Medion Akoya Mini E1210 review

Medion has built much of its success on creating PCs and laptops that ooze value while not sacrificing on build quality, and it no doubt took a careful look at all the netbook designs on the market before deciding to base its offerings around the MSI Wind chassis.

Its main trick is what it adds over MSI's own U100-222UK: draft-n WLAN to accompany the more standard 802.11bg may not be immediately useful if you don't already own a draft-n router, but it will help to boost speed and range if and when you do upgrade.

Another nice touch is the inclusion of Corel's WordPerfect Office X3 - a competent office suite with the look and feel of Office 2003. The only obvious sacrifice is hard disk space, with an 80GB disk inside rather than the 120GB and 160GB of MSI's offerings.

The battery is a three-cell 2,200mAh unit, which powered the Akoya for a miserly 2hrs 30mins. Copious options abound, though, including all the extended batteries that fit MSI's range.

Since it uses the same wide keyboard as the MSI Wind, few people will have complaints while typing, and likewise the screen is precisely the same bright, if slightly grainy, 10in affair on show in MSI's netbooks.

While its styling is rather dull - this is the most corporate-looking netbook we've seen - we can't dispute the Akoya Mini's talents, and it offers more for your money than the U100-222UK. If you plan to do a lot of typing, it's a fine alternative to this month's winners.

Author: Tim Danton