Full Review

8 January 2008 - Medion is renowned for launching cheap gear sold via supermarkets that offers plenty, but can this laptop offering match previous models from the company as well as standing up to the competition? We take a closer look.

So what do you get in the box?

You get a sleek black shinny laptop that smudges easily complete with an Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo processor T5250 (1.50GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, FSB 667), nVidia GeForce 8600M GS dedicated graphics with 256MB GDDR-II RAM, a 15.4-inch widescreen 16:10 screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800, 250GB hard disk drive, 2GB (2048MB) DDR2 RAM, a Dual-Layer DVD ReWriter optical drive, Wireless networking (802.11b/g up to 54MBit/s), a Digital Freeview TV-Tuner with MCE remote control and integrated webcam.

Connections for the Medion MD96480 include an integrated 4-in-1 memory card reader, 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x DVI-I out, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Ethernet LAN (RJ-45), 1 x Modem cable port, 1 x Microphone, 1 x Line-In, 1 x S/P-DIF out, 1 x 6 channel audio out (analogue and S/P-DIF), and an Express Card/54.

You'll also get Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium in the box, which you will still have to setup when you get it out of the box and turn it on.

Overall performance of the MD96480 is fair to middle, running games on the unit isn't going to be an option. Well not effectively anyway. The graphics card just isn't capable of coping with the latest blockbuster titles, but then this doesn't profess to be a gaming laptop, so we wouldn't expect it to cope that well.

Likewise when you start to use and edit large media files we noticed the machine start to struggle.

That said, for virtually everything else the Medio MD96480 performs well and this is certainly worth a look if you are just wanting to surf the Internet or write letters.

Elsewhere in the Box you'll also get a remote control to use with Vista's Media Center offering and this combined with the unit's DVI or surprisingly and welcomed HDMI socket for connecting to a television or projector will come in handy.

Battery life is around two and a half hours on a full charge using Wi-Fi however this varied heavily depending on what we were doing.

VERDICT
The MD96480 from Medion is a good performing laptop for the budget, but not surprisingly, not really up to heavy use. This is reflected in the sub £600 price point however.

So should you bother?

The sub-£600 laptop market is a crowded one, so it would be worth taking a look at the competition before heading down to Sainsbury's and picking this model up, however there are some really nice features here like the 250GB hard drive and HMDI socket that shouldn't be overlooked.