Hands-on with the Medion Akoya Mini E1210

We rather liked the MSI Wind U100 when we reviewed it, and so did a few other people, judging by the number of rebadged models that are now on sale. The Advent 4211 was the first to appear and that’s still our favourite netbook – largely because it has an identical specification to the Wind, but is £70 cheaper.

Now it’s the turn of Medion with the Akoya Mini E1210 – this rebadged Wind has been on sale in Germany for some time, but it’s now available in the UK from various Supermarkets, including ALDI and Sainsbury’s.

The Akoya Mini E1210 isn’t quite a carbon copy of the Wind U100, though. First is the price and while ALDI did sell the netbook for the same £280 as the Advent 4211, that as a usual Medion one-day-only special offer. The E120 is still in stock at Argos and Sainsbury’s though, but for £299.99.

Second, the Akoya Mini’s specification is slightly different from the Wind and Advent 4211 – there’s no Bluetooth and it has draft-N Wi-Fi rather than just 802.11g.

We couldn’t really care less about draft-N wireless networking, since the Intel Atom processor inside this netbook isn’t really up to handling streaming HD video – which is all draft-N is really good for. And nor is the 1024 x 600 screen, for that matter.

More annoying is the removal of the power-saving mode that locks the 1.6GHz N270 processor at 800Mhz in order to prolong battery life – and the three-cell battery is only good for a couple of hours away from the mains anyway. Still, you do get a three-year warranty to make up for it, and the Akoya Mini is still cheaper than the MSI Wind U100.

That’s really all there is to say about the Medion Akoya Mini E121 – we were going to write a full review, but you might as well just read the Advent 4211 review, amend the specification table slightly and add £20 to the price. Oh, alright then, we’ll do it for you:

We have shot a hands-on video to show how the Akoya Mini stacks up against its two near-identical twins, though. Enjoy.

[ Medion]