2024 will be a year dedicated to artificial intelligence, whatever the segment examined. Among the absolute protagonists, in the PC and laptop sector, there is certainly Intel: the Mountain View company presented – at the end of last year – the new Intel Core Ultra processors with integrated NPU, which have progressively populated devices dedicated to a varied audience, from graphics professionals to gamers, ending with users looking for a solution that can combine work activities, creativity and leisure, without too specific needs and above all at an affordable price.
The new notebook Medion E15443 it fits perfectly into the latter scenario, thanks to the processor Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with NPU, integrated Intel Arc graphics, a slim design that makes versatility its strong point and a rather interesting quality/price ratio.
We were guests of the Medion offices in Milan and were able to take a first look at the German company's new proposal, having a chat with the Intel guys about the potential of the Neural Processor Unit and artificial intelligence within everyone's reach.
Basic and well equipped
Medion E15443 presents itself with a minimal and extremely simple design, which recalls the classic IBM notebooks of times gone by, in a sort of rather successful modern adaptation which will delight users looking for an essential line. Overall, the laptop's plastic materials are good and the construction seems solidwithout however reaching heights of excellence.
The new arrival from Medion puts the best of Intel technology at the service of daily activities, with the aim of improving both productivity and fun, in the name of autonomy and safety. To achieve these goals Medion E15443 can count on the new Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processorequipped with 14 cores and 18 threads: 4 P-Cores that reach a maximum frequency of 4.5 GHz, 8 E-Cores stopping at 3.6 GHz peak, all with a base power of 28 W.
The artificial intelligence front is entrusted to the integrated NPU with a maximum frequency of 1.4 GHz while the graphics sector is supported by Intel Arc integrated card 7 Xe-Core with full support for Ray Tracing and XeSS.
16 GB of 4800 MHz DDR5 RAM and a 512 GB SSD complete the memory package, accompanied by a good connectivity compartment: 2 USB 3.2 Type-A, 1 USB 3.2 Type-C, Micro-SD reader, 1 HDMI 2.0, Wi -Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
The 15.6-inch display with IPS technology and 16:9 ratio brings a resolution Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels with refresh rate up to 60 Hz and brightness peaks of up to 250 nits: a panel that does not stand out for its technical characteristics but which still offers balanced colors and a good level of contrast, despite the opaque filter which takes away a bit of brilliance. Finally, the 4825 mAh battery which promises up to 10 hours of battery life.
Medion E15443 technical sheet
- Screen: 15.6 inch IPS 1920 x 1080, 60 Hz
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
- GPU: Intel Arc integrated graphics card with XeSS support
- RAM: 16GB DDR5-4800
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Drums: 4825 mAh
- Price: €799
AI for everyone
The strong point of the Medion E15443 certainly lies in the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor with integrated NPU: thanks to this dedicated unit, the German company's laptop can in fact locally manage the tasks assigned to the artificial intelligence, freeing the CPU from this load of work and impacting consumption and general performance.
Although the implementation of artificial intelligence in applications is only at the beginning, there are already several software applications which, thanks to Intel's support, can boast of the additional power of the NPU: beyond the generic promises on optimizing consumption and on security, we were able to observe the capabilities of the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor and the direct advantages brought by AI in some areas.
From the point of view of pure performance, our preliminary analysis of routine operations gave good results, especially considering the price of the product: Medion E15443 moves easily between the various Office and Adobe package software, allowing you to operate simultaneously on multiple fronts. Writing text while rendering a video, for example, does not put any particular stress on the device. Even more, if you ask Paint to create an image via AI, the Intel processor can handle the workload thanks to the NPU, without affecting the task at hand.
To give you an initial reference point, when tested with Cinebench 2024, the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H scored 501 points in multi-core And 96 in single core: Apple M1 in similar configuration scores 509 points in multi-core and 112 in single-core.
Medion E15443 is not a gaming laptop but the new Intel architecture with integrated Intel Arc graphics could reserve some surprises in this context: in a quick test with 3D Mark the GPU achieved 2960 points on Time Spy, a number that opens the doors to Full HD gaming on the threshold of 30 FPS even for rather demanding titles. Of course, with a good dose of compressed, but for a laptop with a nominal consumption of 28W and within €800 in price, it is a result not to be underestimated.
Thanks to Intel's new technology, content creation can become extremely fast but above all, accessible to everyone: the famous Filmora editor was able to generate a complete video starting from a simple text request. Once you selected your preferences and created the right prompt, the software succeeded generate a complete video in about thirty seconds, carrying out the request locally, via the NPU, and partially remotely. With the footage virtually complete, AI capabilities allowed us to add custom effects, selecting a single subject from the video, appropriately recognized in each individual clip and isolated from context.
Similarly, the well-known free editor Audacity allowed us to create an entire audio track starting from a prompt. In this specific case, however, we were amazed by the ability and speed with which AI was able to separate a single voice from a complex track, all with noteworthy quality and speed. There are also many applications of artificial intelligence for improving the audio/video quality of video calls: subject crop, background replacement, intelligent focus, automatic framing, noise suppression and much more.
Many of the features just listed have already been available for some time and do not necessarily require a dedicated processor: the presence of an NPU, however, allows access to these possibilities directly and immediately, without affecting general performance and consequently improving consumption, opening up the leads to more efficient multitasking and limiting privacy risks. Medion E15443 can finally count on an excellent quality/price ratio: the potential of the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor can be exploited at the price of €799.
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