Rumours were flooding this month about Xiaomi working on a laptop, those rumours turned out to be true indeed. Xioami’s calling their new laptop the “Mi Notebook Air”, oomph!, seems familiar? Well of course it does, not only the name but the design also. There’s no doubt that the company has been inspired by Apple products as we’ve seen with quite a few of their devices and UI used in their smartphones. Well, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The company has introduced many electronics in China and outside of China. Xiaomi is a company that has always emphasised quality over price with their phones, but with their new laptop can they continue? Well.. Stay Tuned!
The new Mi Notebook Air is designed to be thin and decently capable of gaming. It comes in two display sizes, a 13.3-inch and a 12.5 inch weighing in at 1.28kg and 1.07kg respectively. Both laptops are armored by a metal body, with the larger 13.3-inch laptop being 14.8mm thin and the 12.5-inch notebook being 12.9mm thin allowing them to be 13% thinner and smaller footprint compared to the Macbook from Apple which is 17mm thin.
Additionally, both devices are touted to have a pretty good battery life with the 12.5-incher lasting for 11 hours meanwhile the 13.3 inch lasting for 9.5 hours. Moreover, both devices will allow and additional SSD if you are willing to expand them in the future.
12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air
The 12.5 inch Mi Notebook Air comes with an Intel Core M3 CPU paired with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SATA SSD with an extra slot for expansion allowing you to add an extra SSD. As of the screen resolutions, you’re looking at a 1080p screen here along with Dual Speakers powered by Dolby.
Seems like a pretty promising laptop for those on the go, or even those who don’t use their PCs for intensive tasks. The 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air starts at a price of Chinese RMB 3499 which translates to US $525
13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air
The 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air comes with a big bump in specs compared to its smaller brother, the 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air. The 13.3 inch Mi Notebook Air comes with an Intel Core i5 6200U, 8GB of RAM paired with 256GB SATA SSD and a dedicated 1GB Nvidia GeForce 940MX.
The Nvidia 940MX certainly isn’t your top dog, but it’s decently enough to run MOBA games for those who are MOBA enthusiasts, especially with that congested 1GB VRAM. Additionally, since it’s equipped with an Nvidia card, some people may notice the benefit of CUDA in certain applications if you’re willing to get some productivity out of it as well.
The 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air comes with a full-sized keyboard and is fully backlit. Despite being so thin, the keys have a max travelling depth of 1.3mm and allowing a colorful range of ports. With the 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air you’ll get an HDMI port, 2x USB 3.0 ports (one on each side), 3.5mm headphone jack and lastly the latest USB-C connector. Certainly impressive.
Pricing & Availability
The Mi Notebook Air Notebooks by Xiaomi should be releasing on 2nd August, 2016 in China. Other countries are yet to be confirmed by Xiaomi. The 12.5-inch model is priced at RMB 3499 (US $525) in China meanwhile the 13.3inch model is priced at RMB 4999 (US $749)
