Medion Akoya E1210 netbook computer

Medion’s Akoya E1210 is a rebadged MSI Wind.

It suffers by having the smaller 2,200mAh three-cell battery and an 80GB hard drive, but this does allow it to be sold at a lower price than the MSI original.

Fitted with Intel’s Atom N270 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, battery life should be impressive as the TDP (thermal design point) of the Atom is only 2.5W. However, because Medion has equipped it with such a small battery, it’s not. We recommend you budget an extra £54.99 to get the bigger 4,400mAh battery.

A sleek-looking design, with nicely rounded corners, the E1210 comes with an all-silver finish; the only non-silver component is the black keyboard.

The keys themselves are more manageable than the Asus Eee PC 901, but are not quite as good as the ones on HP’s Mini-Note 2133. They do feel responsive to the touch, though, and, while the layout is slightly awkward and the touchpad a bit on the small side, neither take too long to get used to and we were impressed overall.

The 10.1in 1,024x600 screen is powered by Intel’s integrated GMA950 graphics core, which is configured to share up to 64MB of main system memory. This is fine for the jobs netbooks were originally designed to do, but it may struggle if you have too many windows open at once.

For storage, there is an 80GB mechanical hard drive and, built into the side of the chassis, a 4-in-1 card reader. You’ll also find three USB ports, 802.11a/b/g/n Wifi and a 10/100Mbits/sec wired Ethernet connection to talk to the outside world.

There’s plenty to like about the Akoya E1210, but the battery life isn’t great.