OEM Recommendations

Recommendations

The following are recommendations for hardware designed to run elementary OS. While they are not requirements, meeting these recommendations will ensure your product more closely aligns with the design of elementary OS itself.

These recommendations are in flux. We should probably come up with some sort of ranking, i.e. strong recommendation versus nice-to-have. This might also not end up being the final location for these, i.e. we could put them at elementary.io/oem. But this is a place to draft them for now.

Branding

OEMs must follow the elementary Brand and Trademark usage; please review them and ensure they are followed with all hardware, marketing materials, website copy, social media posts, etc. in relation to elementary OS.

On Hardware

elementary branding and trademarks should be used only in very specific circumstances when it comes to hardware:

• Never on the hardware itself unless the hardware was explicitly designed by elementary, or is being marketed by elementary as a first-party elementary device. Consumers expect the hardware's branding to represent who makes, sells, and supports the hardware—the elementary branding should not be used unless that is elementary. Instead, we recommend the OEM's own logo be used where a consumer might expect a brand mark on the hardware, i.e. on the back of a laptop display or the front or top of a desktop computer. Alternatively, no/minimal branding may be used to keep the hardware clean, allowing the hardware's design itself plus the software to take the spotlight.

• Never as the “Super” key; instead, we recommend the ⌘ Looped Square symbol or the word “Super” be used.

• Only to refer to the software i.e. in any marketing materials, on any packaging, or on any product listings. It is important to distinguish that a product is not designed by elementary, but comes with or may have been designed to run elementary OS.

• Never as part of the product name, i.e. a product should not be listed as “elementaryBook” or similar combinations of elementary brand names. For product listings, “with elementary OS” may be used at the end of a product name for differentiation, i.e. “Brandname Laptop with elementary OS.”

OEM Boot Logo

Depending on the boot speed of the device, any of the following may be appropriate:

• No boot logo (i.e. black screen). If the pre-OS portion of the boot is a fraction of a second, it might be better to omit an OEM boot logo. Otherwise, it flashes briefly and just adds visual noise.
• OEM boot logo. If the pre-OS boot logo is shown for a moment, it should be on a black background. This ensures it flows more nicely with the elementary logo on a black background.

If an OEM boot logo is provided, we recommend following the Microsoft guidelines for size and positioning to ensure a seamless transition between power-on and loading the operating system. Namely, the logo should be high resolution, have a solid black background, and have its center at 38.2% from the screen's top (golden ratio).

Devices should not use the elementary logo in a boot splash before the OS; i.e. if a user installs an alternate OS, the elementary logo should not appear on boot.

Display Size & Resolution

elementary OS does not support non-integer (fractional) scaling. Thus, it is important that displays use a combined size and resolution that results in a readable and crisp display for users when using either 1× or 2× scaling. We consider under 192 DPI to be "loDPI" and above to be "HiDPI," though the exact ideal ranges are more nuanced.

Use Dippi to ensure your display is in an ideal range for either loDPI or HiDPI. We also strongly recommend using the term "HiDPI" if you device display meets the ideal range at 2× scaling.

See What Is HiDPI? for more details.

Function & Media Keys

Ideally, function keys on a laptop would cover controls (i.e. "media keys") that show on-screen confirmations:

• volume (mute, up, down)
• display brightness (up, down)
• keyboard brightness (if backlit)
• media playback (play/pause, skip)

Since elementary OS does not make much use of F1–F12 keys, ideally a keyboard will perform the media key functionality first, and F1–F12 functions when using a "Fn" modifier key. Ideally this is also reflected in the prominence of the design of the keys: icons for media keys should be larger and more prominent, with the F1–F12 designations smaller.

If an "airplane mode" media key exists, it should be togglable in software as well to prevent accidental and seemingly-unrecoverable network outages.

Power, Suspend/Resume

If possible, a laptop should automatically turn on when the lid is opened—Chromebooks do this, and it reduces the time from getting out the laptop and getting to work. If a power button is used to turn on a device, it should be instantaneous (i.e. not requiring the user to hold it for a second).

Ideally, a laptop should also automatically resume when opening the lid—not requiring pressing a power button, keyboard key, or trackpad. Barring that, any of those interactions should wake the laptop.

Trackpad

A smooth, large, button-less multitouch trackpad works best with elementary OS. The trackpad should support two-finger multi-touch for scrolling and in-app gestures, and three-finger multi-touch for future gestures in the OS.

USB-C

Ideally, a laptop would include at least one USB Type-C port, allowing charging via the port with the included charger. It should be made clear if the port is just USB-C or Thunderbolt—Thunderbolt is preferred due to its versatility, but DisplayPort Alternate Mode is the next best option so users can at least use it to connect displays.

Stickers

Ideally, no stickers (e.g. Intel Core i7 8th Gen or Sound Blaster stickers) would be placed on user-facing sides of the computer. They devalue the look and fight the minimalist aesthetic of elementary OS.

DMI Information

It can be beneficial to ensure DMI information is provided accurately and consistently. In general, elementary OS may make use of the following DMI information:

• sys_vendor for the OEM, e.g. Star Labs, Slimbook, System76, etc.
• product_name for the series/model, e.g. LapTop Mk IV, Pro X, Meerkat, etc.
• product_version, for a specific model number, e.g. labtop4, prox14, meer1, etc.