Medion Akoya P6627 review

The Akoya P6627, from German PC manufacturer Medion, is a mid-range laptop with an impressive specification, along with a good features list and average portability.

The first thing you notice is the very shiny design. As with the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560's lid, the Medion Akoya P6627 looks great straight out of the box, but within five minutes is covered in fingerprints, smudges and scratches.

The glossy finish is used on the palm rest and chassis as well, and we found ourselves constantly polishing it to keep it clean. The sheer amount of gloss used in building the laptop also looks a little chintzy.

The 15.6-inch screen features a non-reflective coating, so distracting reflections are all but non-existent. We would highly recommend this if you work under bright office lighting or enjoy using your laptop outdoors in the summer.

The screen coating compensates for the slightly underwhelming brightness, but colour reproduction isn't great, with a yellow tint to images that may deter those after accurate colour reproduction.

Spongy keyboard

The spacious keyboard is unfortunately spongy, but the light action means this isn't a big problem, as you won't have to press very hard on the keys to register. The keys themselves are large, making miss-hits a rarity, but we still recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 more if you'll be carrying out a lot of typing.

The touchpad is seamlessly sunken into the palm rest and is very responsive, while a row of touch-activated hotkeys allow you to control various features of the Medion Akoya P6627, such as the Wi-Fi module.

An Intel 2.53GHz Core i5 460M processor provides versatile performance and, assuming you aren't the most avid multimedia fan, will happily cater for all your everyday requirements, such as word processing and browsing the web.

The integrated Intel GMA HD graphics card provides limited multimedia performance. However, the 640GB hard drive is great for the price, and offers comprehensive storage for the whole family. This also provides good future proofing, as with such a capacious drive you won't have to constantly back up data to free up space.

Benchmarks

Battery life: 227 minutes
MobileMark 2007: 253
3DMark 2003: 14,439

A Blu-ray drive is also included, but you'll have to connect the laptop via HDMI to an HDTV for the best results, as the Medion's default screen resolution is only 1366x768.

Finally, portability is passable and, although the 2.7kg chassis isn't the lightest, the 227-minute battery life isn't as bad as the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 or Acer Aspire 7741G.

The Medion Akoya P6627 offers good value for money, a decent features list and passable portability, making this a laptop more than worthy of consideration.

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