After first announcing it in 2022 and then spending four years not shipping it, Star Labs has finally made its premium StarFighter laptop available for purchase. The UK-based Linux hardware company, known primarily for budget and mid-range machines, is making a deliberate push upmarket with a 40.6 cm (16-inch) notebook built around a magnesium alloy chassis that weighs just 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs) and measures 20 mm (0.8 inches) thick. It is one of the few laptops on the market designed from the ground up for Linux, shipping with your choice of Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, Manjaro, elementary OS, MX Linux, Zorin OS, or even Qubes for the security-conscious. Sitting beneath those distributions is an open-source firmware stack built on coreboot and edk II rather than a proprietary BIOS, with the StarFighter documented in the upstream coreboot project and all firmware releases published on GitHub. The May 2026 firmware update (26.05) brought StarFighter-specific additions including tunable haptic trackpad controls exposed directly in the firmware setup interface, custom power profile limits (PL1, PL2, PL4, and CPU thermal throttle temperature), and per-port PCIe power management options.
Three configurations are available. The base model pairs an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with 32GB of LPDDR5x-7500 memory and a 2560 x 1600, 165 Hz IPS display for $1,878 (€1,728). Stepping up to the 3840 x 2400, 120 Hz panel, an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H with 64GB of RAM runs $2,843 (€2,616), while an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS variant with the same 64GB and 4K display tops out at $3,573 (€3,287). All three ship with a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD, though a second M.2 2280 slot is available for expansion. Connectivity includes WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 via an Intel AX210 card seated in an M.2 2230 slot, and a hardware wireless kill switch lets you cut all radios instantly.
The port selection is generous for a thin notebook. Intel models get two Thunderbolt 4 ports (USB4 on the AMD variant), three USB Type-A ports, HDMI 2.0, a microSD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio jack, all powered by a 65W USB-C adapter and backed by an 80 Wh battery. The standout privacy feature is a magnetically attached 1080p webcam that physically detaches from the display and stows inside the chassis when not in use, going well beyond the typical webcam shutter approach. Combined with the backlit keyboard, glass haptic trackpad, and upward-facing stereo speakers, the StarFighter positions itself as a serious contender for Linux users who want flagship-tier hardware without compromising on software freedom.
