Medion Erazer Deputy P50 Evaluation

Verdict

The Medion Erazer Deputy P50 is a gaming laptop computer that provides greater than you may fairly count on for the cash, together with a 240Hz QHD show and a 1TB SSD.

Introduction

No laptop computer maker has taken extra benefit of the arrival of Nvidia’s RTX 40-series GPUs to reposition itself within the UK market than Medion.

The Erazer Main X20 and the Erazer Beast X40 compete with the very best machines of their respective worth classes, and each provide further options as normal, like a mechanical keyboard.

Medion’s new decrease mid-price gaming contender, the Erazer Deputy P50, continues equally providing loads for the £1399 asking worth (not out there within the US). The important elements are nearly as good as you’ll discover in any gaming laptop computer, costing between £1500 and £2000, together with a Core i7 13700HX processor and RTX 4060 GPU. Nonetheless, the Erazer Deputy P50 trumps the competitors with a 240Hz show and a 1TB SSD when 165Hz and 512GB are the extra frequent choices at this worth.

Medion’s days as a model related to ultra-cheap {hardware} offered by way of supermarkets at the moment are useless, with the brand new 2023 Erazer Deputy P50 hammering the ultimate nails into the coffin. Listed here are my ideas on the Medion Erazer Deputy P50.

Design and keyboard

• Glorious number of well-placed I/O ports
• Strong and spacious keyboard with a numeric keypad
• The lid is a bit on the wobbly aspect

There’s not a lot to say in regards to the design of the Medion Erazer Deputy P50. It’s black, constituted of plastic, doesn’t present up fingerprints, and the physique is stable. The lid is moderately wobbly, however that’s hardly an unusual function of gaming laptops with unlaminated screens. That display screen is a 15.6-inch 16:9 affair moderately than the 16-inch 16:10 that’s changing into all the fad.

It’s an clever however nameless design that doesn’t look overly like a gaming laptop computer, which can attraction to some purchasers. The one branding is a barely seen Erazer brand beneath the show and once more on the lid. Widespread sense sees the facility button positioned away from the keyboard and three inexperienced standing lights on the entrance edge the place you may simply see them.

At 360 x 235 x 30mm massive and weighing 2.18Kg, the Deputy P50 is class common in measurement however lighter than a lot of the competitors (Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 weighs 2.8Kg), achieved by becoming a smaller-than-ideal battery. 

Make a journey across the Deputy P50, and on the left aspect, you will see that two USB-A ports, one 2.0 and one 3.2 Gen 2, a pair of three.5mm audio jacks, one mic, and one headphone. On the other aspect are a Thunderbolt 4 port, a microSD card reader and a Gigabit LAN port. Across the again are two video outputs, one HDMI 2.1 and one Mini DisplayPort 1.4, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, and the proprietary DC jack.

Eradicating the plastic base panel from the Deputy P50 is as simple as pie and requires no prying instruments. As soon as inside, you may simply entry the 2 RAM SODIMM mounts and sales space 2280 SSD stands. The Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E card can also be simply accessible, as is the battery. It’s price declaring that 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E is just not a given at this worth level, so it’s good to see that the Erazer Deputy P50 has it.

The keyboard is spacious, stable and sensibly laid out. The keys themselves have an honest quantity of journey, Medion doesn’t specify how a lot, however I’d estimate the very best a part of 2mm, and the end-stop is properly damped. The RGB backlight is single-zone, however you may regulate the brightness degree in three steps. 

The WASD keys have taller aspect partitions, very like on Acer’s Predator and Asus’ TUF-series keyboards, making them simpler to discern. Beneath the keyboard sits a 120 x 70mm plastic trackpad. Given the house out there, it may very well be larger, and the click-action on the corners is just too unfastened for my liking, nevertheless it works reliably and with out drama.

The Medion Erazer Deputy P50 is packaged in an ordinary field, however is held in place by two enormous lumps of styrofoam. Styrofoam is constituted of expanded polystyrene, which is a sort of plastic. The fabric is just not biodegradable and takes a few years (500 is the oft-quoted quantity) earlier than it begins to interrupt down. No environmental claims are made for the laptop computer itself.

Show and Sound

• 240Hz refresh fee uncommon at this worth
• 15.6-inch 16:9 format is a bit old-school in 2023
• Audio system are loud however raucous

The 15.6-inch 2560×1440 IPS show carried out as I anticipated once I pointed my colourimeter at it. Peak brightness registered 363 nits whereas gamut protection was a stable 93% sRGB, 67% Adobe RGB and 69.4% DCI-P3. The distinction ratio was an equally unremarkable 1131:1, however the Delta E color variance was a creditable 1.74 vs. the sRGB profile.

These are all good outcomes for a mid-price gaming laptop computer. Nonetheless, you don’t often get a 240Hz refresh fee at this worth, and that offers the Deputy P50 a definite edge over the competitors on the subject of taking part in eSports when each fraction of a second can depend. 

Movement dealing with can also be higher than anticipated, with solely a slight blurring seen within the Blur Busters movement take a look at. These points of the display screen’s efficiency give the Deputy P50 an edge over the Acer Predator Helios Neo.

The speaker system has much less to suggest, although it’s no worse than what Acer and Asus provide at this worth. There’s no lack of quantity with 76.6dB(A) measured from a pink noise supply at a 1m distance, and there’s some bass, however the general soundscape is brittle and raucous, making listening to music tiresome at increased volumes. 

The webcam is a primary 720p affair that reproduces fairly vibrant and shiny photos in good lighting, however efficiency may very well be higher when the sunshine dims. There isn’t any help for Home windows Good day facial recognition, which within the absence of a fingerprint scanner, means it’s important to depend on a PIN for safety.

Efficiency

• Good gaming efficiency even at QHD                     
• The RTX 4060 GPU means DLSS 3 and Body Era
• The cooling system is efficient and never too loud

Efficiency is broadly just like that of the Acer Predator Helios Neo. Hardly shocking on condition that each use the identical CPU (Intel Core i7-13700HX) and GPU (Nvidia RTX 4060) and have the identical quantity of RAM, however the Medion is a few hundred quid cheaper than the Acer, so even in a useless warmth, the P50 Deputy should get the nod.

Working demanding video games at Quad HD and their highest settings however with out ray tracing or upscaling, the P50 Deputy ran Metro Exodus at 31.3fps, Returnal at 53fps and Cyberpunk 2077 at 36.2fps. All three scores match the Acer Predator Helios Neo inside a body or two per second. 

Being an RTX 40 machine, you may dramatically improve these numbers utilizing Nvidia’s newest DLSS 3 and Body Era know-how. Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 65.2fps within the Ray Tracing Extremely pre-set with DLSS set to Balanced and Body Era turned on. For comparability, the Predator Helios Neo ran at 65.3fps. 

The followers do a wonderful job of protecting the system cool with no indicators of thermal throttling beneath any of my normal stress exams, and the sound of the followers driving heat out of the exhaust vents by no means topped 60dB(A) on my sound meter positioned 1m away. The best exterior temperature I recorded was 36.1°C, simply above the F8 and F9 keys, a wonderful displaying. The inner GPU temperature peaked at 86°C in the identical take a look at.

The 1TB Phison SSD proved a stable performer returning common sequential learn and write speeds of 5043MB/s and 4825MB/s, respectively. Not quick sufficient to win any awards, however quick sufficient to load even the most important of video games in an honest timeframe.

Software program

• Minimal bloatware
• Medion Management Panel is obvious and practical

McAfee’s antivirus suite is the one bloatware on the Medion Erazer Deputy P50, however eradicating that’s the work of moments.

The audio system is managed by two management panels, one from Realtek and one other from Nahimic. Apart from that, the one app that doesn’t come as a part of Home windows is the Medion system management panel which oddly exhibits up within the apps listing as “Fn hotkeys and OSD”.

The Medion CP is a primary affair. You possibly can select between 4 energy settings (Gaming, Leisure, Energy Saving and Quiet) and manually regulate the fan pace. In Gaming, it’s also possible to overclock the CPU by as much as 200Mhz and the RAM by 300MHz, whereas in Energy Saving, the show switches to a 60Hz refresh fee.

You can even use the CP to alter mouse and keyboard macros (although this function is moderately clunky), change the color of the keyboard backlight and switch off particular keys and the touchpad. Oddly these capabilities don’t tie up with the keyboard; as an illustration, when you flip off the webcam utilizing F10, it nonetheless exhibits up as enabled within the CP. Lastly, there’s a handbook MUX change and sliders for quantity, show brightness and the blue mild filter.

Battery Life

• PC Mark 10 Workplace battery take a look at lasted three and a half hours
• 73Wh is just too low a capability for a robust gaming laptop computer

I wasn’t anticipating the Medion Erazer Deputy P50 to excel within the battery take a look at as a result of 73Wh is just a little on the low aspect for a laptop computer with such power-hungry elements and a 240Hz display screen, so it got here as no shock when the PCMark 10 Workplace battery take a look at threw up a time of simply 3 hours 29 minutes.

Knock the show refresh fee all the way down to 60Hz (both manually or by participating Energy Saving mode) and switch the show brightness all the way down to the minimal, and you may get to the 4-hour mark, offered you aren’t doing something remotely taxing, however it’s nonetheless a poor present. 

The Predator Helios Neo received near the 5-hour mark within the PC Mark 10 take a look at, nevertheless it has a 90Wh battery and a 165hz show, so the additional run-time is consistent with what I anticipated.

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