Xiaomi is going places. The Chinese smartphone giant
today announced the Mi Notebook Air, its first
ever laptop, and one that looks like it belongs up there with the
MacBook Airs of today.
Xiaomi has never been one to shy away from cramming
high-end hardware into its latest devices, and the Mi Notebook Air
is no different. It is actually available in two variants – a
fairly powerful 13.3-inch model, and a
more power efficient 12.5-inch one.
For starters, the 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air features an
Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB PCIe SSD. It
measures just 14.8mm thick, which is actually thinner than
the Dell
XPS 13, already an exceedingly light and portable notebook in
its own right. At 1.28kg, it’s also in the ballpark of most of the
other 13.3-inch ultrabooks on the market today.
But the most intriguing thing is that Xiaomi has
somehow managed to cram a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 940MX
graphics card in there. This can’t quite be considered high-end
gaming-grade hardware, but the Mi Notebook Air is quite clearly
more capable than its competitors equipped with the Intel HD
Graphics 520 iGPU. At the very least, you’ll be able to get high
frame rates on Dota 2, according to Xiaomi.
It utilizes a USB-C port for charging, while also
including two Type-A USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI output. What’s more,
Xiaomi says you can get up to a 50 percent charge after just
30 minutes of charging, which should be great news for
mobile road warriors.
Then there’s the 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air, which is
touting even more battery life – 11.5 as opposed to 9.5 hours –
than its bigger brother. The smaller notebook is powered by an
Intel Core m3 processor, and features just 4GB of RAM and a 128GB
SSD. It is also lighter and thinner at just 1.07kg in weight and
12.9mm thick.
Of course, this comes with certain tradeoffs, and you
won’t get the discrete GPU and will have to make do with one USB
3.0 port instead of two.
Like some other products in Xiaomi’s eclectic portfolio
(it makes things like rice
cookers,drones,
and air
purifiers as well), the Mi Notebook Air is actually made
by a partner called Tian Mi. Still, both notebooks will be sold
under the Xiaomi brand, although press images show minimal branding
with no logo visible on the lid.
The 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air is priced
at 4,999
yuan (~ S$1,017), while the 12.5-inch version is
cheaper at 3,499
yuan (~S$712). They will go on sale in China come 2
August, but there’s no word as to when, or if, they’ll arrive in
other regions.
Source: Xiaomi
(Twitter)
