Ordered finally, Clevo P151HM1 from MALIBAL.

Finally made the decision and ordered a unit from MALIBAL today.

Total cost was about 1250 USD which should be come close to 1250 CAD in today's market. (200 was shipping, so the unit was 1.050)

Thank Gwilled for giving me some info as well as a Malibal rep from NBR.

I was going to go for Clevo model with 555M instead but after visiting Xotic PC, it turns out that the price is exactly the same after adding i7-2670QM, so I figured I'd go for 560M one instead. Granted 555M has Optimus but the unit is going to be plugged on 95% of its life, so battery life didn't matter to me.

I chose Malibal over Xotic PC for three seasons.
1.Malibal had less negative feedback. (Could be because Malibal is a smaller / less established company? Who knows.)

2.Malibal had superior website design with more detailed shipping description. Xotpic PC website had too much ball and whistles which were distracting me a little when trying to select components for order. Malibal also had an option to save money by choosing lesser HDD. I have plenty of good laptop HDD and SDD at home.

3. Canadian TAX is applied to unit, not shipping (I know some website says shipping is taxable but I've never paid tax for shipping for any big orders). Xotic PC Clevo unit came to 1151. Shipping was about 30% cheaper than Malibal due to their closer location to Canada while Malibal Clveo unit came to 1051 but with higher shipping. Overall, I chose paying less tax.

 

Congrats. Welcome to the family!

Their website also was an important thing that drew me to them at the beginning. One of the other things that helped seal the deal for me was their branding. I just like their brand logo better than the original Sager one. Now that I have seen both in person, I'm glad I got the Malibal branding.

 

I ordered mine today too *high fives all around*

 

Grats!! I placed my order as well on the 21st.

 

Congrats, hope you like it!

 

Congrats, I'm hoping to order mine soon.

 

Got an e-mail today and my CC details have been "verified".

 

Ya I hope the customer service for MALIBAL is top notch.

I sent an email to XoticPC but never got a reply from them but I guess it's because of holidays. I thought they were 24/7 support lol

 

My order was "Rush" (extra 50 bucks for faster assembly. They claim 1 ~ 4 business days).
I fully expect my laptop to be shipped out by this Friday. If not then, well, I don't know.

 

You and me both buddy!

 

How long did it take to verify your cc!? Is it because of rush delivery?

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk

 

About few hours as soon as their office opened. I don't know if it had anything to do with rush order though.

 

Alucasa, might I ask what kind of config you got on the machine? I'm looking into buying the same model and I'm trying to get a few data points.

 

I got the configuration down as cheap as possible except for CPU which I chose 2.2ghz quad, 2670QM, I think. I have all other components at home and I tinker with servers, so I am okay with handling laptops.

My unit cost about 1000 USD + 50 rush order.

 

Order shipped. Took 1 day of build time after my CC was verified and charged.

It should arrive next week since it's UPS Express.

 

Hey alucasa I too have ordered from Malibal recently and the some model too and also to Canada! Good luck with your order!! I am itching to get mine

 

Laptop arrived in a good condition this morning by UPS.

No dead/stuck pixels so far. A keyboard key was stuck hard but as it got warm, it corrected itself. I guess the laptop kinda got half frozen in the weather.

Since I didn't order OS and plan to install SSD, I will now install OS and see how it goes.
It's Intel SSD, so I don't suspect any compatibility issues.

Here is the time line of events.

2011 Dec 26th : Ordered. (Holiday)
2011 Dec 29th : Payment "verified" and charged later that day.
2011 Dec 30th : I received UPS tracking # via e-mail. My order was shipped out.
2012 Jan 3rd : Received the laptop in a good condition. Will commence testing soon.

 

doesn't get much faster than that for turn around time.

 

Did you order rush processing or anything?

 

Do you mind giving exact quotes for shipping to Canada from both XoticPC and Malibal? Was it still cheaper than getting one from Reflexnotebooks in Canada?

 

I, of course, tried Canadian reseller if possible, but for the same spec, I was going over 1400 CAD already. CAD - USD exchange rate has been about the same for 1 year now. USD being more than CAD does not stand a ground nowadays.

 

Few pictures before I install OS.

 

Can I haz one of your SSD's fo free

 

Really nice comparison pictures by the way, looks like you have all sizes covered

 

All is well so far. No sign of any system instability. Checked the screen throughout for any dead pixel. None so far. I have had the fortunes of never having laptops with any dead pixels over the years. I am glad that the record still lives.

The only minor problem I've encountered so far is Nvidia driver issue: the driver CD 64bit version seemed to be 32bit. I download the latest one off Nvidia website and got it done anyway.

This is my 2nd 15.6 inch laptop. I had a really old Toshiba one in late 90s. I also have a 12inch Samsung laptop I bought in early 90s

This is my first mid-size laptop with full HD resolution; boy the text look certainly small, even smaller than my Lenovo Y460.

 

I am from canada too, especially in Quebec. I see that it didn't take much time to get your laptop. It took like a total of 2-3 weeks ?

Here in Quebec, most of laptop sellers ive seen don't even know the word Clevo. I think its because i live in a region far from big cities.

 

It's about 1 week. And the delay is completely due to holiday season.

CC verification and charge was 1 day.
Build time was 1 day.
Shipping transit time was 1 day.
Took a total of 3 business days.

And we are taking about a custom laptop here.

 

The laptop is worth the wait though, because i know im getting a quality kick butt laptop.

 

Yes, i am aware we are talking about a custom laptop. Its just that all laptop where i live are not custom (Asus, MSI, etc...).

Thats a nice delay, if its due to holiday season what would be a normal delay?

 

@a lucasa: Did you order it WITHOUT the Malibal branding?

 

Yes, I did.

 

Congrats man! I hope everything works out perfectly for you.

 

I played Star Wars the old republic MMO on the laptop for 2 hours. The performance was good and the game play was smooth. The game was played at the full HD resolution.

Also ran Football manager 2012. I expected a big boost in progressing time compared to my Lenovo Y460 and it sure was, thanks to 2 extra cores.

Sound isn't very good, but it's laptop. I never expected state-of-art sound. But it's below average. My Lenovo Y460 had better sound, I felt.

No dead pixels, but I have a problem with the keyboard. Two keys (right Ctrl and left arrow key) are somewhat sticky. It works but the feedback from pressing the key is nil. It's as if something sticky is between the key and the keyboard. I will see how it goes, but those two keys are usually never used by me thankfully.

The laptop chassis has matte finish which means it will not leave much fingerprints.

I've installed all of my favorite programs: Photoshop CS5.1, Acrobat, Vue etc etc. I have yet to encounter any BSOD or system instability (even during gaming period). Gaming tends to be the best way to test system stability (besides crunching if you know what I mean) and it has passed the first phase.
Generally, when a laptop survives my first test, they tend to last a long time, so overall, I am pleased.

 

Hey, have you tested out the battery life?
Does it have a solid feeling? unlike cheap plastic feeling.

 

No, I am not going to test battery life. It will be plugged in most of time.

It's not cheap plastic feeling but it's very subjective.

 

Can you max out all of the settings while playing SWTOR including anti-aliasing at least at 4x or 8x at higher than 30 FPS?

 

AA on a small screen is a waste of processing power. AA is only needed when you are playing on a big screen (24inch +) I turned off bloom and was able to max. I didn't use AA.

And let us be honest (or be down to Earth) here. 560m is only as good as desktop 550. (not the Ti version)

 

The reason I'm asking is because I like to help out people with their laptop purchases. One of the most popular question nowadays is "Can it run SWTOR with max settings?" Since I don't ever plan on playing it, it's kinda hard for me to judge that accurately. I hate misleading people with my suggestions, and there aren't many reviews with benchmarks for that game yet. So with bloom/AA on it will be a little laggy? Do you have fraps to check in game FPS?

I personally see the difference with AA on/off while playing Skyrim on my 1680x1050 screen.

 

I wasn't aware anyone even used AA in modern games anymore... was under the impression it wasn't nessacary since resolutions are high/and game textures are so much more advanced....like wheels are round now because they are modeled that way...

 

I have fraps on my main PC but I don't bother using those. If my eyes can't feel any shutter, it means it's above 30 fps at least, probably ranging around 40 ~ 60.

I do feel the difference of AA on my main PC which has 1600x900 22inch screen, but I don't feel and find AA worth of devoting extra GPU power on any laptops other than 17inch +.

 

SWTOR is not a demanding game at all. anyway, it's made to look good even at lower settings.

 

Just a followup update.

My laptop had some keyboard issues. (sticky keys by no faults of my own) I created a ticket with MALIBAL.

The result was that they sent a replacement keyboard (by my request) and it arrived in 1 day. They apparently have some sort of office for sending out parts in Ontario, Canada.

The replacement keyboard was perfect.

 

Wow, that is all-around impressive. Nice to hear!

 

Oh, I just realized they sent P150 keyboard, lol
It has a rubberized surface between the keys. Doesn't matter though, heh.

 

The P150HM & P151HM1 use the same keyboard. There is no difference between them.

 

Are you absolutely sure?

The sticky keyboard I sent back had no rubberized surface. The replacement keyboard I received is rubberized.

Not that I am complaining; the difference is hard to notice and I don't care as long as the keys work the way it should.

 

i saw you have a lenovo, i would like to ask you which one is the best for high performance
Newegg.com - lenovo IdeaPad Y570 (08623TU) Notebook Intel Core i7 2670QM(2.20GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M

or malibal

now i have dell xps l502x i want a laptop better than my laptop.

 

The big difference between the P151HM1 and the one you linked will be in the GPU. The 555m is only about 60% of the performance of the 560m. Here are some benchmarks:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

I am not worry about GPU because i need the laptop for high performance, that is my first priority.

 

I'm not sure I follow. The GPU is the choke point in most high end laptops, so the higher the GPU = the higher the performance. With a quadcore i7, you're going to be limited by the GPU in most graphics intensive applications like games or benchmarks.