The System76 Galago is Fast August 21, 2013
More exploration
So, I've been doing more exploration and work on the System76 Galago Pro.
If nothing else, the machine is blazingly fast. I compared compilation speed for Lift and the Galago is faster than my Intel 3770-based desktop. On the laptop, a full Lift build takes 44 second and on the desktop, it takes 47 seconds. The laptop has dual-channel 16GB RAM and the desktop has quad-channel 32GB of RAM.
I've never had a laptop that's outperformed a previous generation desktop for Scala compilations.
I am still waiting on the replacement keyboard for the Galago and the trackpad is still less than optimal... but as a mobile development box, the Galago has the performance I'm looking for.
And to put the number in perspective, my 15" MacBook Pro with 2nd generation quad-core i7 took 87 seconds to do the compile and my 13" MacBook Pro Retina with a 3rd generation Core i7 chip took 89 seconds to do the compile.
Yay.