Xiaomi revealed the long-rumored Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air yesterday amid fanfare and hype. Naturally, there are things that you tend to miss with all the excitement going around… and thus, here are 10 things, you might or might not know, about the newly announced Xiaomi laptop.
1. This is the first ever Xiaomi laptop PC.
Agreed they already released devices with Windows 10 in the past (mobile), like the Mi Pad 2, the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air is first real fully-capable Windows machine from Xiaomi. And it comes with the specs of one as well, from the Intel Core i5-6200 and Nvidia Geforce 940MX to the 8Gb of DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD.
Xiaomi decided to come in with a bang, going against (or at least trying to) the laptop’s market giant Apple Macbook Air, along with a great design and materials choice. All of this at almost half the price!
2. The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air comes in two sizes and specs variants.
Maybe you got so excited that you didn’t notice, but the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air comes in two different screen sizes and relative specs.
The bigger one, which sports a 13.3″ screen, comes with an Intel Core i5-6200U CPU (up to 2.7GHz), an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU, along with 8GB of DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD storage.
The smaller one, on the other hand, rocks a 12.5″ screen, Intel Core M3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSD and no dedicated GPU. On the line of the 12-inch MacBook 2015, but with more USB ports.
3. The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air will have a backlit keyboard.
If you use your laptop at night or in the dark, you sure will appreciate this feature. The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air sports a full-sized keyboard with individually backlit keys. The ultra-thin keyboard also has a merely 1.3mm keystroke depth.
4. …and a laminated Full HD display.
The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air comes with a fully laminated 1920 x 1080p display to drastically reduce glare against sunlight or any other source of light. An important factor if you’re used to bring your laptop wherever you go.
5. You can swap the SSD and/or add another one on the Mi Notebook Air.
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One of the best features which separates the Mi Notebook Air from the competition (looking at you Apple), is the fact that the Xiaomi laptop lets you swap your SSD. But here comes the best part, you can also add an additional M.2 SSD and thus have even more storage!
6. Same screen, smaller size (compared to you-know-what).
As we’re comparing this to the MacBook Air throughout this article, not our fault though, they called it “Air”. You might like to know that the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air has an 11% smaller body compared to the MacBook Air at the same 13.3″ screen size.
This makes it ideal for people who really value portability.
7. The Mi Notebook Air unlocks with a Mi Band 2.
Xiaomi decided to add a little perk with this laptop, it in fact, will unlock automatically if you’re to its proximity while wearing your Mi Band 2.
It works through Bluetooth 4.1, and it will probably give you an option on how close you need to get, before it unlocks your laptop.
8. And has edge-to-Edge glass protection.
9. Mi Notebook Air works with Mi Cloud Sync.
Just like Apple, Microsoft and Google, also Xiaomi added their “sync everything” software portion. You can indeed sync your phone contacts, messages, gallery, notes and other data through WiFi (or mobile data).
This issimilarly to what happens with Apple’s Continuity or Microsoft and Google’s cloud services.
10. And of course, Pricing & Availability:
The 13.3″ screen Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air version will cost around $750, while the cheaper 12.5″ screen variant will be $520.
We still haven’t heard about their global release, what we know for certain is that it will launch in China August 2nd, and it’ll probably be available from online Chinese retailers soon after.
So what are your thoughts? Will Xiaomi shake up the laptop marketplace as they did in the smartphone industry?
Personally I hate anything Apple but I’d love to see someone turn one of these into a fully blown Hackintosh running the latest OSX from boot just to stick the fingers good a proper up to Apple haha
epic burn material…
Apple be like “hey , someone ask the legal team if we can sue these copy-cat squint-eyed bastards ! “
I would use the second M2 slot to install a 2nd SSD with OSX on it to troll Apple users even more
I’m quite scared of Microsoft closeness and their agreements with Xiaomi (I bet MS is subsidizing themjust for being in millions of laptops across China). But I trust your expertise! 🙂
There’s not much Microsoft could do to prevent you from using Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch or any of the other distros available. Intel chips have wide support in the Linux universe, the only problems you might run into are with wifi drivers. But it all depends on what they are using.
Hi, I have Wifi problems after installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on my Mi Notebook Air 13″ Do know how to solve that?
Wifi is usually one of the top problems with Ubuntu but the folks on the forum should be able to help you.
found it there. only one post with this topic. not much mi notebooks running on linux. 🙂
thanks again
ask a question from someone there they should be able to help you. There are other Linux forums for you as well just google it.
as i said, i found it. had to block the second “acer” wireless driver. working like a charm. thanks mate
i find linux boring (maybe because i love video games … but im studying computer engineering and will have to work with Linux)
so… wats with the love for linux ?? why do so many people want linux ??
Actually, Linux is my daily driver for desktop (and well, Android as you know is related, so it’s all around us!), and I DO LOVE the fact that it is free software (‘as in freedom’). At least, in my case, most of it it’s free, and that’s important for all of us, even if we ignore or disagree. For more reasons, just take a look at ‘Free Software, Free Society’ here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf
It depends on drivers and boot options (MS is *not that friendly* with Linux after all).