Malibal, Why You Hatin'?

Why does everyone hate malibal? I have ordered a Malibal Satori P170EM and they have been amazing so far.

 

From what I have read/seen they are fine as long as you don't have any issues. They seem to turn into a different beast when something goes wrong. There has been several saying that they have been threatened with lawsuits just for saying something bad. Then there are a few documented cases where they have just cancelled the order and verbally attacked the potential customer.

It would be one thing if it was 1 customer, but seems to be more than that.

Personally there is too much smoke along with them removing themselves from posting here and then shutting down their own public forum when people started having issues publicly. Who knows what is all true, but they have not done themselves any favors.

However I am very happy for you getting great service.

 

I think it is more the customer reacting immaturely towards Malibal. Another hypothesis is most of these complaints occurred during the 7907m mess of delays and large number of orders.

 

I feel that most of those that hate malibal hate them due to the treatments they got from their "customer service", the rest of us just do not see the reason to go with malibal when there are better alternatives out there

 

I see no problem with Malibal, they are cheaper than a lot of resellers, i did a side-by-side comparison with xoticpc and mythlogic, Malibal was a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Malibal also gave me a huge discount on shipping, they reduced it by $80.

 

My issue with them is very simple. The pics on their site are NOT the same as the product they are shipping now. It's as simple as that. I asked them several questions about a few things and I got prompt responses. Then I saw a user review of a system they just bought there and the pics they posted in the review are different than the system pics on their site. The difference is the keyboard. On their site, the system has a nice looking chiclet keyboard. The user review showed the normal stock Sager keyboard. I asked Malibal about this discrepancy and I never got a reply.

I would have been extremely disappointed if I bought a system from them and it came with a stock keyboard when the pics they have as representative of their product show something different. How hard would it be to update the pics on their site?? Not hard at all.

 

It's a longer story..... you weren't there when Malibal did something odd several times...

They are.................... ^^

 

Almost every thread about Malibal says how bad they are except the threads that people make asking why everybody hates Malibal so much. If they were truly good there'd be a lot more positive threads about them.

 

people that are satisfied rarely post whereas people that are unhappy wanna vent in forums...

 

If that were truly the case then there shouldn't be nearly as many Mythlogic threads.

 

Malibal customer service has been quite good to me even though I am quite a difficult customer. My only issue is with the 7970m being a flaw product nothing that they can really be blamed for.... Even on that note recently they provided me with different drivers that eliminated quite a few of the issues i was experiencing "Not all "

 

They have been very good so far, I've changed my order thrice so far: I removed the optical drive and replaced it with an empty caddy, I removed branding, and after I sent my wire transfer I upgraded my gpu from the 7970m to the 680m. With the GPU upgrade they gladly let me pay the difference over paypal. They are currently waiting for the next shipment of 680M's before they can start building my laptop.

 

I have to say if Myth weren't around, I'd be ordering from Malibal. The one time I saw the story about them telling a customer to get bent, well... he flippin deserved it! I say kudos to them for realizing a long term profit draining transaction before it ever happens and choosing not to do business with that person. Thats just smart business!

 

see I'd love to order from mythlogic i really like their offset logo on the lid but unfortunately the mythlogic laptop is $300 more than the malibal laptop for the exact same configuration.

 

Yeah but take note that myth has the most intensive QA checks, and when something goes wrong with your system you go back to them instead of sager. So imo if you have that extra cash to spend, definitely go with myth

 

Malibal is the Same from understanding, they build their own instead of being a reseller.

 

Actually to the contrary it seems they are a Eurocom reseller as their laptops are shipped from the border of Ontario and New York, where Eurocom is located, not from NV where Malibal is located.

 

How does that make sense? The eurocom Neptune is probably the most expensive clevo p170em model how Is the satori so much cheaper if it's a reseller? Can we confirm this? Does the Neptune and satori share the same chassi style because I know the satori is slightly different from the rest of the clevo p170em chassi's

 

I ordered 4-5 months ago no idea if anything has changed since then but in my experience...

Pros:
-Cheapest
-Great pre-sale communication.
-Responded/reacted quickly when I had an issue

Cons:
-(most likely an honest mistake...) The Icy Diamond upgrade I paid for didn't get done. (The cost was refunded)
-Customer service rep I dealt with seemed very short and irritated to even be bothered with answering the phone.
-Very unprofessional communication after the fact.
-(IN MY OPINION) Give bad information to customers... I was told that 90-94 degrees Celsius was acceptable on my GPUs when I was explaining symptoms of my issue.

 

Actually I think LPC digital is even cheaper than malibal... Except LPC service is fantastic.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

its slightly cheaper but I'm from Canada so they make me pay an extra $30 to get canadian warranty, also malibal has a few things that LPC doesn't. These being the killer n wireless 1202, coolermaster U2, and a carring case.

 

so i found out an unfortunate truth about this laptop... the pictures on the website are of the P170HM not of the P170EM, malibals p170em looks like everyone elses I really like the look of the pictures on the website

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure somebody brought that up before a while ago in the P150EM owner's forum. Also, do the cooler master and the carrying case come with?

 

the case does but i payed extra for the cooler master

 

seems to me that many malibal buyers that opted for the ic diamond didnt get them :/

 

how does one check for something like that? How do you know whether its diamond or stock OEM

 

Color, smell, stain, wetness and taste.

 

Run temps and bench tests. If tempurature is within range of ic7 then you are golden. If not, well time to call MALIBAL.

I bought from MALIBAL last fall and my experience was stellar, maybe 9/10 stars. But it appears that they are doing something wrong these days with their forums being down and short prompt responses. Also, the 100% money back guarantee is no longer observed by them, just so you know. My buddy contracted them and they said they are no longer doing that.

Anyways, I am happy with them until they treat me otherwise.

Also, they are a reseller, not builder.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

they have been very good so far but im a little scared to email them sometimes because i dont want to them off lol Yea i realize that they aren't a builder, i had a forum that we proved that they arent't, we figured that they are a eurocom reseller

 

Check my pic link below. The foil wasn't removed (stock) and look at all the extra compound coming out of the sides... eww Anyone who would have repasted it would have removed the foil and hopefully wouldn't have used so much thermal compound.

http://i.imgur.com/ppt5a.jpg

Once repasted with Icy Diamond my temps went down around 10c... I was turning my computer off when it was getting to 93-94c but I bet it would have gone higher if I wasn't watching it... Now it maxes out around 83, very rarely will I ever see either GPU get above 83.

Cheers.

 

Im sorry, this is a part of the laptop that im just learning about, i dont quite understand what your trying to show me

 

Because the foil was untouched, it shows that the stock paste was used. Otherwise the foil would've looked different and you could tell it had been opened back up to put in the upgraded paste. Furthermore, he said there was paste oozing out (not good at all). So not only did they not upgrade the paste, but did a horrific job of applying the stock paste.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

I ordered a P150EM with AMD 7970M, and they did actually install ICD to mine. However, it was oozing over the side quite a bit, since the heatsink pipes in some P150/P170 models are very sloppily installed by Clevo, and add uneven pressure to the GPU heatsink. Unfortunately I had said problem. I carefully was able to bend my pipes and use much less TIM to appropriately fill the gap. My temps went down by just 1 or 2 C (although this is before curing) but it definitely wasn't a fake compound. I also asked for a refund for the ICD application anyway, since the cooling system in mine was so poorly aligned it took me time to tweak it. All mods combined I dropped my temps -10C overall from 89C max to 79C while having the laptops cover off. Even though it took 6 or 7 emails of explaining I made sure I responded respectfully and they were willing to refund even though they didn't %100 get what I was saying. Not having an entitled attitude and treating others with respect can get you very far with most customer service that otherwise might have a bad attitude. Just know what your issue is, and make it clear.

Also, the P150HM doesn't come with a backlit keyboard and it says that in their description. If they have misleading photos, that is also an issue, but I read carefully so I spotted that difference. I have the 150EM, so mine has the backlit keyboard. Also, it worked great out of box for BF3 multiplayer, so I'm quite happy with the price and service I got from them even if I did have to spend some time to make it as efficient as it can be.

For potential heat issues for the P1X0EM models, check my sig

 

Ok, first of all, Malibal is not the cheapest out there. You have powernotebooks and xoticpc afaik with identical prices.

Second of all I think it's hilarious that out of all resellers out there, only Malibal claims (or its advocates at least) that the customer complaints are all from "immature and unreasonable" customers. I mean sure in some extreme cases you'd say "Fine ... that was a crap customer" but all the businesses (IT and otherwise) that I know of, try their hardest to please ESPECIALLY when mass-issues occur and I think it's beyond just "smoke" at this point that whoever rep they have that's responsible for most of the complaints, is more than happy to be rude, short, turns things personal, and cancels your order.

One of the things that should set those "boutiquey" resellers apart should be customer service, which is expected to be more personal, hands-on, and less generic than mass mainstream brands. If that's missing, then for many people (specially international customers such as myself) it's not worth the risk.

Out of all the cases I've read about a negative Malibal experience (about 8-9 in the past 2-3 months) even if we exclude the 7970m delay issues, only one could be argued to be a bit tenuous (ie; customer expected an above and beyond full-detail communication) but not unreasonable.

Even worse, when their customer rep came to post here, it was rude, laced with innuendo and vitriol and pretty much confirmed the complaints. From threatening lawsuits to using words like "crap" to characterize a customer's complaint.

The arrogant geek who seems behind this doesn't understand that the aim is not to clear your name or have a flame war with a customer, but to do WHATEVER it takes within reason to please the customer. In many cases a simple "We apologize for the inconvenience and we'll look into it" generic response would have sufficed, but we didn't even get that, mostly it was aggressive and combative arrogant behavior.

So no, it's not smoke as far as I'm concerned. There is some guy there that needs to be fired if they want to stay in business, period.

My first choice was Malibal based on price and neatness of website, but after personal interaction and all the negative reviews I ran like the wind and opted for Powernotebooks. I will post an in-depth review after I receive my laptop, and it won't be kind to Malibal.

PS: Someone placing an order and laptop arriving not being defective is the natural order of things, and is worth as a review a fraction of what a review about when things go wrong is worth, because that's when customer service shines. That's their sole job, so stop making excuses for them. If you ordered your machine from them AND suffered a problem that they addressed politely, promptly, and with great efficiency then thank your stars, because you're certainly a minority.

 

Excellent post! +Rep to you!

 

If you're scared to email the company's customer service then something's wrong.

 

I completely agree with you, but also Malibal has been excellent to me so I have no complaints so far. Yea Malibal has had some major issues in the past but they are also a great company, thats why i decided to go with them even with all of the Malibal hate going on and I'm happy with my choice. Yea I realize that Malibal isn't the cheapest, but its the cheapest company who offers the Killer N 1202 card, the other being mythlogic which is $200-$500 than Malibal.

What I mean by this is that I'm afraid that I will say something that will set one of the customer service reps off but that hasn't happened and I bugged them constantly about when my laptop was going to be build, the key is to be kind and respectful about how you ask them. They are people too, they deserve respect like you and I deserve respect.

 

Respecting a customer service representative and fearing a customer service representative are two very different things. You should feel like you're able to ask your rep anything concerning your laptop without ticking them off. Besides, I've seen other threads where people tried being polite to Malibal reps and ended up getting threatened and their orders cancelled.

 

They have been polite to me and definitely haven't cancelled my order as it is being build as we speak

 

I'm not even a customer and was threatened with a lawsuit by them fwiw... I had just reiterated and compiled comments from users here and elsewhere about them. I deleted that post after I was threatened because even though it was a hollow threat by them, I don't need that kind of crap ruining my life if for whatever reason if it did come to fruition. Research the company you're going to buy from and make your own choice.

I've found LPC-digital to be the cheapest and pleasant to deal with and has bent over backwards to help me out. XoticPC also gets kudos for their customer service and presence here at NBR as I have ordered a couple laptops from them in the past. Mythlogic is great too, albeit a little expensive, but they do build their own machines and offer TLC. Been to their shop a few times and they have been very pleasant and easy to talk to.

 

Well, regardless of what has happened in the past, I am happy that i chose Malibal and am very excited for my laptop to arrive.

 

Well I'm sure everyone here hopes you get a seamless and fantastic experience with your laptop and the company that sold it to you, we were just trying to answer the question you put forth in the title so I hope that's clear to you.

With a few - genuine - positive feedback threads and consistent good behavior -condescension intentional- we will all assume it was a bad phase Malibal got through. Sadly it seems that that's not the case for the past few months. Somebody is being very stubborn and it's costing them money

 

Well I will keep you guys informed with an full review when I get the laptop and I hope others will buy from malibal as well

 

Just wondering, but what made you choose a glossy screen over of a matte screen?

 

Ive always used glossy screens and I haven't had a problem with them and its not like I'm going to be using my laptop outside. I'm a nerd, it's unlikely that I see the light of day xD

 

So my Malibal Satori will be shipped today at 6:00 PM PST after only being in the processing phase of 2 days and will arrive in Saskatchewan Canada overnight