I feel sorry for any company trying to launch a new compute product during this window of extremely elevated RAM and SSD prices.

This looks well built with a lot of attention to detail. It’s impressive that the price isn’t higher for this level of machining and build quality on a low volume product.

I could see this doing well in some niche studios where they value design of all of the products in the office, but it’s a tough niche. The graphic and video designers are all going to be buying Apple. The CAD and engineering people want something with a real GPU. Most developers want a laptop that they can take with them. It’s nice that parts can be upgraded, but anchoring to that CPU is tough.

• applfanboysbgon

  today at 5:04 PM

  > window of extremely elevated RAM and SSD prices

  Is it a window? It seems likely to me that we're going to be paying the LLM tax on all of our consumer electronics for the rest of our lives.

• wang_li

  today at 4:48 PM

  Cost of RAM and SSD seems like a secondary challenge. Trying to piss up a waterfall is more in line with the reality that products that are first about design and second about capability face when entering the current workstation and laptop markets that have been iterated on for decades and haven't seen a dramatic new redesign ever.

  The closest such advance in recent years didn't happen and instead turned into the macbook neo. Apple could have released an OS for the iphone pro max model of phones that allow them to boot Mac OS when attached to a docking station. And sold a laptop formfactor docking station.

There's a lot of WTF here, including paying $1400 for a Linux workstation with 32GB of RAM and what looks like a mobile CPU, along with an integral keyboard that seems like it would give you RSI just looking at it. Who on earth is buying this?

• roryirvine

  today at 4:51 PM

  The form factor and "designed to run Workbench" bit made me think it was aimed at nostalgic Amiga enthusiasts without running afoul of whoever-owns-Commodores-trademarks-today.

  But https://caligra.com/workbench/#pricing suggests it's an awkwardly-reskinned Fedora with a $240/year subscription fee.

  So, er, yes. WTF?

I have one of the units from the first run where 96GB of RAM was offered.

Personally speaking I was buying it primarily for the design aesthetic (an industrial design partner from Pentagram was involved), but I've come to enjoy the Workbench OS UI features and associated shortcuts; I use it as a secondary work machine for various data science applications.

I can attest to the general build quality which so far seems high to me.

Here are some more informative photos:

https://www.pentagram.com/work/caligra-c100-developer-termin...

• nolist_policy

  today at 4:38 PM

  So from these pictures they just put an off the shelf minipc in a aluminium case and ship it with a matching keyboard.

• amarcheschi

  today at 3:50 PM

  I accidentally read "performative photos" and it still made sense. Mouse looks painful

  • swiftcoder

    today at 4:54 PM

    > Mouse looks painful

    There is something very "Apple 1-button mouse" about it, for sure

Cute, but for a device targeted at us "experts" (see the Pentagram design brief linked elsewhere in-thread), this feels like a missed opportunity to explore the last couple of decades of advancements in HID design that many of us have benefited from (e.g., a mouse designed off hand curvature, or a split keyboard). If you want to see computers for experts (albeit in a more restrained design space), look at Framework.

I found the UI really interesting. Nice to see a group really trying something new. This really feels a lot like the raw experimentation of computer types and styles in the 80s.

https://customer-i8ks9tgi5lkllj0i.cloudflarestream.com/c60aa...

• torginus

  today at 4:25 PM

  I think they are going for the super premium polished user experience, yet they waste space with adding foreign window decorators to apps that are supposed to integrate them (Chrome, Zed). And not sure why having a single smallish window and tons of empty space is good practice, when tiling wms have shown how to manage lots of windows and large screen estate efficiently..

Who came up with this and then designed it around a non-standard keyboard layout... Jail is the only answer.

• Tepix

  today at 4:31 PM

  Also it's close to ANSI layout, what about ISO? I want a german E1 layout(§), thank you very much.

      -- 
      § https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/E1_(Tastaturbelegung)#Umfang

Looks cute, but unsure what it does and why they made it and how i can use for what...

Site looks good but it might mean c100 have no substance, thus at least had to make the site and their gadget pretty.

• TheOtherHobbes

  today at 4:38 PM

  Famous Design House™ decided to make a custom computer. They took a nice PC, made a nice metal box for it, and attached another box to the back.

  You can put things in this box, which is an unusual accessory for a computer.

  They also made an OS which will cost a lot of money per seat per year.

  Then they took many clean smooth fingerprint-free photos and made a web site to try to sell it.

  The web site makes the box look nice but does a poor job explaining the rest.

  • yipinwong

    today at 4:57 PM

    Ty for the info.

    It sounds similar to System76, where they make pretty PC and OS (like Pop! OS) that goes with it

    Oh yes, no matter how good a product is, if marketing sucks, it might not roll.

• john_strinlai

  today at 4:15 PM

  >unsure what it does and why they made it and how i can use for what...

  its a computer. it does computer things, and you can use it for whatever computer things you want.

• dgellow

  today at 4:03 PM

  I’m not sure what you mean, it’s a mini PC. You can use it for anything you want.

  The esthetic and form factor is the appeal

Usually the ads on hacker news are accompanied by a press release or a technical writeup so that I at least learn something new.

Nice, I've always wanted my desktop PC to be coupled to the keyboard.

We're truly living through the cash grab era. $1400 + a yearly subscription for an extremely vague product that will likely lose support in 2-5 years.

• LeanOnSheena

  today at 3:44 PM

  OS subscription is only for Enterprise accounts. I have one of the first units and I don't pay anything for the OS

  • nolist_policy

    today at 4:54 PM

    Only for non-commercial usage tho.

Price aside, I'm all for mobile form factors that are not laptops. Laptops are an ergonomic disaster.

But I'm not a fan of connecting it to the keyboard instead. Why not just a mini pc with a built in battery?

This is an expensive design object that just happens to contain a laptop.

• dsr_

  today at 4:45 PM

  Comparable to https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro-m...

  but much larger, heavier and with a specific keyboard.

Dunno, they're promoting this to run their custom OS (which is Fedora based, but has brew apparently?) Not sure what is this, is this a cloud thing, hence the subscription? But the HW too expensive/powerful for that? Considering that is the main differentiator, yet they barely say anything about it, and it's quite hard to find screenshots, or any demos.

> The case is CNC milled from a solid block of aluminium

What a waste of material and machining time!

• torginus

  today at 4:11 PM

  Not sure on the first. Apparently almost all alumninum is recycled, and reused, as its melting point is super low compared to most metals, so its not quite as wasteful as it seems at the first glance.

• ffreire

  today at 4:18 PM

  Why?

• syntaxing

  today at 4:13 PM

  iPhones are iPads have a milled CNC “unibody” as well… Being able to dictate where to have more thickness helps a ton on the luxury feel. Most of the chips are recycled anyway into new billets.

  • xnx

    today at 4:17 PM

    Unibody is a very appropriate technique for a small portable device that needs to be strong from force in many directions. It is overkill for a keyboard.

    • syntaxing

      today at 4:39 PM

      Overkill is the point. Same thing for iPads and iPhones. It gives a luxury feeling. That and Chinese manufacturing have made milling a very cost effective manufacturing method.

Nice design, but the website is vague. What about the actual tech specs (not simply GB of ram and SSD space) or a picture of the "user-replaceable" internals? How about a picture of the port layout? About the workbench operating system, the information is also surprisingly light.

Am I missing context here that others have that make this website sufficient?

Can you get one with the numeric keypad on the right side?

I got an unsolicited LinkedIn connection request from a Sales Rep at Caligra (who wrote in the note) offering to 'send one over' to me essentially as a "trial" of this workstation. Says a lot that this is a serious part of their sales strategy.

I forgot all about the slabtop form factor: https://www.howtogeek.com/what-is-a-slabtop/

My fingers are curling up at the look of the angle on that keyboard. I love the idea and the aesthetic, but I could never use this full time.

Good look. What are the advantages over MAC or cloud VMs? If it is $500~$1000 it could be a good gift. And is the current size a little big? Could it be put into a bag?

• iammjm

  today at 4:17 PM

  But is mobility really what they were going for? I’m not sure, because they also purposefully increased the size and weight by adding the frunk

  • ygouzerh

    today at 4:27 PM

    I felt as well that they miss their window. This kind of rectangular shape with keyboard + computer would be great actually for digital nomad / people going to coworking spaces, but looks way to heavy.

    • watusername

      today at 4:53 PM

      > digital nomad / people going to coworking spaces

      Laptops with built-in screens make infinitely more sense for this population.

For a second, I thought that top part was like a tmux screen where I could run a multiplexer with agents and ... geez I'm tired, so much AI ugh. (Worst part is that I think I'd have fun with something like that)

Looks extraordinarily unergonomic and I don't get why I would need a number pad as a developer.

• torginus

  today at 4:28 PM

  As someone who does CAD on the side, I couldn't live without one.

I smell Amiga, especially if it is "designed to run Workbench."

The tray is really funny, but i doubt it'll find many customers

The children yearn for the Osborne.

My RSI flared up just looking at this keyboard. Hard pass!

Basically Teenage Engineering doing a laptop.

Why does it have a frunk?

• ge96

  today at 4:28 PM

  You can put your w in there

So a toolbox attached with a keyboard that has opposite layout, some new shortcuts and an OS that can be reproduced easily. So what's the point? One can go for design and hardware but is this really something that stands it out in 2026? I was wondering what I would put in the toolbox, maybe earphones, mobile stand, stationary?

• iammjm

  today at 4:19 PM

  The mouse seems like the most obvious choice for mobility. Other than that: pens? Or maybe lock the phone inside for a distraction free environment

why does it come with attached storage unit for my calipers?

• floren

  today at 4:53 PM

  Cuz you're a MAKER, just see the box of BOJACK-brand screws on top of the power supply in the action shot.

> Caligra Workbench Operating System

This hardware runs an operating system that requires a subscription for commercial use? https://caligra.com/workbench/#pricing

• roryirvine

  today at 4:54 PM

  And they don't define what they consider to be commercial anywhere that I can see. It's not mentioned at all in https://caligra.com/legal/terms-of-sale/

  Does checking work email count? Or buying something from Amazon?

• today at 3:43 PM

I'm glad PC manufacturers are taking snack drawers seriously. A shot of the IO would be nice and is the computer in the keyboard or in the snack box?

After seeing the price and the build quality, there's no more excuses for developers to suggest that they can't afford a Mac or Windows or Framework computer after buying this.

This should be the standard quality for Linux machines.

flagged. this should be on showHN. pretty much an Advertisement