XoticPC vs Malibal

Okay guys, I was originally going to buy an ASUS g53sw-a1 because of the decent price on Amazon, but someone (Kingpinzero) introduced me to the Sager NP8150 and the Lotus P150HM. I've decided to spend a little more than I would have spent on the ASUS to get a more reliable machine because I've read quite a few horror stories about the g53sw model.

Now, I had never even heard of XoticPC or Malibal before today, and basically my question is. Which site do you guys think is better? And why? Please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot

 

Both have great online reputations. Both are BBB A+ certified. Both are active participants in this forum. And both have Black Friday deals going on right now! =)

To be honest I'm an XoticPC fan due to working with Justin and having him work with me on my custom gaming rig / order. But I've heard just as good things about the reseller Malibal (which is based out of Nevada)

Check out the reseller FAQ (stickied on the top of this forum) - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...eller-info-read-before-posting.html#resellers

Let me also say that Sager / Clevo (same company) allow for SO MUCH MORE flexibility in upgrading your computer. You can upgrade just about anything quickly and easily on these machines. No need to "tear it down to the screws" to replace something like on the Asus machines.... this also includes graphics cards.

Feel free to spec a system out and post the details, we'll help you along with the process.

 

The vs part seems to be a bit tense..

Both resellers are excellent in service, price, etc.

To be honest you can't go wrong with any of the resellers on this forum.

 

Cool, that definitely makes me feel good hearing you guys say that. Because my fear was that I would buy the g53sw, it would work while I was visiting my family in CT, then a few months or a year down the road it would have some kind of issue and I would be stuck in Costa Rica with a 1,000$ paper weight lol.

When I put the specs that I wanted in the website, I basically got a similar price on both websites. I was basically looking for comparable specs to the g53sw-a1, but with the newer gtx560m 192-bit 1.5gig ddr5 vram card. Both sites quoted me at around 1,200 which is a little more than I wanted to spend, but I guess I can just wait until next Wednesday when I get paid instead of buying it for Black Friday/Cyber Monday :/

EDIT: I can probably get it tommorow. Just got off the phone with my girl, and she said she could lend me the extra money I need to get it this weekend. This girl really knows how to make me happy ahaha.

 

Don't quote me on this, but I'm sure Xotic or Malibal could give you a quote that would be good till wed perhaps? dunno...

Regardless the machines are great. Check the reviews online.

p.s. the stock card in the Clevo's kick the G53SW's @ss =)

 

i have a question...but im sure you been in NBR for a while..and looking at xotic/malibal deals for years probably...
which deal is better? Christmas deal or Black friday deal? im waiting until Christmas cus that is the best time to buy because of sales...but i dont know if Xotic/Malibal does Christmas Deals as their best one...for the NP8130

 

right now malibal wins hands down with their crazy black friday deals!! better get one by monday man! i will be getting the bigger bro of p150 both sites are awesome

 

Well both Xotic and Malibal have price guarantees till the end of the year, so in the regards of "the best price until Christmas" that will be null and void based off of their sales.

In regards to the Black Friday deals Malibal looks better on paper to me, but that's my .02 cents. Please note that the NP8130 will NOT run a higher end graphics card without a different power brick, and this isn't offered by default. So you might want to look at the 8150 so you have a better upgrade path down the road (again YMMV, just pointing it out to you).

And yea i've been here awhile ^_^ Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Ok guys, I was comparing these 2 Latops on both sites...

Sager NP8150 / Clevo P150HM - XOTIC PC

Lotus P150HM - MALIBAL

I notice that in the section for memory, they have an option to subtract 50 bucks from the price if you choose this memory

(8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 4 SO-DIMM

what is the difference between that and the 2 SO-DIMM? Is the 2 SO-DIMM better? Or is that some kind of BF/CM deal?

 

The 8GB 4 DIMM is 4 2GB RAM modules, the 8GB 2 DIMM is 2 4GB RAM modules. The 2 DIMM is better as it leaves 2 more RAM slots open if you want to add more RAM in the future.

 

The Sager laptops allow a maximum of 4 dimm's of memory to be installed (2 under the keyboard and 2 under the main access panel.

The benefit of 2 x 4GB sticks of memory is that you can drop 2 more sticks in at any time without needing to remove memory.

Traditionally memory in lower sizes cost less (so 4x 2GB sticks cost less than 2x 4GB sticks). This is why there is a discount.

If you don't plan on upgrading the memory on this laptop for awhile then you can go with 4x 2GB sticks if you want. Just realize that down the road if you upgrade your memory you will need to remove and toss some of the memory in the laptop. Having 2 empty slots give you the added flexibility to upgrade without the "loss" of your old memory

 

So if I'm cool with 8gigs of ram then I should go with the the 4 DIMM right?

 

Yes, but personally I think it's worth the extra $50 to have to option to upgrade your RAM at a later date without tossing some of the memory you already have.

 

Yea, but honestly what am I going to do with more than 8 gigs of ram? lol

 

On the other hand, Supersonic, most people don't even use 8GB, and that $50 might be used toward a different upgrade. Sure, with an unlimited budget I'd agree with you, but that's often not the case. Plus, it's not like you have to toss the 2gb sticks: just sell them (admittedly for really cheap, but still) or hold onto them if you think you might have a use for them at some point in the future.

 

More is always better lol, though the vast majority of people would never utilize it. But yeah if you don't think you'll ever upgrade, it'd be kinda pointless and you can use the extra $50 for IC Diamond or something.

 

By the way, How is the cooling system with the Lotus p150hm and the Sager np8150? Will I need to pick up a cooling pad or what?

 

Cooling is pretty good, a pad isn't really necessary (unless you plan on overclocking), though it couldn't hurt. Skyrim is really pushing my GPU pretty hard, seeing temps in the mid 80Cs so I would definitely recommend the upgraded thermal paste, unless you're capable of doing it yourself.

 

To me the most important upgrade is the 3 yr warranty (only 150.00). Just my .02 cents

 

I am in the same boat with you iMaculate. I am looking at xotic and malibal right now. My only concern is the build quality of the laptops I am looking at. My sager np9262 failed horribly after 3 years. The connection for the LCD hinges snapped, both video cards eventually went out rendering it useless to me.

You want to think about upgrading in 2 years from now. I did not think it was a big deal but I found myself upgrade my old 6700 CPU with a newer one within a year because I wanted more out of my laptop

And a note for your cooling get the system either way, these performance rigs run hot and it is best to be over cautious and keep them cool then to fry some critical part on the MOBO.

 

I agree I will from now on buy a 3 year warranty because it seems at that mark things start to fail. I wish I had mine on my sager to be honest

 

Yea my plan was to use the 50 bucks i saved on the memory to upgrade the thermal compound.

Based on what I've seen, I'd say it looks like Malibal has better deals at the moment. I really like the looks of the free upgrade to the Radeon HD 6970M from the gtx 560m.

 

A side note. If I really take good care of this thing (I always take extra care of my stuff) about how many years do you think this could last me? Obviously it's impossible to tell because I've known people that have had laptops for 5+ years, and others who have had their laptops fail in less than a year. But any ideas based on personal experience?

 

I cleaned mine every month, kept it in the best of conditions, however mine was taken back and forth to work for 3 years straight and I think that attributed it to its wear and tear.

 

That depends on a lot of different factors, but I've never had a laptop fail on me, they just became obsolete. My P170 has run flawlessly for the 4 months I've had it, but that says nothing about the long term. I think the battery would be the first thing to go as they degrade over time. I'm looking to get 2-3 years out of this laptop, though the battery may need to be replaced during that span, especially considering how power hungry it gets. By that time I'll be ready for an upgrade and performance will likely have increased dramatically.

Do you game heavily? Do you want to be able to run new games at high settings/resolutions? Obviously technology will continue advancing, so you may find yourself needing more performance in the future (particularly the GPU). Also we don't know when the MXM standard is changing so at some point you will likely lose the ability to upgrade your GPU to newest available.

 

What would be the promotion that you guys would choose?

Lotus P150HM - MALIBAL

I'm leaning towards the graphics card upgrade. Any other opinions?

 

It looks like you may be able to use several, it doesn't specify using only one. I would definitely upgrade to the 6970M, it is significantly more powerful than a 560M.

 

Well, to be honest I don't have the time to be a "hardcore" gamer anymore. Although I was once upon a time. Basically I'm going to give the HP that I'm using now to my girl so she can have something for school. And I'm gonna buy something that I can do some gaming on (mostly on weekends) and do my work and school stuff on as well. So I guess the answer would be no. I don't game that heavily anymore, but I'm going to be visiting my family in the US for 1 month and I will DEFINITELY be playing Skyrim and BF3/MW3(not sure yet). So for that period I will definitely be doing some serious gaming. But whiel I'm down here in Costa Rica, I don't have a lot of time for gaming unfortunately.

 

Oh my god that's incredible if I can do multiple lol. I guess if it's possible I should go for...

-free shipping
-memory upgrade
-color calibration (do be honest don't know what the hell that is)
-graphics card

If I can get all that. I'm definitely going with Malibal lol

 

To have the color calibration I believe you need to have an OS installed.

 

Well, I have "my own" version of Windows 7 Ultimate that I plan on installing once I get this bad boy. So I definitely will not be buying an OS.

 

Well, there was a awesome deal on asus g53sw-a1 at frys.com last week for $899(which beats amazon's so hard), i told my friend and he bought one.
But I still stick to sager

 

Yea I saw that too, but there were no shipping options to Connecticut :/

I'm actually glad I didn't get the g53sw though, I'm really excited about getting the lotus p150hm. Looks bada$$

 

Yeah Malibal deals are awesome, I'm getting the 6990m though
and I'll never use the BR burner, and DVD rarely, so free HDD caddy for me

 

Hi, you don't have to purchase an OS to get the FREE Color Calibration. We include a disc that you can use to load the profile yourself.

 

sweet just added that option to my list then.

 

I've never done business with you guys, but I'm already loving how you do business

 

For me, I'd go with MALIBAL. its just me

 

I just bought a system from them! they are awesomeee! ill start a thread soon!