Kubuntu Focus Zr Gen 1 Review: A Powerhouse Linux Laptop

Source: Wired

Specs and Design

Inside, the Zr Gen 1 features an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX with 24 cores, an RTX 5090 graphics card, 24 GB GDDR7 RAM (expandable up to 192 GB), and two SSDs—a 1 TB drive and a 2 TB drive. You can install up to four drives, one of them being a PCIe GEN 5×4 NVMe. Along with the discrete GPU, there’s an integrated GPU as well, allowing you to turn off the discrete card to maximize battery life. I spent about 90 % of the time with the discrete card off and only turned it on when editing photos and video.

Thanks to the size of the Zr, there’s plenty of room for a full‑size keyboard with a numeric pad. The keyboard is user‑configurable and features a 65,536‑color LED backlight system that you can tweak with the Focus tool. Typing feels comfortable, with 3.5 mm of key travel, making the keys springy and responsive. As is generally the case with dedicated Linux laptops, there’s a Kubuntu (gear icon) key rather than a Windows key.

Did I mention the Zr Gen 1 weighs 8 pounds? It’s too big for a shoulder bag — see the Wired guide to laptop totes and purses. You’ll definitely want a backpack, but even then this isn’t the sort of thing you bring to a coffee shop. It’s more suited for carting to a lab or leaving on a desk connected to your home lab. Battery life averaged around four hours, which isn’t a major concern for a machine you don’t intend to carry around. Being able to watch a movie on the couch is a nice bonus, but not the primary purpose.

Use Cases

Anything that requires serious computing power—machine learning (TensorFlow), local LLMs, big‑data crunching, high‑end video editing—fits this laptop. Davinci Resolve ran smoother on the Zr Gen 1 than on any other machine I’ve used; applying a LUT to a large clip was instantaneous thanks to the GPU. While I wouldn’t claim you can edit video without proxy clips, the performance is close enough to make that a possibility depending on clip length.

Bring It in Focus

Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

The advantage of buying a laptop with Linux support is that you don’t have to manage the complexities of a Linux system yourself. I’m typing this on an Arch‑based machine; if an update breaks vim, tmux, rxvt‑unicode, or any other component, fixing it is on me. Kubuntu Focus removes that burden, letting you focus on your work without worrying about system breakage.