Medion S6425 Laptop Review – Fast hardware for <500 euros
Medions S6425 is a laptop that excels in performance. The i3-8130U processor is at least as fast as i5 processors from the previous generation and in combination with the matte IPS screen, 8GB memory and 256GB SSD you get a lot of specifications for your money. You do compromise on the sturdiness of the housing, because it is disappointing and the touchpad does not always work well. The cooling can be noisy, even if you don’t use the laptop heavily. The battery life is about eight hours while browsing and watching video, which is not bad for a five hundred euro laptop.
Pros
- Fast CPU
- Excellent ips screen
- Upgradeable
- Good value for money
Cons
- Not too sturdy housing
- Mediocre touchpad
- Cooling can be noisy
Despite being incorporated by Lenovo a few years ago, Medion has continued to operate independently and focuses on the cheaper laptops under the Akoya name and on gamers with the Erazer laptops. In the category of cheaper laptops, we occasionally come across systems that offer a lot of hardware for your money. The S6425 is one of those, which is equipped with a full HD IPS screen, 8GB memory, a 256GB SSD and a Core i3-8130U processor for five hundred euros. That processor in particular makes the S6425 an interesting laptop and you can read why in this review.
We do not immediately start benchmarking, but first see what kind of meat we have in the tub. The S6425 has a 15″ housing that is supposed to look like metal but is mostly made of plastic.
For example, the back of the screen is made of plastic, with a silver-grey metal motif. The screen edges of the front are made of dark gray plastic and are free-wide compared to other new laptops where the trend is moving towards narrower edges. We don’t mind that the Medion laptop does not keep up with the latest trend, that is more for the more expensive products. It is a pity that the sturdiness leaves something to be desired The screen is easy to twist and if you open the screen at an angle, you will see it warp slightly and you will see space appear between the screen edge and the panel.
The rest of the housing is also largely made of plastic, but around the keyboard and touchpad you will find metal, which is bordered on the sides by a plastic edge, in which the connections are processed. We are reasonably satisfied with those connections. Most are on the left and there is a full SD card reader, a mini-jack connection, a duo of USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 1.4. Next to that is a gigabit ethernet connection and we encounter that on fewer and fewer laptops. The right side only offers one connection and that is also a USB 2.0 copy. As far as we are concerned, that could have been a faster USB 3.0 port and we would also have liked to see an HDMI 2.0 connection, but the S6425 is in a price range in which that is, unfortunately, a rarity.
In the middle of all that plastic is still the metal part of the housing, but you don’t have to have too high expectations of that. The metal is quite thin and gives easily, so the difference with plastic is not great. If you have a very hard keyboard stroke, the housing will spring along. Most people won’t have such a hard touch that the keyboard actually compresses, but if you apply pressure to the case in a different way you can easily see it move along.
The keyboard is equipped with a numeric keypad, which means that the touchpad and the alphanumeric part are shifted to the left. The keys have a small dimple and tap pleasantly. The touch is clear and the travel is okay. The touchpad isn’t really. It does work properly, as long as you make calm and clear movements. However, if you try to scroll quickly through a document by making a scrolling movement with two fingers, it will not always be picked up, which will lead to erratic scrolling. The surface of the touchpad is also made of plastic, which is common in this price range, but works less finely than glass.
Hardware: First turbocharged laptop i3
It should be clear that you should not buy the Medion S6425 for its housing or touchpad, but the strongest point of the laptop is the hardware. At the time of writing, a version with a Core i3-8130U processor is available for five hundred euros and for five tens more you have one with a quad-core i5. That is also the cheapest laptop with an IPS screen and a quad-core processor, according to Pricewatch.
The Core i3 processor in the S6425 makes the laptop interesting. Until the eighth generation, the i3 CPUs differed from the i5 and i7 processors in their lack of turbo functionality. That has changed with the Core i3-8130U and that processor has a turbo speed of up to 3.4GHz. That’s a big difference from the fastest 15-watt 7th-generation i3 processor, the i3-7130U, which only went up to 2.7GHz. Furthermore, the 8th generation i3 CPU has received 1MB of cache, bringing the total to 4MB. The difference with the i5 and i7 processors is no longer in the turbo, but in the number of cores. The i5 and i7 of the eighth generation have four cores, while the i3 has to make do with two cores.
In benchmarks, a higher clock frequency and more cache yield a significant increase in speed compared to the seventh-generation i3 processors. The Medion with i3-8130U is also faster than laptops with i5 processor of the seventh generation. If you can use those extra cores, it is worth investing in the Core i5 version with 8250U CPU. During benchmarking, the fan logically starts to run quite fast and it took a while before the cooling went back to low speed. The fan is therefore temperature controlled, but it seems that the fan can only make noise, or stand still and that there is little in between.
Battery life and image quality
The S6425 has a 44Wh battery, which is not oversized for a 15″ laptop. Larger batteries are more expensive, which is why Medion has not invested too much in them. Still, the battery life is not bad, with about eight hours during browsing or while watching video.With heavier load, the battery life goes down considerably and you only have about three hours left.
Another positive point of the S6425 is the matte screen, with full HD resolution and IPS panel. Fortunately, we see them in more and more laptops, but under five hundred euros you still run the risk of purchasing a laptop with a TN screen. TN screens have much worse viewing angles than IPS screens and generally also have a lower contrast. The screens are still used because they are cheaper than IPS panels, but luckily Medion has not cut back on this. The contrast at about 1300:1 is fine for an IPS panel, while the maximum brightness at 264cd/m² is not special. There are cheaper laptops that do worse, but there’s also the Surface Go, for example, which has an exceptionally good screen for its price. What is also striking about the Medion is the calibration of the screen. The gray values are very accurate and deviations are more noticeable than with the primary and secondary colors. In the latter area, it appears that Medion has used a panel that is not too expensive because saturated colors are not displayed as such. Despite this, we have seen much worse screens in this price category.
Upgrade
Finally, it is nice to know that you can still upgrade your hardware after purchase. With most Medion laptops this is not such a problem and that also appears to be the case with the S6425. There are no separate hatches in the bottom plate, so it has to be removed completely, after which you will find the following.
The SSD is easy to replace with a 2.5″ SATA model and the DDR4 working memory is located under the black cover above the battery. The battery and wireless network card are also easily accessible. An extra M2 slot, which we have used in previous Medion laptops sometimes come across, unfortunately missing on the S6425.
Conclusion
Medion delivers a lot of performance for your money with the S6425. For five hundred euros, still a psychological limit for many people, you have a laptop with an i3 processor that is faster than the seventh-generation dual-core i5 laptops. For five tens more you also have a quad-core version, which at the time of writing is the cheapest laptop with i5-8250U and IPS screen. As far as speed is concerned, we have no complaints about the S6425, unless it has to do with the cooling, which can become noisy under load and can suddenly kick in at other times.
We are less satisfied with the shell of that fast hardware. It doesn’t break, but it does bend and the touchpad isn’t great either. If you want a smooth laptop for a little, then the not too sturdy housing is something that you have to accept. You will soon pay a lot more for sturdier metal laptops than for the S6425. If you handle your gear carefully, you will get a lot of speed for relatively little money with the S6425 – whichever version you buy.