{"id":215105,"date":"2026-02-18T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/why-the-thelio-remains-my-favorite-desktop-of-all-time-and-its-not-even-close\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T00:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:35:08","slug":"why-the-thelio-remains-my-favorite-desktop-of-all-time-and-its-not-even-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/why-the-thelio-remains-my-favorite-desktop-of-all-time-and-its-not-even-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Thelio remains my favorite desktop of all time (and it&#8217;s not even close)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/home-and-office\/system76-thelio-desktop-linux-review\/\">Why the Thelio remains my favorite desktop of all time (and it&#8217;s not even close)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/home-and-office\/system76-thelio-desktop-linux-review\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/home-and-office\/system76-thelio-desktop-linux-review\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-18 21:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"g-text-large g-text-large-bold g-outer-spacing-bottom-xsmall\">ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"c-keyTakeaways_listElement\">\n<li><span>The System76 Thelio r3 comes in three configurations, starting at $1,499.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>It&#8217;s sleek, beautiful, powerful, and can handle anything you throw at it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Some might find it pricey, but the longevity, performance, and attention to detail is worth every penny.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been a big fan of System76 for years. They&#8217;ve been champions of Linux machines for a long time and every time I get a chance to work with one of their new computers, they never fail to impress me on every level that counts.<\/p>\n<p>I purchased my first system from the company (a Leopard Extreme) back in 2013. That machine served me for six years, at which point I upgraded to their latest offering, the <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Thelio<\/span><\/span>. That was back in 2019, and it performed like a champ until just recently, when the On\/Off button stopped working and one of the HDMI ports ceased to send a signal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: Want to develop your Linux skills? I&#8217;ve found the perfect distro for you<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although the second machine didn&#8217;t last nearly as long as the first, I had to remind myself that I purchased that first Thelio as soon as they were released, meaning it was a first iteration. Since then, the company has made serious changes to the Thelio line-up and improved each machine all around. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When my original Thelio hinted that it was on its last legs, I had to act fast. I spend a lot of time working at my desk, and that machine is essential to my day-to-day. So, I started configuring my new PC and quickly decided I was going to do something I&#8217;d never done: shrug off Intel. That&#8217;s right, I went the AMD route with a Ryzen 9 7900X (12 cores\/24 threads). The rest of the custom specs look like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>RAM &#8211; 32 GB DDR5 4800 MHz (1&#215;32)<\/li>\n<li>Internal storage &#8211; 500 GB PCIe4 M.2 SSD<\/li>\n<li>GPU &#8211; 8 GB AMD Radeon RX 7600<\/li>\n<li>Top ports &#8211; 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 (Type-C), 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 (Type A), Mic, Headphone<\/li>\n<li>Rear Ports &#8211; 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-A), 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A), 1x 2.5Gbps LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (Type-C)<\/li>\n<li>Rear Audio -&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/home-and-office\/system76-thelio-desktop-linux-review\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why the Thelio remains my favorite desktop of all time (and it&#8217;s not even close)&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/8a187056dd8ed817d88bdc96b07d098849caaca1\/2018\/11\/02\/5d710495-df0d-491a-9e3c-84b423778a12\/system76-thelio-series.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-215105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215107,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215105\/revisions\/215107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}