That's what you get for unknowingly testing a pre-sample // Update: 13 October 2017
11.10.2017
Translation: machine translated
At first I was annoyed by the screen I was testing. Then it turned out that I had got hold of a pre-sample that was not yet ready for the market. The test was negative, to say the least, and the manufacturer was "not amused", to put it mildly. So more trouble.
I originally wrote a review of the Erazer X58426 monitor here. But then my mobile rang. "Wow," I think to myself, "now I'm in trouble." But after the phone call, I can tell you more about the origins of the screen. Which, unfortunately, also makes my entire review an anecdote and not a representative review of the entire Erazer series.
The Erazer that was briefly on my desk is a so-called pre-sample. Pre-samples are devices that don't actually have to work, but merely serve as a demo. "The lettering on the front is actually done by hand," I'm told on the phone. Just like the rest of the screen. This is because a pre-sample serves as a kind of guideline for European buyers, saying "This is what the device will look like". Functionality is neglected. It's all about the design.
No wonder my pre-sample doesn't work as it should. Sorry, Medion!
This was the original test
I like keyboards and I like screens. Until recently, I had a Philips BDM4037UW on my desk. Forty inches. So beautiful. Then Category Marketing Specialist Sebastian Karlen comes along and says that the screen has to go. Sure, I knew the day would come at some point. And I also put a separate screen on the side before moving my workplace so that - when the day comes - I can hand over the 40-inch screen with a heavy heart but continue working without any problems.
There's a gaping hole on my desk and a deep wound in my heart. Well, the 27-inch should be back. Except that it has disappeared. It must have disappeared somewhere in the hustle and bustle of the office move. Working with just one screen? Not a chance.
Luckily, Sebastian knows what to do: "I have a gaming monitor downstairs that you can borrow until you find a replacement."
So the Erazer X58426 finds its way onto my desk. For just over twelve hours. And I can say with a clear conscience: I hate this thing.
The E: The small difference
You know Razer, right? Gaming brand, internationally successful, sponsors eSports teams, logo is kinda three snakes and everything? That's not the manufacturer of the Erazer. The Erazer is made by Medion. Not particularly well made, but at least I can admit that the device exists. And that's about it for the praise.
Okay, the cabling was much easier than with some competitor products. The cable ports are nicely exposed and I don't have to contort myself to get the thing going. I wish I had never done that.
Actually, I should have known when I saw the beast. It says Erazer on the back, but only "Eraz" on the front. The "he" must have fallen by the wayside somewhere. Erased, so to speak. Haha, bad pun. Because the Erazer X58426 - I'm convinced that Medion really only chose the numbers at random - is really not funny.
Where does the screen actually come from?
The writing is blurred. I am a journalist. I need writing. I don't want much. I want 29 letters, a few punctuation marks, black on white. The Erazer can't do that. But I can slap a crosshair in the centre of the screen via the screen settings. That's supposed to help me aim. I want my letters, damn it.
Ah yes, the screen has a diagonal screen size of 31.5 inches and only just manages Full HD. So 1920x1080 pixel resolution. With blurred letters, the result is a picture nightmare with pixels the size of your fist and blurred optics, as if you were watching a 3D film in the cinema and not wearing the glasses. Who builds something like that?
Medion builds something like this.
Or not. Medion is a German brand that can probably be understood more as a label. Headquartered in Essen, Medion sells devices under the Lifetec, Erazer and Medion brands, among others. The company works closely with the discounter Aldi, which is why Medion is often incorrectly perceived as Aldi's own brand.
Just like Migros with its green-white-orange budget line, Medion works in such a way that the group only manufactures a few products itself. Medion buys devices from other manufacturers, including Acer, and sells the products under its own labels. Migros did the same thing back then with Panasonic discs in green and white. There is a persistent suspicion that Medion sells many Lenovo products, as 87.5 per cent of the group, which was founded in Essen in 1983, was taken over by Lenovo in 2012.
The problem with the Erazer screen is that I know the screens of most other manufacturers and don't actually know anyone who produces such rubbish. Lenovo can do better. Acer too, even if there are sometimes outliers at the top and bottom.
I'm not quite sure whether the Medion screen is basically rubbish or just the screens from the batch that my Erazer comes from. Because it is of course at least theoretically possible that one order of a screen comes from manufacturer A, but the second from manufacturer B. In the end, some poor intern sticks on adhesive letters that are soon just "eraz", and the part eventually finds itself on my desk, where I curse at it for twelve hours until I replace it.
Yes, but...
So I go to product management and grumble. Cursing words fall. I threaten to write this article. "Yes, but look at the price/performance ratio," they say.
If you want to pay a price but don't want to pay for the service, then okay. Well, I looked at the price/performance ratio. Product management happy. Hopefully.
Because the bad picture is not enough with the Erazer. If you have a dual or triple screen setup, you'll appreciate it when the screen plus Windows construct remembers where your windows were when you left the computer. There can be many reasons for this. For me, this is basically always the case when I leave my workplace. That's why I unlock my computer at least twice, at most about two dozen times a day. This works quite well with Windows 10, Windows 7 still had a bit of trouble and I feel sorry for anyone using Windows 8, even without multi-screen problems.
The Erazer forgets that it exists when I lock my PC. The PC falls back to the second screen and moves all windows there. As soon as I need the PC again and usually press the up arrow key, the PC/screen construct remembers that the Medion screen actually exists in our base reality and moves all windows from the other screen to the Erazer.
I move my Outlook and my info feed, which runs on the second screen all day long, several dozen times. That's incredibly annoying. In fact, it's so annoying that I want to throw the screen out of the window after an hour.
So let's recap:
- Bad picture
- Null intelligence in the context of a multi-screen setup
- Good price/performance ratio
- You can show a crosshair. For whatever reason
Therefore I come to the following conclusion: Buy one of these things. Buy it and don't use it. Put it in your attic and know that you've done the world a favour. Because then no naive person will buy it, expect great things and then be disappointed. Because the thing is really no good. Maybe in the next series, but the part that I have fortunately removed from my desk is worth nothing more than scrap metal.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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