XoticPC, Malibal, Mythlogic Clevo P150EM Experience

This is my review for my entire ordeal on obtaining a clevo laptop. I eventually settled with Mythlogic and I highly recommend going through them for your custom PC experience. The whole ordeal took me two months. but everyone was waiting a month+ due to 7970 shortages. In this day and age of next day shipping, the wait was unsettling for me, but it comes with the territory of custom machines and is worth it! I'll try to keep this succinct and factual (i have email records for everything). Unfortunately, i had to go through 3 different companies. I feel like i should share and for those who may be in the market, here is one experience:

XOTICPC:

One June 5th, i eagerly submitted an order at XoticPC. I chose XoticPC since their prices are definetely the best. Additionally, they had excellent reviews. I spoke to a sales representative (derek) who told me that i could expect to get my laptop in about 14 days so i fired away my order.

Two weeks later, i called into Xoticpc to inquire on the status on my order. Speaking to hutsady, I was told that derek would e-mail me back regarding on the wait. I never received an update from derek, so I spoke with the online chat representative the next day and was told the hold-up was due to 7970s but it would be.. soon...

Every time i inquired, I was always told that very soon- in a day or two, my order would process and move forward.

3 weeks after ordering, on June 25th, not only was i still waiting for an allocation on 7970 video cards, i was still waiting for my order to be processed. During this time, the Killer-N video cards came into stock so i called in to see if i could upgrade my network card and CPU from the 3620 to 3720. I didn't see why not since my system wasn't even started build yet. Unfortunately, Derek informed me that in order to do this, i would have to cancel and resubmit my order again. This left me pretty enraged, so i asked to cancel my order.

The next day, McKenna at xotipc tried to set things right. She notified me that she could make changes to my order and my allocation of 7970s were finally in. I just had to wait an additional 9-16 days for sager's build times. By now, i felt like they were too disorganized and I did not believe I could trust any of their time tables. If i had to wait another 2 weeks, i might as well try out another company! A more organized one that deserved my business.


Malibal

At this time, i stumbled upon Malibal. they seemed to have pretty decent reviews and the online representative was pretty knowledgeable. I made it clear that i wanted a realistic time-frame of delivery and I asked about 7970 availability. I was assured they were in stock and ready to go. They had paypal instant order processing and i was assured that i could expect a build time of 5-7 days. I quickly placed my order (June 26) and processed my payment.

One week later, on July 2nd, I checked to see that my order still had not started building and they were waiting for.... 7970s... but my order would start building very soon and at any time. I had heard this before. I promptly canceled my order. To their credit, malibal seemed more organized and on point than xoticpc though. I just wasn't in the mood to find out.

Mythlogic:

By now I had been hanging out NBR to know about mythlogic's existence. Initiating my first chat with one smart nerd immediately revealed to me that this company was on a different level than my previous two. Responses from mythlogic are always instantaneous and speedy. Everyone was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. I would randomly bug them about questions and whoever i spoke with was always very professional and helpful. Before my order, I was assured that they also were not having any issues with 7970s, Killer N cards, or anything.

Sure mythlogic is a little more expensive than xotic or malibal, but they are system builders so I realized I wouldn't be at the whim of Sager's build times or RMA. I decide this is more than worth it. I am willing (and luckily able) to pay a little more for better service. Really, once you contact myth, u can immediately tell the quality of service is extremely high. These guys take their job seriously and you can tell they enjoy what they do. I was assured that turnaround time was 10 days on my laptop. This sounded excellent to me so I immediately fired off my order (July 2):


Mobile Chassis: MYTHLOGIC Pollux 1612 Chassis (Clevo P150EM) with backlit keyboardSerial Number: NKP150EM0002F00106
Driver:
Mobile Display: 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) Matte 95% NTSC Color Gamut LED Backlit LCD (Pollux)
Monitor Calibration: Free MYTH Professional Monitor Color Calibration
CPU: Intel Core i7-3720QM 2.6GHz, 6M L3 Cache, 22nm, DDR3-1600MHz, Quad-Core Mobile Processor
Thermal Compound: Free IC Diamond Thermal Compound
System Memory: 16GB (4 x 4GB) , PC3-12800, 1600MHz SODIMM (Samsung) Quad-core+ processors ONLY!
Video Adapter: AMD 7970M 2048MB GDDR5 DX11 GPU with Enduro Technology / Embedded Intel HD Graphics
Optical: Swap Out Optical drive for additional Hard Drive
Hard Drive: Samsung 256GB 830 Series SATA III 6Gb/s Solid State Drive
Hard Drive: 750GB 7200 16MB Cache SATA Notebook Hard Drive
Keyboard: Standard Backlit Keyboard - NON Chiclet
Network Card: Onboard Gigabit (10/100/1000 Mbits/sec) LAN subsystem
Wireless Card: KILLER WirelessN 1103 - The ultimate wireless gaming HD video experience
Bluetooth: Integrated Bluetooth 4.0 Only With Intel 2230/6235 AND Killer 1202 Wireless
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium FREE Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro when availableSerial Number: 74J28-QKTWR-D98HP-G6MGG-MWVWJ
Driver:
Anti-Virus Software: Microsoft Security Essentials
Laptop Sleeve | MYTHLOGIC Recommends SLAPPA Gear: SLAPPA 17" Ballistix PTAC Stealth Laptop Sleeve
MYTHLOGIC Assurance: MYTH Lifetime Assurance with Lifetime Labor + 2 Years Parts Warranty, 2 Yrs 2-Way Shipping Cont US
Phoenix Upgrade Plan: Lifetime Phoenix Upgrade Plan


Like Malibal, payment processing can be handled by paypal immediately. I sent my payment and began my wait.

One thing i really appreciated was that on the Mythlogic Website, you can always see the status of your order. This is broken down into a series of phases up through processing, parts acquisition, build, QA, and ship. I suggested there should be an option where updates would automatic email you (i think xotic has this). This would have saved me from constantly checking my order's process.

Not everything was roses with myth though. Nine business days later on Friday the 13th, i realized that my order had not moved to build. I would have appreciated if Myth had given me a heads up, but I found myself in a queue for a 7970 AGAIN. They told me that they were expecting a shipment from Clevo soon (it seems they might get weekly shipments on tuesday). Anyway, a few more days roll by and on the 19th i talk to Jeff and i'm informed that my 7970 allocation is not ready. I am assured that i would be taken care of on the shipment the following tuesday (24th). I am not too happy about this and I even consider giving up on getting a Clevo completely but i decide I should hold in there. I really liked the company and I felt that additional delays wasn't really their fault. I really wish they had been more communicative regarding the delays though.

The very next day on Friday the 20th, I get a call from Jeff letting me know that there was a cancellation and that he was able to allocate a 7970 for my machine and they could start building as soon as he finalized some details about my order. They are able to start late Friday afternoon and finish my build Friday NIGHT and start the three days of testing and QA on Saturday. I am ECSTATIC upon hearing this. I really appreciated the call. As I mentioned in a previous post, i'm pretty sure most companies would just shoot an e-mail and take care of things the next day.

My laptop passes its testing on monday and ships out tuesday. I was actually entertaining the though of maybe shipping my laptop next day or something and Jeff was more than willing to make any last minute change if I really wanted it. I decided it wasn't necessary. I had a backpacking trip planned for the week until Sunday so i set up will call at UPS and picked up my Pollux 1612 from UPS on the following monday (7/30).

I took plenty pictures of the unboxing and I will update more on my thoughts of the laptop. So far, the laptop is really really fast. The matte 95% screen is incredible. I am very happy with going with mythlogic. pre-installed drivers and testing saves SO much headache. I've had no issues installing things and i am setting this badboy up thus far. Be assured that the laptop you receive from myth won't give you any issues out of the box!

The few negatives that i've noted so far is (most of this is in comparison with alienware/dell quality that ive been used to)
1. bad quality speakers. as someone else said. the speakers suck. i will say that i am pretty sensitive to sound quality so this may not be an issue to others. Sure, the THX EQ improves things a little but going from terrible to bad is... Anyway, it's not HUGE deal since i won't be blasting speakers that much. i'll be commenting on the audio port once i get to listen to some music through it.

2.shell quality. i don't know what it is. just something about the clevo shell and build quality just seems a little subpar in comparison with dell/alienware. i can't quite put my finger on it. i'll update on how i feel after using it more.

So far, pretty happy with my pollux 1612 from mythlogic. i highly recommend doing business with them! will update!

 

Hello Ebolamonkey,

I'm sorry to hear that you felt frustrated when working with us. I just wanted to clarify a couple points. The 7970 situation was unfortunately something we had little control over, and we could only give the updates that we were given. With the bad batch of cards, the entire market was pretty bare of those cards and everyone was trying their best to get the orders fulfilled, as I'm sure just about everyone here can attest to regardless of where the machine was coming from.

When I asked you to submit a new order for those changes, that's actually meant to keep the paperwork clean and eliminate errors in the builds. Sager normally does allow a couple changes to be made to orders submitted to them for building, but with the 7970 situation, they did ask that any order changes submitted had to be in the form of a new order. This is why I had asked you to do so. I apologize if I did not make this clear at the time, but our end game is to get you the computer you want as fast as possible. We definitely don't benefit when customers have to wait extended periods of time for their orders and neither do our customers while waiting.

I'm happy to hear that you ended up with the machine you wanted and if there is anything we can help you with in the future, don't hesitate to get a hold of us.

 

I feel the opposite in terms of build quality. It seems like my clevo is much better built than my Alienware.

 

What you should have done is not taken anyone's money or accepted ANY orders until you had the parts on hand. Giving an estimate and taking orders (and money) then sitting on them for WEEKS is not acceptable.

You always have control over your own honesty. Saying "We don't know" is NOT a bad thing, and would have at least let people know there is no way to get an accurate time estimate. Not accepting orders would really tell people this might take a long time, which was the case. Then nobody would say "I placed my order and it's been 3 weeks yet the system is still not building."

The honesty issue is what I had problems with when I was going through my order. Resellers were telling me they had parts in stock, but the system would take weeks to build. This made no sense and I knew something was up. The fact that another vendor shipped my system in 3 days proved I was right.

 

^ We have never charged any cards until parts were in stock and the systems went into production. The OP above was never charged. We felt it was better to under promise and over deliver. Although we quoted longer lead times they were shipping much faster.

You ordered well after pre orders being resolved and inventory being at it's best. This is quite a bit different then when the OP ordered at least a month before your order. Many Sager sellers were shipping within days of going into Production in middle July.

 

So far, I absolutely love this machine. It is a beast. It is a little bit bigger than i thought it would be but i am accustomed to the size now and i'm over it. I wish we had another option for a smaller power brick (when just using integrated graphics etc). it's GINORMOUS.

They keyboard is great. very responsive. I like that i can turn off the touchpad quickly. I will say that I am SOOO GLAD i upgraded my screen to 95% matte. The screen is so bright and beautiful. Video and photo editing on my pollux has changed my life. But even if you are just gaming, just do it! It's 1000% worth it. Mythlogic does a screen calibration so i can't comment how it will look uncalibrated, but i am seriously thinking of buying a color puck just to make sure my colors stay in tip top shape.

I seem to have some issues with my laptop waking up randomly from sleep when im carrying it in my laptop bag (it's happened twice now) but i'll keep an eye on that.

 

I just shut my laptop down now whenever I move it because with a solid-state drive the wait time is almost nothing.

 

Haha the only way to do it saves battery power too and SSD writes ^^

 

if your laptop is asleep, what is the SSD writing to? I figured the wake-up issue you have to disable the keyboard and mouse from letting it wake up the laptop. i only use the powerbutton to do this anyway.

hibernate is another option. but youare right the boot up process is really fast. unfortunately, i move my laptop around constantly. so sleep/hibernate is awesome for me.

 

Another thing I really like about this laptop is the button to just turn off your screen without closing the laptop, that way I can feel safe knowing any updating or scanning going on won't be put on hold because the laptop is sleeping. (I know sooner or later it'll go to sleep, but whatever it's doing will be over by then.)