Wish all the companies I bought from called me a zombie from the abyss 🥰
Another scam company like framework trying to charge exorbitant fees for computers without dedicated GPUs.
Don’t be fooled by the viral marketing/useful idiots, guys. Just go with the product that’s the best deal for you.
…FW16 is a great Linux machine. It also had CAD drawings available that have been allowing me to sketch out possible physical modifications. It also has a PCIe 4.0 x4 available for either the GPU they sell or any other device that I decide to make.
What specifically about Framework do you think is a scam? I’d genuinely like to know since that’s been the opposite of my experience.
You can buy better hardware for cheaper prices.
Framework exists to take advantage of naive people who are just trying to fit in with strangers on the internet.
You can indeed but better hardware for many purposes for cheaper.
Want a gaming laptop? Or a runs Linux out of the box laptop? FW is not even close to the best value there.
Want a laptop with well-documented physical specs, including CAD drawings to make readily modifiable and upgradeable, potentially being the last laptop chassis that one needs to buy? Nothing else comes close to touching FW.
I avoid ads, so, maybe they’re inappropriately marketing as gaming laptops. I’d not call that a scam but would say that it’s ethically questionable, at best. FW is a laptop for people prioritizing long-term repairability and tinkering over everything else.
but, he doesn’t like it, so it’s a scam. it’s not enough just to not buy it, he has to bitch about it and save the world from this evil, malignant company selling extremely customizable Linux laptops with versatile expansion options.
Framework 16 does have a dedicated GPU option, and it’s upgradable.
finally, the official laptop of schizophrenia
Need to install templeOS on it
This is not the first time Malibal made an appearance.
Last time I heard about them, they shafted the CoreBoot people then also banned the several countries from doing business with them.
Malibal is legitimately insane.
The one guy running it is clearly some teen grifter who learned about dropshipping and web dev from AI
What in the fuck?
It just kept going. Calling customers “zombies”… bannung people from using chrome to access website, banning “regular website users”… banning particular countries for pettt grudges with like, a few individuals???
Probably just shitty ass company. honestly their act like ass to everyone tell me is bis red flag company
This hurts to read because of how badly written it is. Do you not read what you’ve written?
I thought the article would end there. It just kept goooooooooinnnnggggggg
Well that was a crazy read. Never seen a company act this way before. Sounds like a very small operation. Unfortunately their products don’t appeal to me at all, I’d much rather buy a Framework.
Fortunately
I kind of like the utter insanity that seems to be their norm. Not going to buy anything from them but still.
It makes me sad that you had to spend so much time with this topic. But thank you for publishing it ❤️
Oh no I’m not the person who runs the blog. I just saw it posted on the Tumblr Linux community and wanted to repost it here. Happy to share it ofc! 😄
As i understand it, the OEM business has razor thin margins as it is. This seems like an aggressively unsustainable business practice, to the point that it’s making me wonder what their game is…
I was under the impression, from reading one of the developers write of his interaction with the owner, that they’re just selling dropped shipped white label laptops.
They’re simply add branding and a disk image which the white label manufacturer applies before shipping.
So it doesn’t even seem to be an OEM… Just some guy trying to make an easy buck with some slick marketing and white label laptops… he just couldn’t get the image setup and failed spectacularly in collaboration with the people who could help him.
Skikk is a clevo reseller too. Those laptops are very nice. They do however sound like a jet engine when the game starts. But I just turn the volume up higher and then I don’t hear it anymore.
wow havent seen anything this moody in a long while
I like how they take a moral stance against Apple and Google, but then proudly display Boeing and the US Air Force as customers.
Just as a info, they are a Clevo reseller: https://linustechtips.com/topic/802163-clevo-custom-laptops-and-world-clevo-resellers/#comment-10086025
That probably also applies to a lot of other small size linux laptop companies that are not doing a lot of custom stuff in their laptops.
Accessed the website using Chrome, on a Google Pixel, routed through a VPN exiting from Colorado.
Was looking for specifically an AMD laptop. WHAT NOW MALIBAL
No soup for you!
Now, I would love to know more about who’s behind MALIBAL, and what’s happening within the - probably, single-person - company. However, I have not found any information about that; if you have any, please feel free to contact me.
sorry did the author not come across the companies own about page?
https://www.malibal.com/features/about-us/
lol thats neat, malibal is based directly across the street from the palms casino in vegas.
😂
watch me get all of DC banned for that emoji
That “about” page is fucking wild. They spend like half the page sucking themselves off over how great of a job they did designing their own logo, and then the other half telling the user the proper way to reference the company and its products. I really want to spend some time on the live chat breaking all the rules, like not capitalizing every letter of their name…
Site doesn’t load
Edit: after several attempts, it did load. But its fucking dark grey font on a black background. Can’t read this shit. Here’s the actual website
Perfectly readable white text on a black background on my devices. The problem must be on your end.