Medion Erazer X6811 Gaming Laptop Review

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Despite a retail sticker roughly half size of the next cheapest system here, the Erazer doesn't scrape the barrel in terms of graphics power. or system memory: 4GB is likewise perfectly sufficient. What's more, while the 1,366 x768 native resolution of the Erazer's 15.6-inch LCD panel might seem stingy in all-purpose multimedia portable, for gaming it makes sense. More pixels make for much higher workloads and chugtastic frame rates.

There isn't have any issue with the relatively pedestrian Intel Core i5 460M CPU. Okay, it's only got two cores, but they are Sandy Bridge. Anyway, few games can truly leverage the full performance of a multi-core processor: a couple of cores running at a fighting fit 2.53GHz baseclock (2.8GHz Turbo) should be a solid basis for gaming.

Of course, for well under $1,548, something has to give. Physically, there's no mistaking the Erazer's budget positioning. The plastic mouldings masquerading as brushed metal will fool absolutely nobody.

Cheap technology
Likewise, while there's no beef with the LCD panel's resolution nor the impressive fact that it boasts an LED backlight, there's no hiding the cheap TN technology that powers it.

Only Acer's Aspire delivers less vibrancy, contrast and color accuracy. It's a dingy screen, plain and simple. So, the Erazer looks a bit cheap, the screen's not great, but the CPU is fit for gaming purpose. What about that graphics chip?

The GPU is NVIDIA'S GeForce GTX 460M. It's straight out of NVIDIA's last generation GeForce 400M family. However, it's a couple of rungs from the top of the range. That means you get 192 stream shaders and a 192-bit memory bus compared with the nearly 400 shaders and a 256-bit bus of GTX 580M.

Still, the graphics memory is clocked up at 2.5GHz and the relatively low-res LCD looks a good match for the 460M's modest rendering grunt.

And so it proves to be in Dirt 3 where the Erazer scores an average of 67 frames per second at native resolution and with anti-aliasing enabled. Even better, the minimum frame rate is fully 55. Buttery smooth, in other words.

The more demanding World in Conflict test is perhaps a little more indicative of cutting edge PC gamery today and here the average of 37 frames per second at native resolution with anti-aliasing looks solid. However, a minimum of just six frames per second tells another story. Occasional chugging in-game is definitely part of the Erazer experience.

The Heaven tessellation benchmark is pretty marginal too, averaging 25 frames per second at native resolution but with anti-aliasing disabled.

Put it all together and you have a laptop with decent rendering chops in current games but very little margin left for more demanding future titles.

VITAL STATISTICS
Price $1,238
Screen 15.6-inch
Native resolution 1,366x768
CPU Intel Core i5 460M
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 1.5GB
Memory 4GB
Storage 640GB, 5,400rpm