Checking out a mini-review by Andario, one of our members on the forums today made me realise that I should put together my own objective long-term review of the Akoya Mini that I’ve been using off and on for a while. It deserves it as its been working well and trouble free since I queued up for it at the beginning of July.

I’ve already called the Akoya Mini ‘near perfect’ and I haven’t changed my mind. Having played with most of the netbooks its clear that it hits the consumer mark more centrally than any other netbook. Its cheap, stylish, has a keyboard that really shouldn’t be that good for that price and the 10′2" screen makes for very comfortable tabletopping. In short, if you need a low-cost, small notebook, you really won’t be unhappy with the XP/Hard drive version of the MSI Wind, Medion Akoya Mini, Zen ID, Advent 4211 or any of the variants that are available. [Article continues after the images...]

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Everything is easier when you are first in the queue! I was waiting outside the supermarket at 0730 this morning wondering whether I had the right time and the right place but thanks to the second person in the queue who knew the people working at the shop, we found out that there were Akoya Mini’s awaiting. By opening-time there were about 10 people waiting and four of us went straight to the cash desk to buy the Mini. I had a look at their ’stock’ which was piled up at the cashiers feet. In total, about 6 devices on two cash desks. That looked to be about it! Despite that, it looks like many thousands of people across Germany, Austria and Holland got their hands on their first netbook this morning.

I was home 15 minutes later and of course, have done some unboxing photos for you. I’ll leave the first impressions and video until later today as I’m supposed to be on holiday and we’re visiting Baden Baden today. I doubt I’ll get much time until this evening.

Enjoy the photo set until then and if you need to ask questions, add them to the comments below and i’ll do everything I can to answer them over the next few days. I won’t be back at the home office until Sat evening (live video session anyone?) but i’ll do my best.

The full gallery is here. (Full res pics later)

I’m away this week and so far It’s been a tough holiday for Internet connectivity. Not only am I with three generations of my family that don’t quite understand why I pull a mobile phone out every time we reach a town, but the villa we’re staying at, a fantastic wooden house on a hill in the heart of the Black Forest, is right on the edge of any sort of GSM reception. Every now and again I’ll get a bar of reception and a few tens of packets will fill the google.com/m pages that I’m using to keep updated. No, I haven’t been using a UMPC, just my mobile phone and my wifes notebook PC. I’ve had no time to write anything more than a short ‘I’ll get back to you soon’ during the day so there doesn’t seem to be any point at all in taking the UMPC. I can consume my important sources of info more easily on the N82 in these situations. If I need to do anything serious in the evenings, the notebook is available so again, there’s no point in trying to use something that’s going to make life more difficult. It’s easy to see how niche UMPCs are when portability and quick, inconspicuous, one-shot consumption are the most important requirements. Smartphones fit in so much more easily in these scenarios.

UMPCs aren’t far away from my thoughts though as tomorrow I’ll be slipping out of the villa at 7am to head up to the nearest Aldi to check out the situation with the Medion Akoya Mini. I’m planning to turn up about 30 minutes before opening time (say Hi! if you’re in the Freudenstadt queue)  seeing how many people are there and ask what they’re queuing for.  If there’s more than a handful of people waiting for Akoya’s I’ll concentrate on filming the possible mad dash to the cashier. If I’m one of the first, I might buy one (I’m a bit undecided yet.) I’ll let you all know how it goes!

Medion Akoya Mini specifications, links and info

A few days ago I highlighted July 3rd as an important one on the netbook calendar. Aldi Süd, an important supermarket chain will have the Alkoya Mini in stock as part of one of their Thursday offers.

MSI-Wind.de now reports that not only Aldi Süd will be carrying the product. Aldi Nord has 2000 shops and will also be offering the device. If that wasn’t enough, Aldi’s Austrian chain, Hofer, will also be carrying the device.

I’m starting to wonder just how many devices are going to be available in each shop. An average of 10, which would be around 40000 units, is probably not going to be enough but even with 10 per shop it seems like quite the production-run challenge. My advise to anyone in Germany is that you’ll need to be among the first through the Aldi door to stand a chance of picking one up. I’ll be in SchwarzeWald on July 3rd and am planning to be in the Freudenstadt (Peace-town!) Aldi just to see what’s going on. I’ll probably pick one up if I see one.

The Akoya advertising is now up on the Aldi Süd website. Image from ComputerBild who have a review of the Akoya Mini