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Medion Erazer X6811 review

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Verdict

Medion deliver a super-powered, feature-packed gaming laptop for a bargain price

Review Date: 7 Jan 2011

Reviewed By: Sasha Muller

Price when reviewed: £791 (£949 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
5 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Gaming laptops are a funny bunch. They’re usually far pricier than your average laptop, and, with high-end components belching heat from burly, barely-portable chassis, you certainly wouldn’t want one on your lap for any length of time. They do, however, fill a niche for those who want to game without the space-consuming bulk of a desktop system. Medion’s latest, the Erazer X6811, breaks tradition not in its configuration, nor its size, but with its sub-£1,000 price.

One look at the Medion’s muscle-bound chassis leaves little doubt as to how it’s managed such a budget-squeezing feat. There’s acres of plastic, a pair of lacklustre blue LED strips gleaming from the front edge (which, thankfully, can be turned off) and, once you get up close, a somewhat plasticky, built-to-a-budget feel. There is a concerted effort to mimic the aluminium chassis of pricier rivals with a faux-brushed metal finish, not to mention the fact that the X6811’s rugged, chamfered contours actually feel pretty solid, but it’s clear where the money’s gone: it’s all on the inside.

And that, it has to be said, is no bad thing. For £949, Medion has managed to cram in a 2.53GHz Intel Core i5-460M processor, a high-end Nvidia GeForce GTX460M graphics chipset, 4GB of memory and a huge 640GB hard disk. It’s an impressive achievement at the price, and one that, at a glance, guarantees the Medion is worthy of its gaming laptop title.

Put the Erazer to the test, and it doesn’t disappoint. Firing through our application benchmarks with an overall score of 1.74 proves that the Medion’s no slouch when it comes to mundane tasks. Ask it to do something a little more strenuous, however, and it relishes the challenge. The Nvidia GeForce GTX460M is about as quick as laptop graphics get, and with Crysis cranked up to High quality settings, running at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, the Medion still returned a playable result of 28fps. At the Erazer’s native resolution of 1,366 x 768, it’s possible to push settings up to Very High and still achieve an average of 27fps.

If you were expecting the Medion’s high-powered components to leave battery life languishing (we did), think again. The 7,800mAh battery can only do so much, but 4hrs 23mins in our light use test is good for such a powerful laptop.

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Comments

User comments

Dell XPS 15 better?

With a Core i7-740 chip, 2GB GT 435M graphics and a true 1080p screen I would expect performance to be as good if not better - and it's cheaper - currently £857 inc VAT

By jmiii on 7 Jan 2011

Depends...

The GTX 460M graphics chip in the Medion is much faster than the Dell's GT435M, and as the Core i7 you mention is one of the older models, I'm pretty sure the Medion's Core i5 will also be faster.

The only huge benefit is that the Dell is £100 cheaper and has a 1080P screen.

It's a fairly close call...

By SashaMuller on 7 Jan 2011

i7 older?

Both chips released at the same time. i7 has 4 cores and higher turbo boost, bigger cache, and faster memory specification.

By jmiii on 7 Jan 2011

@jmiii

I can see why you're confused.

The Core i7-740QM is one of the older quad-core 45nm CPUs, which were codenamed Clarksfield.

The Core i5-460M is one of the newer dual-core 32nm CPUs, which were codenamed Arrandale.

In single and dual-threaded applications, the Core i5 will often beat the older generation of i7 processors. In triple and quad-threaded applications, however, the extra cores of the i7 may help it push ahead.

Confusing, I know!

By SashaMuller on 7 Jan 2011

Value for money

Just bought one from Sainsbury's for £900 which has the i7 and 6GB RAM. Amazing value for money

By loosecanon on 7 Jan 2011

435M vs 460M

Also the GPU on the erazer is much better than on the XPS, so if you're buying a laptop for gaming it's a no brainer. The 435M is a mid range graphics card, compared to the GTX460M which would be classified a high-end GPU.

By loosecanon on 7 Jan 2011

screen resolution

also, the screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. It's also not a matte screen, so I think the sainsbury version must be a special version, albeit a £50 cheaper version!

By loosecanon on 7 Jan 2011

Sainsbury's Spec

Hey, Lossecanon. Would it be possible for you to post a copy of the spec of the machine that you bought from sainsburys?

it would be much appreciacted, as i dont think they've typed it up correctly

By slimskinny on 7 Jan 2011

Sainsbury's Spec

Hey, Lossecanon. Would it be possible for you to post a copy of the spec of the machine that you bought from sainsburys?

it would be much appreciacted, as i dont think they've typed it up correctly

By slimskinny on 7 Jan 2011

Sainsbury's Spec

Hey, Lossecanon. Would it be possible for you to post a copy of the spec of the machine that you bought from sainsburys?

it would be much appreciacted, as i dont think they've typed it up correctly

By slimskinny on 7 Jan 2011

Crysis benchmark

How did you managed to benchmark Crysis at 1920x1080 when the native resolution is only 1366x768?

The Sainsbury Medion Erazer X6811:
http://tinyurl.com/27pojtl

By Duggie on 7 Jan 2011

I'm guessing they used an external monitor to benchmark. I'm certain there are two versions of this laptop, one being on the medion website which they've reviewed here and then the sainsbury one which I've bought. Seems like a solid machine. Keyboard will take getting used to due to small return key. Screen is definitely full HD despite that description on the sainsbury website.

By loosecanon on 8 Jan 2011

Screen size

Hi, loosecannon. thanks for the information. i've just read thean article (link provided below) which mentions that the screen size of the core i7 model available at sainsburys is 17" and not 15.6" which confuses me even more.... can you pass comment?

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/medion-
erazer-x6811-budget-friendly-gaming-laptop-arrives
-907411

By slimskinny on 8 Jan 2011

Spec question?

Hi, loosecannon, is the sainsbury version same as the one reviewed by notebookcheck: http://bit.ly/htkpOq ?

By bowlocks on 9 Jan 2011

Medion Erazer X6811 Intel Core i3-370M

Just before Christmas I purchased the above gaming laptop from Sainsbury's
http://bit.ly/fgfwC4 and its seems to be just what I need. They have on offer the one loosecanon is talking about but i think the screen res is the same as mine and not 1920 x 1080. "The 15.6" screen is LED backlit and offers an HD-ready resolution of 1366x768"

By steamerni on 10 Jan 2011

Screen resolution clarification

@steamerni The screen resolution on the i7 x6811 model is 1920 x 1080. The Sainsbury website description is incorrect for their i7 model title although correct in their "product features" section. When I go to change the resolution on my laptop, 1920 x 1080 is the recommended setting. I do find I need to zoom in on websites though cos the writing is tiny.

@bowlocks the sainsbury i7 model is the premium one that is the review model on notebookcheck. It apparently costs 1599 euros (£1330), so the Sainsbury's price is a steal!

@slimskinny - not sure where techradar was getting its sources from, but the screen on my x6811 is definitely 15.6". Perhaps they were getting confused with the x7811? But then they mention that model in their article too, so not sure whether there is a 17" model of the x6811 or not.

By loosecanon on 11 Jan 2011

Sainsbury

@loosecannon: Thanks! Everything you've said is correct. I've now taken delivery of the Sainsbury i7 quad-core model which definitely is 1920x1080 resolution but also has 6GB of RAM. As you say, all of this at £899 is a steal :-)

By bowlocks on 12 Jan 2011

Sainsbury's

I don't think Sainsbury's have a clue about this laptop... bang for buck it can't be bettered, anywhere. If they got the specs right on their website and made a bit of effort telling people about it, theyd sell hundreds of them.

By svensjr on 20 Jan 2011

Sainsbury's

By svensjr on 20 Jan 2011

And for the best bit...

I've managed to install Ubuntu 10.10 on to the Erazer so it now dual-boots either Win7 or Ubuntu. Let Ubuntu install the proprietary nvidia drivers and you can get max screen res, wi-fi, sound and AKAIK all the typical hot-keys work. Marvelous :-)

By bowlocks on 21 Jan 2011

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