new aldi offering, worth the money?

DamoKen

Just got aldi's brochure through the door and see the new medion is out on Thursday -> http://www.aldi.ie/special_buys/product_312.html .

Bit too short on cash to start a decent new build which would have to be from scratch as my old system is agp based so thinking of getting this one as an interim solution and entry into pci-express based mobo's. (plus would be easier to convince the fiancee that it is money well spent on a pre built system rather than her not seeing much of me for a week or 2 as I sit happy as a pig in s**t building away )

So whats the general opinion on the specs? not sure about the graphics card, would there be any noticeable improvement between that and my current card which is a 3 year plus x800xt pe? On the chip, would there be a big jump in performance between a AMD64 3500 and the E4300?

What are medions like for upgrading, is it easy to add new hdd's, custom coolers, new graphics cards etc?

TerrorFirmer

You will probably find the X800XT performing considerably better then the card that comes with it except in the few games that won't work due to lack of sm2 support. The 4300 is better then your 3500+, however, its still low end. It does have a fantastic overclocking potential even on stock cooling, but it's possible these PCs ship with locked bios like all the big computer manufacters. Adding new video cards, hard drive or whatever would be fine.

All in all it's an OK machine but for a gamer, the graphics card is weak and the processors ability locked (but I'm not 100% on this). You'd be better building your own.

DamoKen

cheers for the reply Havok, yeah was thinking that my old card would be better based on reviews I've read. Main reason I was thinking of this machine rather than building my own is I find the budget tends to creep northward when I build for each component, initially go for the budget component and then see a decent upgrade for only <insert reasonable amount here> extra!

Think I'll leave it for the moment then, see if I can get a few more months out of my increasingly shaky rig and wait for the dx10 cards to come in reasonable quantities and price.

jarvis_Cocker

Hi,

Sorry about the lateness of the reply, and I hope that you haven't purchased an Aldi Medion PC - DON'T!!!!

I purchased one along with a friend of mine and both machines have flaked out - mother board blown. I'm a very light user of my PC and have bought PCs before from eBay where they were built using spurious parts (I have to admit I was slightly dubious), without having any problems with it. The hassle I have had trying to get the PC repaired has been indescribable. I have never had to put up with such shoddy merchandise and would strongly recommend against purchasing it. If you do purchase one and have problems, my suggestion is to route any issues through Aldi. As the vendor, they are responsible for issues with the PC. I tried contacting Medion (Had to ring a UK number at UK national rates, as the Irish support number does not work!) and they were so unhelpful and obstructive, it was unreal! I got the impression that I got what I deserved, buying a machine through Aldi!!

If you're thinking of purchasing through Aldi, or a Medion, my advice - DON'T DON'T DON'T

You have been warned!

Dara Robinson

Link is gone and cant find the laptop on the site anymore

Anti

Dara Robinson wrote:

Link is gone and cant find the laptop on the site anymore

Yeah it would be, its from 30 days ago. I dont think aldi will keep a offer that long. MMMm The choclate fox's biccys looke nice though. NYOM NYON.

Duggy747

I bought a Medion laptop 2 years ago and it's still going strong. Gig of Ram, 100GB, X1700 ATI PCI Express graphics, fingerprint sensor (useless but cool nonetheless ), crazy amount of card readers, 5.1 audio jack, excellent speakers on it considering it's a laptop (Though my DFX plugin greatly enhances it) and all the other usual crap for €1200.

I did have some problems with it in terms of the Keyboard and FingerPad freezing completely during any game I played or on Media Player. Forced me every time to restart the computer but after much formatting and singling out the driver problem I eventually fixed it. No way I was sending it to England never to be seen again!

I wouldn't really recommend an Aldi computer (don't touch Lidl!) unless you're up for the 50% chance of having grief with it!

Stephen

jarvis_cocker, just bring it back to aldi and they'll give you a full refund.

melekalikimaka

we have fgour, only the last first is dying now, 4 years later, power supply blew and now its replaced buy mobo is frying stuff all the time now. i reccommend them whole heartedly, the one thats dying was used minimum 4 hours a day heavily for photo/video editing and gaming, and left on nearly all the time, great pcs