The netbook rises from the grave, but it should’ve stayed dead
Netbooks were incredibly popular just a couple of years ago, but most manufacturers have stopped making them. This is a shame because these cheap, small and light laptops were perfect for basic computing tasks such as typing the occasional deocument and checking email.
Medion has launched the first new Windows netbook we’ve seen since 2011, The Medion Akoya E1317T which is also known as the Touch 10 in Asda stores but it’s not very good.
First impressions were promising. Although the Akoya looks like it’s made out of bronze-coloured metal, it’s actually constructed of plastic and looks attractive enough. It also has a useful selection of ports including HDMI, a USB3 port, two USB2 connectors, an SD card reader and an Ethernet port, although the latter doesn’t support Gigabit Ethernet speeds. The 500GB hard drive is large for such a cheap computer.
Disappointingly, the The Medion Akoya E1317T feels cheaply made - it creaks and bends alarmingly under even slight pressure. It is light, though, weighing just 1.3kg. The battery lasted a lengthy six hours and 11 minutes in our light-usage test.
Like all netbooks, the Akoya has a small keyboard and touchpad. The keys give enough feedback when pressed and we got used to the small keys quickly, but you’ll have much more trouble if you have medium- or large-sized hands. The touchpad is smooth and accurate, and Medion has avoided making it too small by building the buttons into the bottom of the pad itself.
There’s also a touchscreen, but, like all upright touchscreens at arm’s length, it’s too uncomfortable to use for extended periods. The 10in screen has a resolution of 1366x768 pixels which is a lot for such a small display, but you can tweak Windows 8.1’s display settings to make it more bearable. Image quality is average at best, though colours look a little washed out, while the screen’s not very bright and it has a distractingly grainy sheen.
The Akoya’s biggest flaw by far is performance and responsiveness. Its 1GHz AMD A4 processor, paired with a measly 2GB of memory, is just too slow. Running multiple programs simultaneously, such as Word and Excel, or even use web apps such as Google Docs and Photoshop Express is very frustrating as the Akoya struggles to accomplish even basic work smoothly. In our test it even had with typing and mouse movements.
It did improve when we uninstalled the bundled copy of Kaspersky Internet Security, scans and security updates which brought the Akoya to a standstill and where even opening folders in Windows Explorer took tens of seconds when it should’ve been instantaneous. trouble keeping up with typing and mouse movements.
It did improve when we uninstalled the bundled copy of Kaspersky Internet Security, scans and security updates which brought the Akoya to a standstill and where even opening folders in Windows Explorer took tens of seconds when it should’ve been instantaneous.
The Medion Akoya E1317T isn’t without its charms. It’s cheap with lots of useful ports and a big hard drive, but its creaky build quality and appallingly slow performance means we can’t recommend it. If you need an inexpensive computer for basic tasks, we’d recommend a tablet or Chromebook instead.
SPECIFICATIONS
1GHz AMDA4-1200dual-coreprocessor
•2GB memory•500GBharddrive
•AMDRadeon8180 integratedgraphics
•10.1inscreen1366x768pixels
•802.11b/g/n
•Windows8.1
•1.3kgweight (1.6kg with charger)
•25x260x185mm(HxWxD)•
