Till now, China’s Xiaomi was well known for its budget-friendly Mi phones. The company gradually decided to branch out to various other tech products. Things started rolling from action cameras to water purifiers and smart weighing scales.
The $60 billion dollar startup company has been building a diverse ecosystem around its core business. The Mi Notebook Air is the latest product from Xiaomi. It isn’t as exciting as the company’s latest drone or the hoverboard, but it comes with something that is lacking in most ultra-portable thin laptops: the presence of a discrete graphics card.
In case you didn’t know, discrete graphics cards are more powerful than their embedded counterparts. The Xiaomi Mi Notebook has a Nvidia GeForce 940MX. Other specs in this device include 8GB of RAM and a 250GB Solid State Drive. To boost storage up to 256GB, you can use the additional SATA port.
It was unveiled at a Beijing press event besides the Redmi Pro with a dual-camera setup. The 13-inch Mi Notebook Air was launched to fill in a certain niche, as stated by Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s CEO. Razer Stealth, a similar ultraportable lacks a discrete graphics card, and it simply relies on Intel’s integrated graphics to do all the graphics-intensive tasks.
As a result, the gaming capabilities are also pretty limited. According to Xiaomi, you can play games like Dota 2 at 85 frames per second on a full-HD resolution, in their new Mi Notebook Air. The device is properly wrapped in aluminum and lacks any presence of exterior logos. It maintains a rather clean look. You will find a Mi logo once you open up the laptop.
Xiaomi is selling the Mi Notebook Air in its branding but in reality, a partner named Tian Mi is the maker of this laptop. From the looks of it, Xiaomi is making an interesting bargain in this overpopulated laptop segment. However, Bryan Ma, IDC Research Analyst is quite optimistic about the new Chinese Notebook in the market.
According to him, China’s consumer notebook market is expected to decline by 10.4% this year, compared to a worldwide decline of 9.3%, and a smaller decline of 7.7% in the US. However, the high-quality notebook from Xiaomi could ultimately turn things around.
The notebook was tried out in the press event, and people were impressed with the build quality. However, some things can be improved. For instance, the flex of the Notebook in the keyboard area can improve. Compared to Apple MacBook Air, it simply doesn’t feel that solid.
Most of Xiaomi’s products aren’t sold outside Asia but one of their creations, the Mi Band 2 can be grabbed from the company’s online store. Featuring a cool style and a bargain price, the device is built to impress. The Mi Band 2 is a well-designed sequel to the Mi Band and features a heart-rate sensor on the feature-bumped Mi Band 1S.
It has a screen, and it includes a revised design as well. The simple Mi band has undergone a major technical overhaul, which would normally mean an increase in price but thanks to Xiaomi nothing like that happened. The Mi Band 2 is quite similar to its predecessor.
It has a central core module which pops into a thin, silicone strap and permits you to swap it out for various colors and designs. Once the core is fixed, it isn’t going anywhere else. It can be more securely placed compared to the original Mi Band.