Medion Akoya P6512 review

A laptop with excellent build quality, but limited portability

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Medion Akoya P6512
With a dedicated ATI GPU, this laptop produces decent 3D performance for such a cheap machine

TechRadar Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Great screen

  • +

    Decent 3D performance

  • +

    Sharp design

  • +

    Software bundle

Cons

  • -

    AMD processor falls behind Intel variants

  • -

    32-bit Windows

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The Medion Akoya P6512 is a uniquely designed machine with some nice features, but also a few drawbacks.

At 2.5kg, this laptop falls right in the middle in terms of size. However, the mains adapter is quite a hefty beast, while the 204-minute battery life is a bit low, which also limits portability. As a result, regular travellers would be better served by the Dell Inspiron M101z or the Samsung Q330.

The dual-core AMD Athlon II P320 2.1GHz processor provides decent performance and we found it handled office tasks with ease, as well as light multi-tasking. However, Intel-based machines at this price produced far better results in our tests.

One of the Medion's strengths is its dedicated ATI graphics card, which has greater multimedia power than the integrated solutions found in most other laptops at this price point. Only the HP Pavilion dv6-3040sa performed better in our tests. Photo and video editing are dispatched without problem, while even older games run smoothly.

The 15.6-inch TFT display is excellent. It doesn't have the glossy coating of many other screens, but images are impressively lifelike and colours just as deep and rich. The lack of a glossy coating means the screen is non-reflective and can comfortably be used outdoors.

This laptop's sharp design also helps it to stand out, with an attractive finish to the silver lid and black interior. Other touches, such as a triangular power button and glowing touchpad, are unique and rather appealing.

Medion akoya p6512

An isolation-style keyboard is once again in place and proves as comfortable to type on. The typing action is smooth and quiet, and there's a separate numeric keypad, although the return key is reduced to a single row.

Above the keyboard there are two shortcut buttons, one for ejecting the DVD drive and another for opening your favourite application, although these are a little more compact than we would have liked.

Bundled software

Medion has included a generous bundle of software, including CorelDRAW Essentials and CyberLink Power2Go, although the version of Windows 7 is only 32-bit.

There are also only two USB ports for connecting peripherals, although an eSATA port is included for rapid data transfer with external hard drives.

The included 320GB hard drive is adequate for most users.

The Medion Akoya P6512 has a number of positive and negative features. Performance is decent, backed by the dedicated ATI GPU, and build quality is strong, but portability is limited and features are mixed.

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Chris Barraclough