Dealhacker: Get A Windows 8.1 Laptop/Tablet Hybrid From ALDI For $599

From 26 March, ALDI will be selling the Medion Akoya P2212T; an 11.6 inch touchscreen laptop that converts into a Windows 8.1 tablet. With a price tag of just $599, it’s one of the most affordable Windows 8.1 laptop/tablet hybrids on the market. But will you be able to live with the necessary hardware concessions? Let’s take a look at the specs.

The Medion Akoya P2212T’s main claim to fame is its flexible multimode touchscreen display which can be detached from the keyboard and used as a standalone Windows tablet. The screen boasts a native resolution of 1920×1080 pixels which makes it a solid choice for multimedia playback.

Other noteworthy specifications include a 64GB SSD, USB 3.0 connectivity, a 500GB hard drive, an inbuilt webcam and a reported 10 hours of battery life. Connectivity options are also impressive: on the tablet you get an audio jack, a microSD card slot, micro-HDMI, a USB 2.0 port and the aforementioned USB 3.0. The base unit adds an additional pair of USB 2.0 ports. You also get WLAN IEEE 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0.

The Medion Akoya P2212T is powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N2920 CPU clocked at 1.86GHz and 4GB of DDR3L RAM. This should be plenty of grunt for tablet usage, but we suspect the unit may struggle when it comes to taxing laptop applications such as HD video rendering.

This probably isn’t helped by all the bloatware: there’s a huge array of Cyberlink and Ashampoo products pre-installed on the device, along with trial versions of Office 365 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2014. In other words, your first port of call should be the Add/Remove Programs page.

But this is a relatively small quibble. All in all, we think the Medion Akoya P2212T looks pretty good on paper. It comes with plenty of connectivity for the asking price, impressive battery life, a full HD screen and a versatile form factor that is essentially two products in one.

The deciding factor will come down to how well the display handles — if you get the chance, have a play around with the touchscreen prior to purchase to see how responsive it is. It’s also worth bearing in mind that 11.6 inches is pretty bulky for a tablet; if portability is your main requirement, you might want to go with something smaller.

[Via ALDI Special Buys]


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