them some government-issued identification documentation. I've never encountered anything like this before when buying online.

As a privacy advocate, I'm not prepared to provide this, so I guess I'll buy from someone else.

I've ordered the Starlite 5 and it took quite a bit longer than estimated and anticipated, but I finally have it. This is a niche market, this device while not perfect does work and I do appreciate that companies like Starlabs exist and make an effort to produce alternative hardware. Having said that my biggest wish is that they sped up the production and shipping in any way possible. In the mean while, time will tell how my purchase holds up.

MK V lite... Ok so first some disclaimers. I'm not a programmer by any means. I can usually figure things out. I just received my lite after original order placed late September last year. I've had it in my hands for only about 24hrs. I believe in these guys and what they're doing, I don't mind waiting, but this took quite some time.

Initial startup was very fast and efficient. Updates that were needed, happened very quickly. Initially, the keyboard would not work. After some jiggling around, I think the contacts popped into place. I've had it in and out of the keyboard holder, and about 2/3 of time I had to jiggle it a bit before the back lights came on and it was detected. Now it seems to have self resolved. Hoping that continues to work. It took me a while to get the micro sd to work. I've never had to go thru the steps that I had to on this but after going to computer:/// (it was the only place that showed the adapter/card) I did a complete reformat and options choice and boom! I now have 1TB storage there. Several programs I use on my desktop downloaded quickly and efficiently and appear to work without concern. Admittedly I haven't had this long but with my little Linux knowledge, I'm up and running. New users I would say this, restart it. When in doubt, just restart. I had to restart it at least 3 times to get all the hardware to be found and activated. This was a suggestion by forums, which were right on target.

I appreciate the secure nature of it, the purity of open source and a buildable and repairable platform where most are not.

Pros: I received updates from starlabs almost daily as they were getting close to shipping, and updates to shipping were readily available. Initial setup was super fast and even beginners can do it. Large, clear screen. Battery should go thru standard full charge to full discharge cycles but battery seems to last a very long time. Anyone who has used Ubuntu will settle in quickly.

Cons: The order took a long time. Like most Linux items, hardware can be tricky to set up (my micro SD problem) and resolving them is not intuitive. The touch screen alone was awkward on startup. I believe the system was continuing to setup as I was starting to use it, but keyboard and touch pad bypass that. After it went through updates etc, it seems to work fine. A history with Ubuntu helps as again, adjustments are not necessarily intuitive. I don't see these hardware setup concerns as being faulty hardware, so much as setup in the software being slower, glitchy and not super obvious for the non programmer (Ubuntu, take note on this please).

If things change, I will update but it looks like a winner! I'm hoping to have great things to report as time goes on. Best of luck, starlabs! Long live Linux.

Purchased a Mark IV 3.5 years ago. First year was perfect but problems started arising the next year. First the power supply died, then the Intel wifi/bt chip on the motherboard died, and now the hard drive has failed. I truly regret my purchase now. High end laptops are supposed to last much longer than 3.5 years and instead I'm going to have to purchase a new laptop (from someplace other than Star Labtop obviously).

EDIT: Based on Star Labtop reply to my review, I'll leave more data. I worked with Star Labtop service tech for 2 weeks to find out what was wrong with the Intel wifi/bt chip on the motherboard. His conclusion after many attempts to resolve my issue was the chip had failed and I could ship my Mark IV back and accept the risk to replace the chip. Instead, I bought a wifi dongle and used my existing bluetooth transceivers to get around the issue of the failed Intel chip. Regarding the hard drive failure, I've experienced 3 random inode corruption events on the ssd root partition during booting over a 2 month period. After a manual fsck disk repair, the corrupted inode issue reoccurs. Since there's hasn't been any power surges/outages during a write to disk activity and I haven't installed any new SW onto the drive long before the 1st issue occurred, it's highly doubtful SW is causing the corrupted inodes. That only leaves HW as the culprit.

I am so thankful to this company for producing high quality Linux laptops. I bought the Starlite MKIV and Starport. Couldn't be happier with the build quality.

When I contacted them their reply was prompt and helpful. Keep up the good work Star Labs.

Worth noting that dispatch time can be slow. Their products must be in demand and I'm sure they are doing what they can to improve this, must not be easy. You just can't get this level of product elsewhere and it is worth the wait.