For anyone thinking of buying a laptop soon.....

SpitfireIV

....you might be interested in this:

Medion MD 96290 15.4" Multimedia Notebook
Coming Soon
http://www.aldi.ie/

It will be in Aldi some time soon, so you can bet it'll be a pretty high speck lappy crammed full of extras.

Just thought I'd let ye know in case you were thinking of buying a laptop soon and werent aware of this Aldi one.

extra-ordinary_

I had a Medion once. I thought it was pretty crappy and I wouldn't buy another.

microgirl

I have Medion from Aldi, have it 18 months now. I've no problem with it. Having said that, I'm a fairly bog-standard user. I use it to go online, download and watch TV shows and watch DVDs and that's pretty much it. Possibly for a tech-savvy advanced user they're poor quality, but if you just want a decent laptop for fairly ordinary use I think they're a good deal.

_Whimsical_

I have a Medion laptop for nearly 6 years now and it's perfect. I haven't had a single issue with it. I've never had to ring tech support.It still works perfectly and to this day in terms of speed and durability it leaves my newer laptop in the dust!

shayser

extra-ordinary_ wrote:

I had a Medion once. I thought it was pretty crappy and I wouldn't buy another.

What was crappy about it?

dulpit

microgirl wrote:

I have Medion from Aldi, have it 18 months now. I've no problem with it. Having said that, I'm a fairly bog-standard user. I use it to go online, download and watch TV shows and watch DVDs and that's pretty much it. Possibly for a tech-savvy advanced user they're poor quality, but if you just want a decent laptop for fairly ordinary use I think they're a good deal.

Now now, shouldn't be doing that, should we? :rolleyes:

______

how expensive will it be?

00sully

dulpit wrote:

Now now, shouldn't be doing that, should we? :rolleyes:

why not? oh yes i forgot everything is illegal :rolleyes:

remember boys if you download anything specify the legality of it first (usually a photo of your receipt of purchase will suffice) or else face the scrutiny of the boards patrol :rolleyes:

cosgrove80

Got the leaflet today for the laptop:

Medion MD 96290 15.4" Multimedia Notebook

€699.99

Inter Pentium Dual-core processor T2130 1.86GHz 1MB L2 Cache FSB 533MHz
15.4" 1280x800 display
2048MB DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Hard Disk
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 128MB shared
Vista Home Premium
Wireless LAN
Integrated VGA webcam
4-in-1 card reader
6 channel audio

You get a carry bag and a USB scroll mouse

36 month return to base warranty included too

Tom Dunne

Not great, TBH, though not the worst.

GoneShootin

tom dunne wrote:

Not great, TBH, though not the worst.

What would be a comparable price for the spec you get with someone else? DELL for example?

______

GoneShootin wrote:

What would be a comparable price for the spec you get with someone else? DELL for example?

i want to know this too please

TerrorFirmer

Apart from maybe a special offer, it would be hard to get a Dell laptop with a 160gb hard drive and 2Gb Ram for 699. But, it depends on what you want to do with it - if you wanted to say, play odd games, or just generally do things that are somewhat gpu intensive - the Medion laptop is useless and an even cheaper Dell would outperform it in that regard easily. But for someone looking for a machine to do all the normal day to day stuff or ripping, encoding, etc it's a good deal.

mega

Has it got a tv tuner.

______

would it do the job for a college arts student who cant afford to spend much more than that?

art

HavoK wrote:

Apart from maybe a special offer, it would be hard to get a Dell laptop with a 160gb hard drive and 2Gb Ram for 699. But, it depends on what you want to do with it - if you wanted to say, play odd games, or just generally do things that are somewhat gpu intensive - the Medion laptop is useless and an even cheaper Dell would outperform it in that regard easily. But for someone looking for a machine to do all the normal day to day stuff or ripping, encoding, etc it's a good deal.

I can't see anything on Dell's site that is better re game playing etc? Price wise, the nearest one I see is at 679euros but that has the same "Media accelerator 950 graphics, half the RAM, and a slower processor... Plus you're not getting the accessories the Medion offers. It looks like you need to spend close to 1k for a laptop that can do graphics well..?

art

______ wrote:

would it do the job for a college arts student who cant afford to spend much more than that?

depends what a college art student wants to do with said laptop.

RainyDay

The only thing missing for me would be built-in Bluetooth capacity. I don't suppose there is any chance it has Bluetooth, but they forgot to mention this in the spec?

seadeuce

The Aldi laptop has 120GB HDD, not 160GB.

I did an online check against Dell for comparison:

Inspiron 6400 would be €957 with the same specs, but without the accessories, as another poster has said.

Could you add Bluetooth afterwards to the Aldi laptop?

Seadeuce

Capt'n Midnight

FYI until Sir Cliff Richard gets his way,
it's not illegal to download TV shows or anything broadcast more than 50 years ago.

the_syco

cosgrove80 wrote:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 128MB shared

For the kiddies wondering: this will play some new games, but only with EVERY graphics option turned off, and any game will look like poo (that is, if it doesn't crash when you try to run it). This is coming from someone who has to support notebooks with that graphics card, and having to tell the dumb users that no, they can't play games on it... it's cheap for a reason!

As for bluetooth, you can get USB Bluetooth dongles that will plug into it.

RainyDay

seadeuce wrote:

The Aldi laptop has 120GB HDD, not 160GB.

I did an online check against Dell for comparison:

Inspiron 6400 would be €957 with the same specs, but without the accessories, as another poster has said.

Could you add Bluetooth afterwards to the Aldi laptop?

Does that Dell price include their 3-year warranty, to match that provided by Aldi/Medion?

You could always add a bluetooth dongle afterwards, but it is a little more convenient to have it built in.

Ghost Train

With dell 6400 e-value codes 305-N08643XP, 305-N08643 similar spec (but vista business/xp pro, & no integrated camera) is €735 or with a reduced warrenty the price is €567
So does seem (slightly) better value than dell for what your getting, but dell is better brand i think

not a big fan of the dual core pentiums though or the integrated graphics

remus808

I know this is slightly off-topic, but my PC is about 3-4 years old, has 256mb ram, 2.4ghz P4 and a Geforce MX420 gfx. Pretty average but yet I find it to perform extremely well, it can run new games like Call Of Duty 2 (graphics intensive) perfectly! Would I be wrong to assume a brand new laptop like this Aldi one should perform at least this well?

TerrorFirmer

art wrote:

I can't see anything on Dell's site that is better re game playing etc? Price wise, the nearest one I see is at 679euros but that has the same "Media accelerator 950 graphics, half the RAM, and a slower processor... Plus you're not getting the accessories the Medion offers. It looks like you need to spend close to 1k for a laptop that can do graphics well..?

The budget 1501 has the X1150 video onboard which is about 3x as powerful as the GMA950. You're probably looking at the 6400.

I know this is slightly off-topic, but my PC is about 3-4 years old, has 256mb ram, 2.4ghz P4 and a Geforce MX420 gfx. Pretty average but yet I find it to perform extremely well, it can run new games like Call Of Duty 2 (graphics intensive) perfectly! Would I be wrong to assume a brand new laptop like this Aldi one should perform at least this well?

It (The Aldi one) would be much better for day to day tasks but actually worse for games, despite the Mx420 practically being an antique. The GMA950 can't even run Call of Duty 2.

art

HavoK wrote:

The budget 1501 has the X1150 video onboard which is about 3x as powerful as the GMA950. You're probably looking at the 6400.

Not sure about the 3x as powerful, both are 400mhz chips, both 4 pixel pipes, shader 2 only - it's hard to imagine how the Ati chip could then boast three times the rendering power?

Anyhow, additionally, that 1501 model for 499 is just a 14 inch screen, 512 Ram, 60GB HDD and Vista Home basic... If you configure it to get closer to the Medion spec; eg 15.4 inch screen option, 2GB ram, 120GB HD, Vista Home Premium, most basic X2 cpu offered... the price shoots to 1,007 euros. And that's before even adding other stuff like the carry case, extending warranty beyond the minimal 90 days etc...

So, you've actually convinced me quite strongly now that the Aldi one is actually very good value! But, for a graphics rich game playing laptop, neither is really going to do it alright.

TerrorFirmer

The GMA950 relies on the cpu to do calculations that should normally be done by the GPU as it has no hardware vertex shaders or T&L. In real term gaming, the X1150 destroys the GMA950 in anything.

And I never said the Dell was better value. I said if you wanted a more rounded machine or one for light gaming, it could be a better option all around. If you want to play the odd game having the 1501 with 1Gb Ram and the X1150 is infinitely better then the GMA950 and 2gb of ram. You don't have to stock them up exact spec-for-spec in order to compare them....

art

I think you are perhaps over-stating the case there for the dell; eg http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Grafic-Cards.130.0.html puts both graphics chips in the same performance bracket (ie class 5 - the Ati does have generally better benchmarks though within that class) but the Medion at least has a better cpu and you can't say having significantly more RAM available will not give benefits to performance - it will. Especially with Vista also on the machines. I'd be curious to see both perform side by side but I can't believe that the dell could come anything like close to "destroying" the Medion. Both are going to be very poor options for gaming (as I said before, currently, any sub 1K laptop will) but for 699 euros what the Medion does offer is a bigger hard drive, more memory, better version of Vista, better cpu, surround sound output, misc software included and accessories - that to me means a better "all round" option.

TerrorFirmer

I have tested both cards, have you?

Notebook check would lump them in together naturally as there's both integrated gpu's.

If you were to test select popular games, this is what it'd go like

X1150
Battlefield 2 - low settings, very playable
Doom 3, low settings, very playable
Far Cry, medium settings, very playable
Half Life 2, medium settings, very playable
FEAR, low settings, very playable

GMA950
Battlefield 2 - will not start at all
Doom 3 - totally unplayable at lowest possible settings
Far Cry - abnormally low FPS and texture corruption on lowest possible settings
Half Life 2 - barely playable on lowest possible settings forced in DX7 mode
FEAR - barely playable at lowest possible settings.

In all of those games, at least, the ones the the GMA can actually run, there is up to a difference of 50 frames per second in mentioned games running at the same settings on both machines.

Having more ram will not help the GMA950 in the slightest. Yes, of course it will, in non-gaming tasks - but my whole point was that if someone was looking for something they could play the odd game on, it's better to have an X1150 and 1Gb Ram then GMA950 and 2Gb of ram. Hence the 'better rounded' comment, not that its actually a better machine in all regards.

Oh and as for sub 1K, Dell's Vostros at the moment is 800 euro for Core 2 Duo, 2Gb Ram, 8600MGT, 160Gb Hard Drive - that can easily run all above mentioned games at high settings without a hiccup so that'd definitely one to look at!

Mic2876

art wrote:

Not sure about the 3x as powerful, both are 400mhz chips, both 4 pixel pipes, shader 2 only - it's hard to imagine how the Ati chip could then boast three times the rendering power?

Anyhow, additionally, that 1501 model for 499 is just a 14 inch screen, 512 Ram, 60GB HDD and Vista Home basic... If you configure it to get closer to the Medion spec; eg 15.4 inch screen option, 2GB ram, 120GB HD, Vista Home Premium, most basic X2 cpu offered... the price shoots to 1,007 euros. And that's before even adding other stuff like the carry case, extending warranty beyond the minimal 90 days etc...

So, you've actually convinced me quite strongly now that the Aldi one is actually very good value! But, for a graphics rich game playing laptop, neither is really going to do it alright.

If you really want to play games and your on a budget then a laptop is not the best, you would be better off buying a 'Desktop Computer' as they offer better spec for less money

extra-ordinary_

shayser wrote:

What was crappy about it?

Pentium 4 3.4GHz!! Very hot and noisy!

Peewee_lane

I got mine this morning. Bear in mind, I'm not a gamer, and need it for internet, and typing up college notes. I write music and also wanted the dual core for using a notation software where I connect my digital piano to the laptop via midi-usb connection.

I'm very happy. PC World and Dixon's couldnt beat this, as it comes with a laptop bag and a usb mouse.

Anyone else get their mitts on this crunchy deal?

RainyDay

Just missed it! I arrived at Rathmines at about 9.05am (meeting several people carrying their shiny new laptops as I walked along Rathmines), but they were all sold out. I guess I'll have to wait a few months for the next time round?