" I bought the lotus series laptop about a year and a half ago and have been very pleased with it. Good price for what you get and it beats all the other big name companies out there. The customer service replies very fast with any questions you have.
However, fast forward a year and a half later when my warranty is up and my vga fan started making a loud noise (one of two fans inside the laptop) whenever my computer was on. I contacted them about it and was treated like a moron on the phone, the guy was practically mocking me. So I have a problem with the attitude of the costumer service. On top of that a month after my first fan went the 2nd fan is making a loud noise now and will have to be replaced (60$ a fan). So I would be wary buying from this company as is seems the parts they are using aren't of the best quality.I take good care of my laptop and make sure it has proper heat ventilation on a flat surface so I know the fault is not mine. Hopefully I can at-least use the 25$ gift certificate that I should be getting from writing this review to help pay for a new fan.

I don't need to read the reviews to understand the product quality since I have the broken laptop right in front of me making a very loud noise. Its not coincidence that both fans went bad, its obviously bad parts. "

"Malibal is a solid very professional company. They always answered my questions very fast and treated me very well. I placed an order for a custom built laptop and I received it within 2 weeks. I was very impressed with the quick turnaround. The laptop itself was extremely well made and I loved it except for one thing. I wasn't happy with default screen on the model. The viewing angles were limited and after about a week I decided to return it. I informed Malibal of this and they instantly gave me a RMA number. They made the return process very painless. I just had to pay for the shipping back (and insurance). Once they received my return shipment they refunded my money minus the original shipping costs which I think is fair. My only issue with the process is that you have to return the laptop to California (RMA Center) and then they send it to Malibal or informs Malibal of the return. I think it took about 2-3 weeks to get a refund which is a bit long. The only thing that did matter to me was that I actually got my refund in the end so I am happy.
Overall I am satisfied with Malibal and I would recommend them to a friend.
"

"MALIBAL's service was excellent.
At first I had some problems with payment due to the fact that I payed through an international money transfer, and wasn't aware of costs associated with this process, so they got less money than I transfered. We were able to clear this misunderstanding because I sent them a receipt of the transfer, and managed to quickly pay the remainder of the cost through paypal.
In the future, however, I would advise them to look at the description of transfers, if possible, so that mistakes like this one are more easily corrected.
I had a tight schedule for receiving the order. Because of the misunderstanding with the money transfer, this schedule was hard to fulfill. Their support was excellent in this matter, because only three days after we had cleared all the money issues, I had already received my order!
In general, MALIBAL was excellent in customer support, paument methods and shipping speed and methods, so I give it five stars - I'm very satisfied."

"It took a little longer to get the machine than the website led me to believe, but not by much, and the wait is so worth it. Love this thing!"

"The products are great, just amazing. However it did take just over 3 weeks from time of order to delivery. I think if one is buying a computer over $2000 maybe Malibal should including free shipping or upgrade to speed shipping. "

"the website was real easy to use and after I ordered it I had to verify my information and it was done with in 5 min of calling them. seem liked my order took a while to ship and and wasn't informed if it was being delayed or if it had already shipped but after I wrote a email to them I got a response back immediately. over all good experience and very nice product will be shopping with Malibal again. "

"This is one great company. They delivered my new laptop faster than any of their competitors could. The product is every bit as described and a pleasure to use."

"I just received my new Lotus with a matte screen, 256 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, 2820 processor, set it up with my utilities, PhotoShop CS5, Lightroom 3.3 and tested it. It is the fastest notebook I have ever used. It even beats my very fast tower with the 600 GB 15,000 RPM drive, 24 GB RAM, etc. The keyboard has a solid feel, the screen calibrated correctly with my i1 puck and the file processing simply flies. If you are a professional photographer, as am I, or a graphics professional, this notebook is highly recommended. The time I save alone will pay for this superb notebook in less than a year.
I reviewed several other notebooks before purchasing this. The MBP was about a grand more with fewer features. (Apparently you pay a lot to "look cool".) Others were just too expensive for the same feature set. The Lotus was a perfect combination of value and functionality.
Matthew always addressed my concerns quickly and succinctly (some could see this as abrupt but this is a virtue in my book).
Any negatives? It is not as light as an air or tablet but then it does real work. I hardly notice the fan, FWIW.
Bravo, Malibal!"

"I came across Malibal in a Google search and had never heard of them, so I researched them and wrote their customer service with questions before ordering. Long story short (1) customer service responds very fast (2) customer service is very knowledgeable and helpful (3) when customizing your laptop, they don’t charge an outrageous amount if you want to upgrade the hardware (4) very reasonable cost compared to what other companies would charge you for a similar build (5) price for the extended warranty is very reasonable (6) the warranty itself offers so much more than what you would get elsewhere. I’m very happy with the laptop I bought through Malibal and am very impressed with their outstanding cutomer service. Strongly recommended!!!"

"Got my Satori last week. Sandy Bridge CPU, 16 gb ram, NVidea GTX485m GPU,SSD main drive, etc.
Love the machine! Came in real clean, uncluttered (unlike my last PC).
AFter loading my favorite games on top of Windows, however, my 160 gb SSD seems kind of puny -- wish I had ponied up extra dough for a bigger one. Malibal would do well to help customers make that decision. In particular Windows easy transfer doesn't recognize my D: drive so I had to transfer data from my old PC in 50 gb increments. Not really Malibal's fault though. Anyway, I recommend the SSD primary drive -- the Satori booots in about 25 seconds, not counting typing in the password. Love it!
I had to wait a while after ordering. I has asked customer support if shipment of the Sandy Bridge units was going to be delayed and the reply was "will be shipping next week". After ordering and wating a while customer support told me that the PC's ordered in January were the ones shipping and mine would shipe before the end of the month. OK, I restrained myself from sarcastic replies. Sure enough the new PC shipped on Mar 28, so at least the revised shipping date was good. All in all, the experience was negative.
On the negative side, the PC is supposed to have a subwoofer. I wasn't expecting much, but mayber if a little sound would come out it would be nice. Tech support told me that the realtech driver was preloaded and that I needed to switch on the subwoofer from the realtech control panel. The test sound is about like a polite burp, not what I expected.
I tried to load the audio driver myelf but the driver page on Malibal's website is mostly nonfunctional.
On the plus side, and this is a big one, the new PC is quiet and doesn't run hot, unlike my last laptop, which was always hot with the fan blasting constantly even under moderate loads. Also , the fan exhausts out the back away from me.
The day the PC came in I loaded Dragon Age 2, installed the hig def patch, cranked the video settings up to max and...ok, bogged down to maybe 5 frames per second. I turned the detail down a bit and it runs fine. Wonder what Crysis would do, probably the same. My old laptop was maybe 15 frames a secon on much, much lower video settings. so the new machine is a giant step up. Not desktop speed. But it was a concious decision not to get the Nine series at 5 lb heavier and >$1000 more with the second GPU, etc.
OK, to make a long story short, I'm highly satisfied.
Update: Got Crysis 2 over the weekend and it runs flawlessly at maximum graphics settings. (wish I could say the same about my gameplay...)"

"Overall I would say ordering from Malibal has been a positive experience. Due to the Intel Sandy Bridge CPU recall, I cannot give an accurate review of Malibal's general service. I was very frustrated by the company at times and very happy with the company at time. Great USA based support, but since they would never gaurantee a shipping date (which I assume to be normal) I was very irritated because I needed to receive the order before moving. I did receive the order however and am really enjoying my purchase. I recommend Malibal for individuals who want solid hardware and great prices.

They responded very quickly to all my questions and emails."

"I am very happy with the product I have received. Everything I requested was accomplished and I have had a satisfactory experience with the Satori 17.3" laptop that I have purchased. I received the laptop weeks ahead of time, despite their backup with the second gen i7 recall. I have suggested this retailer to my friends and am willing to do business with them in the future. I did have an issue with Malibal requesting two holds on my credit card, once for the initial order, and a second time for the actual build two weeks later. I was able to rectify it with my credit card issuer."

"I first ordered my laptop for video editing (using adobe CS5 suite) from Malibal in January because the pricing was good, but the customer service was excellent! About a week after I paid for my laptop, Intel had a recall on a chip on the motherboards and the production got held up about a month. Malibal refunded my money (they offered) and still kept me in the build que for my laptop! How awesome is that! I didn't have plans of using anyone else and I'm glad I didn't. The laptop is everything I wanted and then some! All of the features are awesome. They gave me just enough options to build my laptop without making it confusing with an abundance of options (thankful for that). When I get another video editing laptop, this will be the place I go."

"I know there have been several concerns about timelines and order status, etc... So ill do an order status logical flow for people to get a good expectation. However, I am aware that the whole Intel issue has since been resolved, so timelines should now be a lot better.

Order Details and Timeline:

I ordered the Satori (P170HM-S1) on the 25th of February.

Display: 17.3" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit GlassView Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.3GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 485M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 120GB Intel® X25-M (510) SATA III 6 GB/s SSD2 Drive
Hard Drive 2: 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA-300
Optical Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium; 64-bit
Wireless: Intel® 6230 Advanced-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN and
Bluetooth Card
Cooling: IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU

I paid with the cash option through PayPal. The actual check cleared my account on the 28th of February for a total of $2,502 that includes UPS ground shipping. (Cash and Military Discount)

The order was processed and confirmed from Malibal on the 2nd of March. The laptop eventually shipped from Malibal on the 24th of March (From California) and delivered to me (Tennessee) on the 30th of March.

Customer Service Experience:

On several occasions I contacted Malibal to get an expectation update on the build time and estimated ship date. These contacts ranged from two ticket submissions to 3 online chat sessions. The tickets were responded to within 15 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. In the chat sessions, I was usually told "one sec" and then a response on their estimated ship date. Usually another week :(. I, like most, really wanted my laptop ASAP :).

Laptop Details:

My laptop arrived yesterday and I have had time to un-box, fully install my preferred software (office/Rift/WoW/SC II) and test out Rift.

First impression of the physical characteristics of the laptop is that it is a very sturdy and slightly lighter laptop than my previous Gateway 7800 FX. It "feels" slightly lighter. The case also feels sturdier with less creaks and bends as I pick it up and move it from room to room. The top is a ruggedized appearance metal polish with the same for the palm rest. The keys are ruggedized plastic in appearance. It also has a small "Malibal" logo on the lid.

Having read other reviews I’ll skip past describing the laptop characteristics to address key concern areas I have seen in the forums; as I am sure people can read full laptop detailed reviews elsewhere.

Screen: I personally like a glossy screen. I play, usually at night, and sit in my Lane facing the TV. The glossy screen is much better than my Gateway 7800 FX. The images appear crisp and well lit. When the sun it out in the window behind me, I do not have any issue seeing objects on the screen and playing games. I have no experience in comparing the stock screen to the Matte upgrade, but I do know that if you’re worried that the screen itself will leave you wanting, then don’t. This screen is much better than the ones I have experienced previously (Dell 1530/Gateway 7800 FX).

Keyboard: I actually like the "chiclet" keyboard for this laptop. I am one that really likes to keep between the keys clean. The design of this keyboard and key separation makes cleaning the laptop easy. A simple damp rag works fine. I don’t need to waste canned air to get to the cracks. Typing on the laptop on a desk is quiet. Typing on the laptop on a lap pad is entirely different. You can hear and feel the reverberations as you type when used on an aluminum iLap pad. This can be a little distracting. However, I am an extremely hard typist. So I have to discount that a little.

Intel 510 SSD: Not as much of an improvement as I had hoped from switching to a SSD from 300GB 7200 rpm HDD. The Windows load times seems to be a couple seconds faster, and the load screens between areas in Rift appears to be a couple seconds faster, but that’s about it. It still takes at least 4 to 5 seconds to load between zones from using the portal. My expectations of an SSD might have been too high, but my brothers Intel X-25M (G2 version 80GB SSD) loaded between wow zones almost instantaneously. I know that’s not Apples to Apples when comparing Rift to WoW though. This is just a perception review though.

Fans: I have not experienced any 10 second rev bursts or loud noise. This laptop stays extremely quiet the whole time I played Rift. It also remained cool the whole time as well.

As far as framrate on games. I know there tons of benchmarks so I won’t go into tons of detail; However, on Rift I can play on ultra and receive 32-40 fps in Meridan. If I max it all the way out except for AA, shadow, and shadow smoothing, I still get 32-40 fps. I was kind of hoping to be higher than that for the price of the 485M GPU.

Now, something I don’t see mentioned anywhere, but really bothers me; the power brick cord length. The cord from the power outlet to the power brick is really long. This is a good thing. Now the power cord from the brick to the laptop... the one that can’t easily be changed... is all of maybe 4 ft long. I cannot sit the power brick on the floor next to me and sit in my Lane and play on the laptop. I either have to place the power brick directly on the floor in front of my feet so that it can reach the back of the laptop, or place it in the chair with me. I have already asked Malibal if there was a different power brick or aftermarket power brick I could buy, and they stated they did not know of any. My hunt will continue for something to replace the power brick though as this one aspect for me is a big deal. It is obvious this power brick is designed to be on a desktop behind the laptop. Short cords are great for that use case. However, the fact they made it so short without allowing me the ability to just bundle the cord behind the laptop really restricts the places I can use the laptop "comfortably".

Overall, the laptop appears to be very good quality and performs quite well. The customer service is leaps and bounds better than any of my previous dealings with Dell. The fact I can even get a response on an email the same day, or talk to someone via chat and get immediate response (without "wait please" and spending 5 minutes as the representative responds to 5 other customers) is nice. I might have even taken it for granted a little in allowing me to request a few extra shipment status update tickets/chat. Now if only they would only get a power brick with a longer cord... I guess nothing is perfect.

I would recommend Malibal to anyone who seeks to have a laptop that just isn’t met by the standard (already aged by 1 year) technology afforded by larger laptop manufacturers. Also, I have to give props on the customer service response time. That alone weighs quiet heavily in my willingness to spend 2.5K towards a piece of hardware."

"Ordering from Malibal was a very easy experience, they were very prompt at answering all questions I asked. As well as having a very easy to use website and lap top builder page. My laptop was ordered with a ssd hard drive, which was removed from the order when they found out that the drives were unstable. That move saved me a lot of issues down the road."