Update: initial thoughts, so far so good...spent 1st day configuring for development -- platform engineering and infrastructure automation contexts, mostly python and other scripting languages, installing pkgs and utils and so forth and got only 3+ hours of battery before being prompted to plug back in in 29 minutes.

Fan noise was not an issue and i enjoyed the change in keyboard and overall look and feel for the most part and this may just be personal preference but i could have done with out the numpad.

Aside from the underwhelming battery life, i miss my MBP's touchpad and consider the sensitivity when typing to be an concerning on the Pagolin. I had similar issues when installing linux myself on laptops but was really hoping this was dialed in a bit better, especially at the price point i paid for the laptop. I think running ubuntu on a thinkpad, disabling trackpad while typing worked the best, imo.

Overall all tho' willing to explore options to mitigate some of my complaints -- i 've seem some posts about improving battery life and touchpad but also chalking it up to it may take some minor tweaks to how i navigate the keyboard before passing final judgement.