MALIBAL Lotus P151HM1 First Impressions

I picked up my laptop last night, after very speedy shipping by MALIBAL. I have to say I'm very impressed, the first thing that struck me as I unpacked it was the look of simple luxury. The laptop is sleek and simple, uses no accents or special textures to draw attention, and the MALIBAL branding on the lid also adds to the elitist feel of the laptop. I come from a series of HP's and Toshibas, so this simple sleek look is a big plus for me.

My P151HM1 Specifications are:

Upgrade to 95% Gamut Glossy Screen
Intel i7 2670qm processor
Nvidia GeForce 560m GPU
750GB 7200rpm Main HDD
750GB 7200rpm Secondary HDD (Instead of Opticsl Drive)

After setting installing windows 7 and all of my programs, as well as moving over all of my files from my old computer, I began testing out it's features. The wireless seems a bit slower than my old HP, but I'm thinking that's because of the fact that there is more computers on the network now, rather than before. Some people don't like the graphite/plasticky texture of the palm rests and touch pad, but I think they're fine.

I actually prefer the textured feeling of this touchpad to the glossy slippery feeling of my old HP, simply because you can feel dirt, grease, and other things far more easily on the glossy touchpad. In regards to the keyboard, it's great, and very responsive. It's my first time using a chicklet style keyboard, and I was worried the space between the keys would prove to Be rather annoying, and I'm glad I was wrong. I can type fine, and baring the usual adjustment period with new computers, it feels great. Speaking of that adjustment, the enter key is wider rather than tall, and the escape key is where the insert key should be, and vice versa; outside of that though, the keyboard is great, and I will get used to all of that in time.

The screen was a big point of inspection for me. Having upgraded to the 95% gamut glossy screen, I immediately compared it to my old HP laptop screen, and wow was I impressed! Colors are much more vibrant, much clearer, and blacks are much darker; all leading to a much better picture. I would proudly advise anyone on the fence about upgrading screens to go for it, it's very much worth it. This applies especially for anyone thinking of watching videos or movies on it, as well as those thinking of doing photo editing. My only nitpick about the screen is that; because it's 1080p on a 15.6" screen, the text and icons are very small - this is easily fixed by changing the size within windows however, but when I plug it into my 32" LG TV, running at 720p, the size of windows, icons, and text are very large. This is a bit odd, as it leads to having small-ish text on the laptop display, and large text on the TV. I will get used to it no doubt, but I wish that windows let you set different sizes for different screens.

The laptop itself is rather heavy, easily being heavier than my old HP, the power brick is also just that - a brick. It's almost twice the size of it's HP brother, and weighs much more. The power cable overall is about a foot less in length as well. Outside of weight, theres no big complaints here; the laptop is heavy, but extremely solidly built, leading to a feeling of strength and confidence that it will be able withstand any bumps it may take. Not that I plan on testing that.

My laptop goes from cold boot to all programs loaded/logged-in/idling in about 2 minutes, which isn't bad for a laptop using a mechanical hard drive. Speaking of having a mechanical hard drive, that is the only thing holding it back. My windows experience index is a 5.9 because of it, but would be a 7.2 otherwise. Needless to say, this laptop is the most powerful I've owned and I'm very impressed by it.

I have not been able to test much else outside of this, but I will be sure to update these thoughts once I try a few more things out on it. If anyone has anything they need to know about the laptop, be sure to ask here or pm, and I'll get back to you.

TL;DR: Thanks so much MALIBAL for building me such a kick laptop and making the purchase so easy, you have great service, and the laptop kicks !

PS: This was typed on my iPad, forgive any spelling mistakes.

 

Glad to hear you like it! Please contact us if you have any questions or issues that come up while you get used to it

As for the wireless speed, do you have a wireless N router? You may want to go through the control panel > network and sharing center > change adapter settings > right click on the wireless > properties > configure > advanced. Change the channel bandwidth to auto. If you have an Intel wireless card, the newest Intel drivers (from the Intel site) may also help.

 

Did you opt for screen calibration? Using any ICC profiles?

 

I have to say, the speakers aren't that great. The quality is there, but they sound so.. distant. Does anyone know how to fix this? I've installed all the latest drivers.

Also, to the above, I didn't opt for calibration.

 

Have you activated THX TruStudio Pro? It makes a big difference.

 

I have, it does make a big difference, but the sound isn't as upfront as I'm used to. It is clearer, and the bass is better, but it just sounds different, and distant.

My old HP dv6 had better speakers, I think. Can anyone else offer their input on this? Is it just a different sound that I need to get used to? Or are the speakers just not that good?

 

You're not alone on this.. sound is pretty bad for these machines

 

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new laptop, thanks for the quick review!

 

tested any games?

 

I haven't gotten around to testing any games, I'm still trying to get rid of all the minor annoyances first.

I commonly have this laptop hooked up via HDMI to my 32" LG TV, and it's usually for playing music or anime. The later works fine, but whenever I am playing music through the HDMI connection while doing homework, it will stutter when I change windows or do anything like that. It's a quick stutter/slowdown of the audio, then it goes back to normal; it's really annoying. Does anyone know what causes this and what might fix it? Is it a driver issue?

 

could it be the music player? try a different player like winamp or itunes if u are already using the windows media player. Or it could be the TV

 

It's now like that when I'm watching youtube, using itunes or WMP, or using MPHC to watch anime - be it on or off the HDMI.

I don't know what's wrong, but if you have any ideas, please post them in the MALIBAL Lotus P151HM1 Sound Issues thread I created in this forum - thanks..

 

Thanks for your review!
How do you feel about the number pad on the keyboard?