A Sleek and Slim Linux Laptop

The Aon S1 from MALIBAL is a custom-built ultraportable laptop that you can order with Linux pre-installed. While I hadn’t heard of the MALIBAL brand, I mostly enjoyed computing around the house and around town with this Linux laptop—mostly.

After spending two weeks with it, what stood out to me most was the portability and premium feel. There’s an accompanying premium price, and for your money, you get a solid but lightweight build that’s also easy to upgrade and repair. However, the Aon S1 is by no means perfect, with the battery and speakers bringing down the value a little bit. That said, customized with the maximum specs, the Aon S1 impresses with its capabilities as a commuter Linux laptop that approaches being a great general-purpose computer.

Design: Surprisingly Premium

In terms of ports, I never had need for any more than what the Aon S1 supplies: two USB-A, one USB-C, one Thunderbolt, one SD card reader, one 3.5 audio jack, and one HDMI port.

The Aon S1’s ports have no labels for types or versions, though. The MALIBAL storefront tells you the Aon S1 includes one standard USB-C port and one Thunderbolt port but doesn’t tell you which is which nor what version of Thunderbolt. With some command line sleuthing, I uncovered the fact that, whichever the Thunderbolt port is, it is Thunderbolt 4.

MALIBAL’s marketing emphasizes its laptops’ repairability, so I decided to preview that by popping the unit open for a peek. I couldn’t find any documentation in the box or online that showed how to open it, but eyeballing it was easy enough. Seven obvious screws and a few easily coaxed tabs on the backplate are all that stop you from getting at the Aon S1’s innards. It looked like replacing the RAM, storage, battery, and network adapter would indeed be a cinch.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Operating System: Linux’s High-Res Blues

One huge benefit of buying a Linux computer like the Aon S1 is that you’re spared from the technical process of installing a Linux operating system yourself. Better than that, you don’t have to worry about whether Linux will play ball with your hardware. You’re set up for success.

The MALIBAL Aon S1 I got came with Ubuntu 23.04 preinstalled (though you can configure yours with other Linux distros or Windows). Some apps came preinstalled as well, including Firefox and the LibreOffice suite. Installing other apps was easy with Ubuntu’s Software Center, and so was removing the apps I didn’t want—no manufacturer bloatware that takes special software just to get rid of.

There were a couple of apps, Heroic Games Launcher and GNOME Boxes, that were broken in the package format Ubuntu’s Software Center now defaults to, Snap. When you’re a Linux user, you are your own tech support, and I figured out through research that the simplest way to get usable versions of the apps was to install them as Flatpaks instead of Snaps. You do have to install Flatpak and enable Flathub on Ubuntu first to make Flatpaks available in Software Center, which required a few commands in the terminal.

I’m personally not a fan of Ubuntu’s default desktop environment (DE), GNOME. While it has a unique and modern aesthetic, GNOME, to me, feels cramped and restrictive, and the layout will take some getting used to if you’re coming over from Windows or Mac. My DE of choice is KDE Plasma, a flexible alternative with a more familiar default layout and the default if you choose Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu. That’s the beauty of Linux, of course: if you don’t like something, it’s almost always moddable or replaceable.

The most trouble I had with Ubuntu by far, though, was managing the display. Unfortunately, support for high-resolution displays on Linux, particularly in multi-monitor setups, is notoriously spotty. The laptop’s display alone was fine for the most part, but properly setting up an external monitor and using it as the primary display was a trying ordeal. So was the reset after disconnecting. Each usually involved much display settings fiddle-work and sometimes a forced reboot, hurting the Aon S1’s overall portability.

Also, I experienced a recurring bug in Steam for Linux where the client doesn’t respect scaling settings on high-resolution panels, making it appear so small on screen it was almost impossible to use. The May 5, 2023 beta update claims to have fixed this, but discussion on GitHub indicates it still isn’t fully resolved at the time of writing.

Performance: Great (With the Upgrades)

To put its performance to the test, I did some gaming on the Aon S1, taking advantage of the dedicated GPU. Just for kicks, I turned Cities: Skylines up to the highest graphics settings and resolution, and, despite the noticeable input lag, I was impressed by how good it looked. The battery was forecasting close to three hours in performance mode, which also surprised me. Notably, I was playing the Windows version of Cities through the Wine compatibility layer, which adds some overhead itself.

I also played Dirt 4 over Proton with ultra graphics settings. That put me around 20 FPS, while switching to “high” brought it to around 35 FPS. It’s by no means a gaming laptop, but so long as you can tolerate conservative graphics settings and lower-than-native resolutions, the Aon S1 doesn’t have to be all work and no play.

Battery Life

Keeping up that workflow, I could get four to five hours when set to Ubuntu’s “Balanced” power plan. By switching to the Power Saver plan, installing the TLP battery optimizer, turning off Bluetooth, and limiting screen brightness, I could boost battery life closer to six hours, but still not a full workday. If you have a lighter daily load, you might get better mileage, and I’ve heard Windows manages some laptop batteries better than Linux does. Still, I wish it’d lasted longer for me.

Display and Audio: A Looker, But Not a Banger

The speakers on the Aon S1 are on the underside, and while I’m no audiophile, the speakers sounded pretty good—at medium to low levels only. Once I cranked up above around the 60 or 70% mark, there was some very noticeable crackling. To be fair, laptop speakers generally aren’t known for their quality. I usually use my headphones or an external speaker, anyway, but I was still surprised at how easy it was to get unpalatable sound.

Webcam

The Aon S1 comes with a nice 1080p IR webcam capable of facial recognition. While it’s hard to get really good lighting in my home, it looked decent in meetings.

That said, I was disappointed the webcam didn’t come with a privacy shutter or kill switch like many other Linux laptops do. Considering how concerned most Linux users are with digital privacy (often a primary reason for using Linux), that omission seemed glaring. You can buy an external shutter, but I wouldn’t be surprised if even the “ultra-thin” shutters on Amazon prevented the laptop from closing all the way. (But hey, maybe that’d help with the keyboard-screen residue problem). Otherwise, to keep that webcam secure, you’ll likely be falling back on the old piece-of-tape trick.

Should You Buy the MALIBAL Aon S1?

There are other Linux laptops out there, including Purism’s security-focused Librem 14. It has a similar form factor but also a weaker CPU and no dedicated GPU option and is more expensive at that. If instead of the Aon S1’s base configuration you went with our favorite laptop, the Dell XPS 13, you could save $210 but get a lesser CPU, a smaller and lower-res screen, and fewer ports. That said, the XPS 13 notably includes Wi-Fi 6E support, a fingerprint reader, and better speakers.

The real value in any Linux laptop, though, is freedom from being locked in anyone’s ecosystem. You also have the freedom to repair and modify your laptop how you see fit (the XPS 13’s parts are soldered together). This also lets you spread out costs: you can choose the most inexpensive configuration and upgrade incrementally when you can afford it or with parts you already have. If you want to get on the road with your PC while getting away from Microsoft and Apple’s reach, the MALIBAL Aon S1 just might be your ticket.