Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air
In addition to the new Redmi Pro smartphone, the
Chinese company threw in a huge surprise by launching its first-ever laptop
line, the Mi Notebook Air, running on Windows 10. It comes in two sizes -- the
powerful 13.3-inch and the portable 12.5-inch -- and both feature a slim body,
a 1080p display with slim under-glass bezels (while still managing to fit in a
1-megapixel webcam), a backlit keyboard, a USB Type-C charging port plus a
minimalistic metallic design -- in gold or silver, naturally -- with no logo on
the outside. The best part of all? The top-spec model costs just 4,999 yuan or
about US$ 750.
The flagship 13.3-inch model comes in at
just 14.8 mm thick and 1.28 kg heavy, which is pretty good given that you get an
Intel Core i5-6200U "Skylake-U" processor (dual core, base frequency
at 2.3 GHz, turbo up to 2.7 GHz) plus an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU (with 1 GB GDDR5
RAM). Of course, Xiaomi just had to point out that this is thinner and lighter
than the 13-inch MacBook Air, though it doesn't use a wedge design so it's
still bulkier. You also get 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, 256 GB of SSD via PCIe and one free
SATA slot for expansion (but only serviced by Xiaomi). The 40Wh battery should
be good for up to 9.5 hours, and it can go from zero to 50 percent in just half
an hour using the bundled USB-C charger.
The smaller 12.5-inch model is even
slimmer and lighter at 12.9 mm and 1.07 kg, respectively, but you'll have to make
do with an Intel Core M3 CPU, no dedicated GPU, just 4 GB of RAM and just a
128 GB SSD via SATA -- though there's one free PCIe slot if you don't mind
letting Xiaomi do the upgrade for you later. And instead of two USB 3.0 ports,
you only get one here; but you still have an HDMI port. The upside of this
model is that you get two more hours of battery life. The price? 3,499 yuan or
about US$ 520.
Much likes its bicycles, rice cookers
and drones, the Mi Notebook Air is a "Mi Ecosystem" product made by a
partner -- in this case, it's Tianmi which literally means "field
rice." A Xiaomi rep reasoned that the company decided to tap into the
laptop market as it identified a potential market to deliver the right balance
between performance and portability, as well as to make it easier for young
adults to afford a PC for productivity. Still, this is a bold move considering
that China's consumer notebook market is expected to contract by 10.4 percent
this year, according to IDC analyst Bryan Ma. He added that this is a steeper drop
than the US' 7.7 percent and the worldwide 9.3 percent.
So what will the Mi Notebook Air
contribute to Xiaomi's business in the long term? While it doesn't run on MIUI
(Xiaomi's customized Android ROM), it does come with "Mi Sync"
software (tentative name translated from Chinese) which should somewhat boost
Mi Cloud usage. The laptop can also be automatically unlocked when your Mi Band
is within a close proximity.
The Mi Notebook Air is launching in
China on August 2nd. Again, there's no info regarding global availability for
it just yet, so stay tuned for future updates.
