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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.pentagram.com/work/caligra-c100-developer-termin...
https://customer-i8ks9tgi5lkllj0i.cloudflarestream.com/c60aa...
Site looks good but it might mean c100 have no substance, thus at least had to make the site and their gadget pretty.
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.
its a computer. it does computer things, and you can use it for whatever computer things you want.
The esthetic and form factor is the appeal
but much larger, heavier and with a specific keyboard.
What a waste of material and machining time!
Am I missing context here that others have that make this website sufficient?
This hardware runs an operating system that requires a subscription for commercial use? https://caligra.com/workbench/#pricing
This should be the standard quality for Linux machines.