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S.Silver housing, the cover made of aluminum, the base made of plastic. 15.6-inch display, framed in beautifully narrow bezels: The Medion Akoya E15302 notebook, which will be available from Aldi Süd from August 27, 2020, looks chic, but is not a standard product, as this detailed test shows. And it’s not a newcomer: The same notebook was already available at the end of April 2020. The difference: The version now offered has 16 gigabytes of RAM instead of 8 gigabytes.
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![Medion Akoya E15302 (MD 63540): Review of the Aldi notebook © Medion]( "Medion Akoya E15302 (MD 63540): Review of the Aldi notebook © Medion")
![Medion Akoya E15302 (MD 63540): Test of the Aldi notebook © COMPUTER BILD: Ingolf Leschke]( "Medion Akoya E15302 (MD 63540): Test of the Aldi notebook © COMPUTER BILD: Ingolf Leschke")
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Test conclusion: you have to know that
It doesn’t always have to be a laptop with an Intel processor: the Aldi notebook Medion Akoya E15302 with AMD’s Ryzen 5 3500U worked in the test about as fast as notebooks with Intel’s Core i5 CPU. The workmanship is good, as is the equipment, the option of simply retrofitting a second M.2 SSD is by no means common.
Per
- Fast work pace
- Second M.2 SSD can be easily retrofitted thanks to the maintenance flap
- USB-C connection with Displayport technology
- Low weight for a 15.6 inch device
Cons
- Few connections
- Somewhat short battery life
- RAM firmly soldered
The best laptops
Medion Akoya E15302 in the test: 1.9 kilograms
The Medion Akoya E15302 weighs exactly 1,878 grams. This is not extremely light for a 15.6-inch device, but it is also not extremely difficult for daily transport from A to B, even if the power supply increases the total weight by a further 383 grams. In addition, the Aldi notebook does not have too many connections, but all the important ones are available. There are for connecting separate Monitor an HDMI socket, for external SSDs a USB-C socket. Printers, on the other hand, connect users to the classic USB type A socket. There is also a socket for connecting headsets and a memory card reader for small microSD cards.
Right: Switch for deactivating the camera (1), USB type A socket (2), Headset connector (3). Left: HDMI connection (4), USB-C socket (5), Memory card reader (6).
Anti-glare display
Great: The display can be opened with one hand without the floor assembly floating in the air. There are few notebooks that are balanced in this way. These include Apple’s expensive ones MacBooks. The display with a diagonal of almost 40 centimeters has been framed by the manufacturer Medion on the left, right and top in chic, narrow edges. The webcam, which is necessary for video calls, still fits in the upper edge. It can be deactivated with a switch on the right side of the notebook when not in use. The image quality of the Medion was not completely convincing in the test: Photos and films were indeed sharp, the maximum brightness (259 candela / m2) is too low to be able to see something on the screen outdoors in lots of sunshine. In addition, the Medion colors are a bit pale – it is anti-reflective. There are only a few reflections on the display.
If you don’t have enough memory: Loosen two screws, open the flap, insert a second M.2 SSD, done.
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
But what is actually under the hood? If you loosen the 13 screws on the underside, you can catch a glimpse of the inner workings: The drive is placed under a black heat sink and heat pipe Ryzen 5 3500 – a quad-core processor that AMD introduced in early 2019. The CPU also contains the Vega 8 graphics chip, which is responsible for displaying images. The processor and graphics chip in the version available in April 2020 can store calculated data in an 8 gigabyte RAM, the version offered in August even has 16 gigabytes. Disadvantage: It is firmly soldered and therefore cannot be expanded or exchanged for new modules if it is defective. Users save documents, pictures and programs on an SSD in the chewing gum stick-sized M.2 format and effectively 477 gigabytes of storage – unfortunately still with SATA instead of the fast PCI Express connection. If the memory is too short for you: The Medion has a small maintenance cover on the bottom. A second M.2 SSD can be easily retrofitted there (512 GB from 75 euros). By the way: The stripped-down Windows 10 S operating system is preinstalled, but a free update to the full Windows 10 Home worked without any problems in the test.
Nice and fast
And how quickly does the Aldi notebook work? Fast SSD and nimble processor – thanks to this combination, the Medion started in just twelve seconds and offered a very high working speed, even with exhausting image processing with Photoshop. When gaming, the device disappointed – for titles like “Battlefield 5 “, the Vega 8 graphics chip is too weak, so figures only flicker across the screen in slow motion. However, if you reduce the detail reproduction and resolution in the game, you can gamble with the Medion. Because the Vega 8 has a little more power than, for example, the Intel graphics chip HD Graphics 620.
Inside: The AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU is hidden under a heat sink (1), the 16 GB RAM (2) is firmly soldered. The M.2 SSD (3) effectively offers 477 GB of memory, the fully charged battery (4) provides energy for around four hours of work.
