The Chinese market has already had an eye on the new Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air as well as the new phablet, Xiaomi Redmi Pro. The two devices were launched at an event in China, but they will not be up for sale until the first week of August.
The new Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air marks the company’s entry into the PC world. In China, Xiaomi is known as “the Apple of China.” This can be reflected in the smartphone designs that take after the iPhone, something the company is keen to keep on doing with the new release of the Mi Notebook Air. According to the Chinese OEM, the new Mi Notebook Air is thinner than the current Apple MacBook Air.
The device comes with a 13.3-inch Full HD display screen that features an edge-to-edge glass protector, but just like its handsets, the material build of the laptop is all metal. The device also measures 309.6 by 210.9 by 14.8mm and has a weight of 1.28kg. The Mi Notebook Air comes with a USB Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports as well as an HDMI port. You also get to use the 3.5mm headphones. The Notebook has a full-size ultra-thin keyboard that has each individual key lighting on its own.
The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air comes in two variants. The 13.3-inch model is the larger of the two, coming in with an Intel Core i5 SoC that is paired with a RAM of 8GB. You also get a 256GB SSD storage and a battery life of 9.5 hours. The device is powered by the latest Windows 10 OS and has a price tag of just $750, but this is in China. The price might change due to shipping costs and taxes, but we don’t expect the change to be huge.
There is a smaller 12.5-inch Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air which still retains the Full HD panel, has a slim all-metal unibody design, a battery life of up to 11.5 hours and runs on a slightly slower Intel Core M3 SoC. The M3 SoC is paired with a RAM of 4GB and has an onboard storage of 128GB, which is an SSD drive. As for the pricing, the entry-level Mi Notebook Air is priced at $525, which is still very affordable.
These two laptops will start selling in China as from August 2.
Xiaomi Redmi Pro
As noted, the Mi Notebook Air was not the only device launched at the event. The company also came in with a Xiaomi Redmi Pro smartphone.
The phone has a full metal design that features an aluminum build with chamfered edges. The display unit stands at 5.5 inches, but it is a Full HD OLED panel with 1080p resolution. In case you didn’t know, the Xiaomi Redmi Pro is the first Xiaomi phone to pack an OLED display panel. The phone also features a fingerprint scanner on the front panel.
Under the hood, there is a MediaTek Helio X25 that packs 10 cores clocked at a maximum speed of 2.5GHz. This is paired with a Mali T880 GPU and a RAM of 4GB as well as onboard storage of 128GB, but this is only true for the high-end variant. As for the low-end variant, you get an Helio X20 SoC that is paired with 3GB RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage.
Other than the OLED display panel, another feature that is making its debut on Xiaomi handsets via the Redmi Pro is the dual-lens camera setup. You will get a 13MP Sony sensor on the back of the phone whose task is to capture still images. The second lens is a 5MP Samsung sensor, which appears at the bottom. The phone will be powered by Android 6.0 Marshmallow and has a huge battery unit of 4050mAh to keep it alive.
The high-end variant has a price tag of $299 while the mid-range costs $254. As for the base model, you need $224 to get out of the shelves. Unlike the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air, the Redmi Pro will start selling on August 6.