Medionmakes the kind of budget laptops you find piled high in stores like Tescoand Aldi. But, just because it's a budget brand, that doesn't mean it's shy about including higher-end parts in its laptops. The 15.6-inch Medion Akoya P6625 is a good example. Althoughit's very affordable at £569, it packs in a powerful Core i5 processor and dedicatedATI Radeon graphics.
Medion Akoya P6625
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Middle-of-the-road Medion
Glossycoatings are now the norm on consumer laptops, but the 15.6-inch display on this device has a matte finish instead. As a result, colours don't come across quite asvibrant as they do on many glossy displays. But, what you lose in vibrancy yougain in readability -- the display is almost completely devoid of reflections, even under bright lights. The resolution of 1,366x768 pixels is pretty much par for thecourse for a laptop in this price bracket. Since it's LED backlit, it does lookvery bright. Its viewing angle is relatively narrow compared to mostmid-range laptops, however, so you sometimes find yourself tilting the screen forwards andbackwards on the hinge to find its sweet spot.
Forthe keyboard, Medion has chosen to use traditional tapered keys rather than theScrabble-type keys that are fast becoming popular. Regardless of its failure to follow trend, the keyboard is still quite reasonable. Although there is a small amount of flex in the centre, youcan't really feel this when you're typing at speed. The keys have a fastaction so they respond nicely to even lighter taps. The trackpad isn't quiteas impressive, though. It's essentially integrated into the wrist rest, although it isinset slightly, and a glossy finish makes it feel a little sticky under yourfinger. Aside from that, the single rocker button on the trackpad is very responsive. We especially like the rowof media playback buttons nestled above the keyboard, next to switches thatcontrol the Wi-Fi connection and graphics processor.
Medionhas kitted the laptop out with three USB sockets, plus an eSata port. Unlike most of today's laptops, the eSata port doesn't double as an extra USBport, which is a shame, but hardly a deal-breaker. You also get a VGA port andHDMI socket for hooking up the P6625 to an external display. Next to the HDMIport, you'll find an ExpressCard slot, which provides some room for expansion inthe future. Naturally, Ethernet and 801.11n Wi-Fi are provided,but, sadly, Bluetooth is not. The generouslysized 500GB hard drive provides plenty of space for storing documents and mediafiles, and it's joined by both a DVD writer and an SD memory card reader.
Budget body, high-end heart
Despitethe budget price, Medion has managed to equip the P6625 with a fast Intel quad-core i5-430M processor that races along at 2.26GHz. This has been twinned with4GB of RAM, which gives the laptop's Windows 7 Home Premium operating systemsome room to breathe. In the PCMark05 benchmark, it managed to post a score of7,260. This is very impressive by budget laptop standards and shows it's got thegrunt to handle even more demanding tasks like high-definition video-editing.
Interestingly,the laptop has both standard on-board Intel GMA HD graphics as well as adedicated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5165 chip. This means you can swap to the morepower-efficient Intel graphics chip when you're running on battery power toextend battery life, and switch over to the more muscular Radeon chip when youwant to enjoy a little gaming. Using the ATI graphics chip, the laptop racked up an outstanding score of 7,118 in 3DMark06, so it'll have no problems running newergames.
Whenit comes to battery life, the laptop's 6-cell battery helped it put in afairly decent performance. In our intensive Battery Eater test, it managed tokeep running for an hour and 10 minutes, which isn't bad for a 15-inch laptop, especially as you're likely to get much longer battery life from itunder real-world conditions.
Conclusion
Itreally is hard to find too much to fault with the Medion Akoya P6625. It looks reasonably attractive for a budget machine and, more importantly, has a very balanced specification,which means it's good at gaming as well as general multitasking duties. Ifyou're on a tight budget and are looking for a laptop that can be enjoyed by thewhole family, it's a superb option.
Edited by Emma Bayly