Medion Akoya E6210 notebook computer

Medion's Akoya E6210 notebook, which is on sale in Aldi stores from Thursday 22 January, uses an Intel Pentium Dual T3400 processor, which runs at 2.16GHz, at its heart.

That's not the fastest of processors but it is followed up with 3GB of memory which helps to even the balance. Taken together that means that the E6210 is fairly capable when it comes to office tasks and internet usage (web and email, and so on). Graphics are slightly more of a problem, though: while it's fine in general use and Windows operated normally in our testing, games are more difficult.

The on-board graphics processor only comes with 32MB of its own memory, which led to a very low score in our games tests in the lab. To be fair, it's not really reasonable to expect a £450 laptop to be able to perform spectacularly when it comes to new games, but we wouldn't recommend it if games are something you're likely to be interested in.

While video editing will suffer from the same performance problems, video playback wasn't a problem. Music performance was likewise good, and there's plenty of space on the 250GB hard disk for storage of all your music, videos and photos.

The E6210 has three USB ports, an Esata connection for newer external hard disks, an HDMI output for connection to a high-definition television screen, VGA output for a monitor, and a memory card reader.

It's styled in Medion's new, fairly sleek, look, with a nice black finish to the case and a slightly less nice (but still fairly good looking) grey interior. The keyboard is deep enough to be pleasant to type on for long periods, although we found the surface of the mouse trackpad to be a bit smooth for our tastes. That's a minor gripe, though.

At 2.9kg it's not the most portable of notebooks, but as a desk-based laptop for the home, this one is pretty good, as long as your main focus is on office and internet tasks.