Medion Erazor P7647 review

The Medion Erazor P7647 is a gaming laptop that brings decent power for a very decent price. While many gaming laptops these days can cost a lot – with price tags well over the $1,000/£1,000/AU$1,400 mark – the Erazor P7647 comes in at quite a bit less.

Of course, when you’re a fair bit less expensive than your competitors there are bound to be compromises. Medion’s task when creating an affordable gaming laptop is to make sure it keeps the price down while not skimping too much on components, or build quality.

Has Medion achieved this delicate balancing act with the Erazor P7647? We put it to the test to see if it can handle some of the latest and most demanding PC games.

Price, availability and value

The price tag for the Medion Erazor P7647 is perhaps its biggest draw, coming in at £929.99 (about $1,180). That’s quite a bit cheaper than its bigger brother, the Medion Erazer X7849, which costs £1,699 (about $2,199).

The big difference between these two machines is the graphics card; while the X7849 comes with the powerful and relatively recent GTX 1070, which can handle virtual reality games, the P7647 comes with the older (and weaker) GTX 950M.

We’ll go into more detail about the specifications later on, but it’s clear that the Medion Erazor P7647’s relatively low price comes at the cost of graphics horsepower. Of course, the GTX 950M is still a very competent GPU for mobile devices, and will play most modern games at medium settings without too many problems. 

So if you play older games, or don’t mind tweaking graphics settings for less bells and whistles but more consistent frame rates, then the lower cost of the Medion Erazor P7647 will be very tempting.

However, if you want to play in VR, or run the latest games at the highest graphics settings, then you’re going to have to spend quite a bit extra for a more powerful graphics card.

The HP Pavilion Gaming Notebook is another gaming laptop that comes with the GTX 950M GPU, and while it's showing its age (it was released at the beginning of 2016), we hailed its great value – it costs £800 (around $1,140). While the Medion Erazor P7647 is a bit more expensive, it boasts newer components than the HP machine (such as a seventh-generation Core i7 processor) and twice the RAM (16GB vs 8GB).

So, as far as value goes, you’re getting a pretty good deal here, with only the graphics card taking a hit when it comes to compromises.

Medion serves both the US and UK, as well as most of western Europe, when it comes to availability.

Design

At Computex 2017 Nvidia showed off its Max-Q technology, which ushers in a new generation of powerful (and expensive) gaming laptops that are impressively slim and light. The Medion Erazor P7647, being a relatively affordable machine, is not one of those – but neither is it a bulky monstrosity, as some gaming laptops can be.

It has a rather plain and restrained design – but its lack of flashy gimmicks is actually quite appealing in some ways. The body of the Medion Erazor P7647 is made of a tough-feeling rubberized plastic, which doesn’t give you a premium feel, but does at least feel like it will protect the Medion Erazor P7647 from knocks and bumps.

On the rear of the lid is the Erazer logo – which doesn’t light up, unlike those on some flashier gaming laptops. There’s no backlighting on the keys of the keyboard either (the Medion Erazer X7849 features this, however), which may disappoint people who like to show off their gaming machines, but the understated design also means you can take this laptop into the office without it looking like you're there to play rather than work.

Instead of LED backlights on the keyboard, parts of the keys are subtly painted blue, which sort of gives a similar impression – but it’s not really fooling anyone. The WASD keys are also highlighted with the corresponding directions when used for gaming, which Medion says is to help gamers quickly find them – though we’d argue that most gamers’ hands will gravitate to those keys automatically.

Speaking of the keyboard, the keys are a decent size, and comfortably spaced, which means writing (as well as gaming, of course) on the keyboard feels comfortable – and definitely not cramped.

The keys are rather flat, and the travel isn’t very pronounced when pressing them, so the keys don’t feel particularly responsive when in use – this is particularly noticeable if you’re coming from a mechanical keyboard. Still, during our time with the Medion Erazor P7647 we didn’t experience any problems typing or playing on the machine.

Above the keyboard sit two speakers and two chunky hinges that attach the screen to the body of the laptop. Again, not terribly stylish, but they certainly feel robust.

In front of the keyboard is the trackpad, which is slightly off center towards the left. It’s a decent size and seems responsive enough – though of course for most games you’ll want to plug in a proper mouse. There are no separate left and right mouse buttons on the trackpad – instead you press down or tap the trackpad to mimic a mouse click, while pressing on the bottom-right corner of the trackpad mimics a right mouse button click. This is a perfectly usable trackpad, which also includes gesture support.

On the right-hand side of the laptop are a mic and headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports and an optical drive. Optical drives in laptops are definitely a rarity these days, mainly due to most people downloading programs rather than installing them from discs. Omitting an optical drive also enables manufacturers to keep the size and weight of their machines down – considerations that Medion clearly doesn’t worry about with the Erazor P7647.

Still, the inclusion of a DVD drive gives the Medion Erazor P7647 some extra flexibility, be it for installing legacy games or programs (or if you suffer from a dodgy internet connection), as well as allowing you to watch DVD movies.

On the left-hand side of the laptop are the power port, a VGA connection for older monitors or TVs, a gigabit Ethernet network port, HDMI, UBS 3.0 and a USB Type-C port – the latter is a nice addition, as an increasing number of peripherals are coming out that make use of the faster USB standard. 

While the USB-C port future-proofs the Medion Erazor P7647, the VGA and DVD drive also gives you the flexibility to use older hardware – a nice combination that's possible thanks to Medion not having to worry about making the laptop as thin and light as possible.

Although the Medion Erazor P7647 is by no means svelte, with dimensions of 16.5 x 1.10 x 11 inches (42 x 2.8 x 27.9cm) it’s actually not that bad by gaming laptop standards. With a weight of 5.95 pounds (2.7kg) it’s perfectly feasible to carry this laptop to friends' houses, although you wouldn’t be able to do so one-handed.

So in some ways the fact that the Medion Erazer P7647 doesn't feature a premium design – it's robust and chunky rather than slim and light – works in its favor, especially when it comes to its generous array of connections. 

However, let’s not gloss over the fact that at £929.99 (about $1,180), this is still a very expensive laptop – that price is what many people would consider premium, and if you're one of those people then you may be disappointed in the plain looks and lack of pizzazz of the Medion Erazer P7647.

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