The default editor in KDE Neon is KWrite. After having used Kate in Kubuntu for more than 5 years, KWrite simply seems primitive. Kwrite uses like 12MB of RAM.

Let’s uninstall it KWrite and install Kate on my KDE Neon

# apt purge kwrite

# apt install kate

Opening the same document in Kate now uses 16.7 MB of RAM. 

Comparing these 2 editors side-by-side, i think KWrite is somewhat cleaner to look at. But I miss the terminal plugin of Kate too much.

 

After loading that plugin, the memory usage of Kate jumped to 80MB. But I don’t think I’m much concerned about RAM on my ASUS ZenBook right now.

I think Kate should be the default text editor for KDE Neon to showcase the power of the KDE Desktop to people who want to try the bleeding edge technologies. On the other hand, Kate’s GUI can be further fine-tuned to be more minimal.

The Looks

It’s a really beautiful laptop; prettier than a MacBook Air and Pro IMO. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

My sister says it has a pinkish tint. I say it’s a purple tint. Unfortunately this tint was not visible in the shop while I was purchasing it. But it’s the inner  beauty that counts the most right?

The Inner Beauty

The specs-to-weight ratio of the ZenBook is unbeatable. ASUS managed to include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GEFORCE 940MX graphics card, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD into something slightly heavier than a MacBook Air.

It’s only a dual core CPU though. The laptop has no problem with me working on 2D graphics applications such as GIMP and 3D applications such Blender and Home Sweet3D. The UIs are really fast and responsive. However it would be best to do the final rendering for 3D applications a real 8 core desktop CPU if you have access to one. I think such renderings are done on render farms by professionals.

Windows Bloatware

Unfortunately the laptop wasn’t available without Windows pre-installed. There are not many bloatware on the pre-installed Windows 10 but some more cleaning is required.

I have no idea what this process is doing but it’s using my precious power from my battery.

Linux Support

Dual booting KDE Neon was very straightforward. Got it right the first time. I split the 128GB SSD drive into 2 partitions of 64GB giving Linux and Windows 10 equal space. Both Windows and Linux boot under 10 seconds. I feel that Windows boots significantly faster though like under 6 seconds.

The battery life on windows is quite satisfactory for such a power house; it averaged 5 to 6 hours of normal web browsing. I don’t know whether the LG Gram actually delivers 15 hours of usage. On Linux, the battery life is around 3.5 – 5 hours on average. Yep, Windows is going to be slightly more efficient due to having official NVIDIA and other drivers installed. Linux drivers do not benefit from the same manufacturer tuning. Linux efficiency is improving day by day.

Things I don’t like about the laptop

Call is Rich People Problems (first world problems) but these are some annoying things about it:

1. Screen opening angle a bit limited. A little inconvenient when using on the bed or on a standing desk
2. The speakers’ sound is really poor especially as compared to a MacBook Air. I’d be embarrassed to put my brand Harman/Kardon if I were the owner of that brand on this particular laptop. You need external headsets to enjoy your musics.
3. The fn key cannot be made default. To change the brightness of the keyboard or screen backlight or change the volume, you have to press the fn + F[0-12] buttons. e.g. To change the volume, I have to use both my hands to press fn and f11. Life can be hard.
4. No Play/Next Music button on the keyboard. Sucks right?
5. I don’t think it has an Ambient Light Sensor to automatically adjust my display brightness. I miss how my MacBook Air did it perfectly.

Conclusion

Excellent performance. Excellent portability. Ok battery. BFF <3