it seems that boutique notebook builder Malibal (pronounced mal-la-bull) is ready to see desktops die. The company specializes in custom-built desktop replacements. No thin-and-lights. No ultraportables. No "mainstream" models. The Veda series is its largest, with an 18.4-inch LCD that can be loaded with Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 (ours was), 8GB of DDR3 memory (had that, too), and it comes standard with dual Nvidia GeForce GTX280M graphics cards. However, while the components are top-notch, the design could use some help.

In Malibal's favor, all of our complaints about the notebook are things out of its control; the system is a design by laptop OEM/ODM Clevo. What the company can take credit for is the expert assembly, ample component offerings, a promise of excellent service and support, competitive pricing, and a no-risk purchase policy; all good things, considering the significant expense of the system.

As mentioned earlier, all of our issues with the Veda have to do with design. Overall, the laptop, despite its monstrous size, is good looking. The body is free of branding, but is lit up like a Christmas tree; colored light pours from the rear fan vents, the front-firing speaker grills, and a tribal tattoo-like design on the lid. A touch-sensitive key above the keyboard lets you cycle through different colors or you can let it rotate through the colors every few seconds or, thankfully, shut them off altogether. The lid, the keyboard surround and palm rests, the touch pad, and the row of touch-sensitive keys topping the keyboard are all covered in high-gloss black plastic. After 10 seconds of use, all of those surfaces had some manner of hand- or fingerprints on them.

The ports, inputs, and outputs--except for the power--are crowded on the left and right sides. If you plan to connect this to an external monitor, speakers or headset, keyboard and mouse, and Ethernet, you're going have nothing but cables spewing from the sides. And speaking of crowded, given the notebook's considerable size, the chiclet-style keyboard has noticeably small keys. What's weird is that the size worked well for gaming, but was not ideal for typing. The touch pad is small as well and has no physical border, just a line of blue light around its edge. Also, though it's nice that there are eight programmable macro buttons to the left of the keyboard, they take up a seemingly unnecessary amount of space.

The 18.4-inch wide-screen LCD display offers a 1,920x1,080 native resolution, which is standard for a screen this size. Despite its glossy "GlassView" panel, the display performed well, with very good color and contrast, and excellent wide viewing angles. Above the screen is a 3-megapixel Webcam, which worked well in our Skype tests, as did the dual, built-in mics. What's not all that good is the speaker system. Despite having five speakers and a subwoofer, the sound in music, movies, and games lacked depth, regardless of any audio tweaks we made. The speakers are basically just better than nothing and you'll want to take advantage of the Veda's S/PDIF output for external speakers or headphones.

As for ports, inputs, outputs, and networking, there was nothing we really saw missing from this build. Audio I/O jacks are on the right side with a USB 2.0 port and an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port. There's also an RF-in if you want to connect an external tuner. On the left side is everything else, which again, makes for kind of a mess if you load up all the ports--or even just a few.

While our review unit was configured with nearly every high-end option available and cost more than $5,000, the Veda actually starts at a more reasonable $2,272. The specs for that system are considerably less impressive: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8700, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB 5,400rpm hard drive, a DVD burner, and no operating system. (Yes, you can save yourself some cash by not getting an OS preinstalled.) The dual Nvidia graphics cards are included in that price, though.

In contrast, we had a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300, along with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, three 80GB SSDs, and the dual 512MB Nvidia GeForce GTX280M graphics cards. The configuration provided exceptional performance on our multitasking, image-processing, and audio-encoding tests. Though this combo was outperformed by the AVADirect Clevo D900F, that notebook used a 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Quad Core desktop processor.

In our PC gaming tests, the Veda didn't crush the competition, but it did outperform the other laptops. This includes a similarly configured Alienware M17x. (In fact, it bested the Alienware slightly in all of our performance tests.) However, frame rates were particularly good, at 1,920x1,200, providing smooth play on graphically demanding games.

Juice box

Malibal Veda series
Off (watts)	1.5
Sleep (watts)	2.2
Idle (watts)	51.8
Load (watts)	204.6
Raw (annual kWh)	347
Annual operating cost (@$0.1135/kWh)	$39.38

Battery life, as expected, is pretty short at just 58 minutes on our video playback battery drain test. To expect the high-performance components in our review system to last long on battery power would be foolish, but of all the desktop replacements we've recently tested, the Veda had the worst battery life. You can buy an extra battery for $135, but it hardly seems worth it, especially since you have to remove and replace three screws to swap it out.