Do check the reviews, though. For a while, system76 had a terrible reputation for quality, and none of them compare to my t420 even today, as far as I can tell.

I bought a System76 laptop this summer, to replace one I bought in 2012. Both worked great for me. My Ubuntu 14.10 upgrade went off without a hitch, and the 2012 laptop has upgraded without problems as well.

How is the build quality? How is the keyboard these days?

I do seem to have to bang hard on the space bar. It has not been enough of a problem for me to see if I can tune spacebar sensitivity in software.