Thousands and thousands of people been testing the Medion Akoya Mini out for the first time in Germany, Austria and Holland over the last few days and I’m sure there have been quite a few photo galleries, unboxing videos and first impressions. I’m one of those many and as most of the owner-reports will have been in German or Dutch, Iit makes sense that I put my own thoughts out in so that people get a feel for how the UK version might be (there’s no confirmation on this BTW) and how the sister device, the MSI Wind might perform.
I’m going to take it from two angles. First, a general look to see how the device sizes up for the average buyer and secondly, a look at the mobility features which are important to many people reading UMPCPortal. Before I start, a word about the average buyer. It looks like the average buyer will range from young to old, from home to office and from work to play but in most cases I think buyers are computer-literate and realise that this netbook isn’t ideal as a primary computer. I spoke to a Mother of five in the queue at Aldi when I bought it and she was buying one for her son who needs it for studying. I saw a 50+ guy with one under his arm and since I’ve had mine, all the family have expressed interest for different reasons. My brother thinks it might be good as a second, travel-light work PC. My wife also thinks it will be good for her health company presentations and my mother’s eyes lit up when I told her it would connect to a normal monitor and keyboard and that it was more powerful than the big, noisy, hand-me-down she was using to check her emails in the spare room at home! I suspect this profile matches over 90% of buyers and for these users, the Medion Akoya Mini is near-perfect. As for the mobility users and the others (with big fingers or high expectations,) there are major issues. This isn’t an Ultra Mobile PC. Let me take you through my first impressions and you’ll see why.
