Medion MD95376

Over the past couple of months we've seen a few notebook computers equipped with Intel's latest Centrino upgrade (codenamed Sonoma). Not to be outdone, AMD has unleashed its own notebook-specific technology called Turion.

AMD has designed Turion to provide features that improve mobility, such as longer battery life and greater Wi-Fi compatibility. However, Turion is also part of AMD's drive towards 64-bit computing, much like the Athlon64, and will be able to take advantage of 64-bit software, such as Microsoft's planned replacement for Windows XP, known as Vista.

The Medion MD95376 is the first Turion-equipped notebook we've seen and is available exclusively from Staples stores. It comes with an AMD Turion 64 ML-30 processor, which runs at 1.6GHz.

This isn't the fastest Turion processor available but managed to rack up a decent score in our system tests, comparable with a similar Intel Pentium M processor. However, the Medion's 1Gb of memory should have pushed its speed and score up further, especially in office and high-intensity tasks such as image editing.

The 100Gb hard disk is big for a notebook PC and will certainly provide enough storage space for today's multitude of media files and megabyte-hungry software applications. If things do get a little tight, the built-in DVD-writer can archive data on all disc formats (including double-layer discs) apart from DVD-Ram.

The DVD-writer can also play DVD movies, and the 15.4in widescreen display presents a good image. The viewing angle is a little tight, so you will have to be directly in front of the screen to get the best picture. However, colours were rich and there wasn't much blurring.

However, graphics is where this notebook falls short. It barely managed to run our 3D graphics tests and you can forget about playing the latest games. This is because the graphics system steals 64Mb of memory from the main memory to operate.

On the plus side, the MD95376 is the best-built notebook so far from Medion and the keyboard is nice to type on. The trackpad has scrolling areas for moving through office documents and web pages, and there is a collection of hotkeys.

There are three USB 2 ports, one mini-FireWire socket and a monitor-out connection on the back and the usual collection of PC Card, network, modem and headphone/microphone sockets on the side. Wi-Fi is built in. Battery life was impressive at 2h 48min, which is no doubt helped by the Turion technology.

It comes with Windows XP Professional, Ahead Nero Burning Rom & ReCode SE for creating CDs and DVDs and a 90-day trail of E-Trust's AntiVirus software. The warranty is 12 months' return to base.

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