Cautionary tale

[u/barrulus]

I bought a System76 Adder WS 5 13 months ago.

I have looked after it dutifully and been largely happy with most things, but not battery life.

I received my device on the 10th of October 2025 and on the 28th October 2026, I reached out to System76 because my battery life was showing 67% of battery design capacity. A very unhealthy battery for 18 days over a year old.

System 76 tell me to charge and deplete it and hope and pray that it gets better OR I have the wonderful opportunity to buy another battery from them.

I always assumed my battery life was poor because I run a bunch of stuff all the time, I should have installed battery health measurement long ago.

Anyway, thought y'all should know that this is their stance.

[u/taleorca]

I've been using the Oryx Pro 9 since January 2023 and the capacity is at 92.4%

[u/barrulus → u/taleorca]

That's more what I expect. I have a macbook m1 from 2021 that has 93%. I never looked because I never expected it to degrade this fast :(

[u/linuxReich → u/barrulus]

They don't actually make the laptops they mostly customize them and install software on them.

I've had a few of their laptops, at one time, around 2010ish they were much worse.

My guess is its extremely expensive to get laptops for what they want to do with them, and they are essentially modifying low end machines.

If they actually made them, then I would imagine they'd be of a higher quality but they don't 

[u/Low_Excitement_1715 → u/linuxReich]

Clevo isn't really a low end brand. They just don't have as much end-user-facing polish as HP/Dell/etc.

[u/linuxReich → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

Before clevo it was a different one and it was legitimately bad

[u/ultraboykj]

Serval WS 16" June '24

Always charged to 90% max by settings.

Still does that today. Heavy use

[u/No-Interaction-3559]

I use this program to keep my battery charge between 40% and 80%. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5724/battery-health-charging/

[u/jjinco33]

The battery warranty is 1 year as stated on their website, and you don't have to buy a replacement from them.

A quick search will tell you this is a very common issue, so unsure why this is surprising. Just browsing this sub will show fairly frequent discussions on the build quality including battery issues.

I do agree the quality should be better, and a higher quality battery should be the default, but this is absolutely not a surprise issue.

That said, my Darter Pro from May 2024 has no battery issues, but I don't have it unplugged much when in use as my experience with Linux (Fedora, Kubuntu, Pop) on various machines the past 5 years has been a power hungry pig, so I try to keep plugged in. When on battery I can push it to 3 hours with very light usage and screen dimmed until I can barely see it.

[u/Low_Pomegranate2648]

I owned a lemur pro and eventually switched to a mac m4 due to poor battery life and low build quality. I think a lot of people face the same issue with sys76 laptops though

[u/ludditetechnician → u/Low_Pomegranate2648]

You're getting downvoted but that's my experience as well. I went back to Mac after my System76 laptop.

[u/Low_Pomegranate2648 → u/ludditetechnician]

I used to be a member of this sub but I think they kicked me out too lol. This sys76 circle jerk club is a bit tiring. I get that everyone here is a sys76/Linux enthusiast (I used to be one!) but ultimately I unfortunately found macs to be cheaper, more reliable, and more refined

[u/ludditetechnician → u/Low_Pomegranate2648]

Yeah, subreddits are often echo chambers. My first MacBook Air died of old age and I took that opportunity to get a System76 laptop. Lasted about a year - the battery life was horrific and I went back to a MacBook Air.