Here it is - the first real Xiaomi laptop. A lightweight, compact competitor to the popular MacBook for just $700. Let's see what the company offers for a price two times lower than Apple?
Design
Surprisingly, the Xiaomi laptop does not exactly copy the Apple device. And in some ways it surpasses it - for example, Mi Air is 13% thinner than the corresponding MacBook (although this is an insignificant difference, for carrying and bags it is a very significant figure).
The body of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 is made of all-metal stamped plates with minimal gaps. This build quality is typical of Dell or Panasonic flagships for the industrial segment.
It is curious that the contours - strict, laconic, designed from scratch - still resemble a MacBook. If you buy the appropriate sticker, no one will guess.
Fixation of the lid and keyboard unit is ensured not only by a set of hinges (opening up to 130 degrees at any angle), but also by an additional set of magnets. Accidental discoveries are excluded. The price for this is the inability to open the laptop with one hand.
The display is surrounded by minimal bezels (by the way, the only MI logo can be found here) - less can only be found on the Dell XPS, which costs an order of magnitude more and does not have a discrete graphics card. There is no need to compare it with a MacBook - the Xiaomi Mi Air 13 is a real esthete in comparison.
The laptop is made entirely of metal - only the display is protected by glossy tempered glass.
The keyboard module is made perfectly - without backlash, with good key travel and the most familiar layout. There is a non-adjustable backlight.
Unlike its analogues, Xiaomi Mi Air is equipped with a very good touchpad. The panel handles all Windows 10 gestures perfectly, accurately and without errors. Response speed is on par with the best laptops on the market.
Picture and screen
Xiaomi Mi Air 13 is equipped with a high-quality 13.3-inch IPS matrix (1920×1080). Not “retina” - and that’s good. The autonomy of such screens is higher, and so is their performance. And FullHD works much better with interface scaling.
The color rendition of the matrix is close to ideal. Contrast is excellent, with dynamic range approaching the best displays. The brightness level allows you to use the laptop even under bright sun.
Hardware capabilities
The performance of Mi Notebook Air 13.3 is based on the fairly common and productive dual-core Intel Core i5-6200U of the Skylake generation with a frequency of up to 2.7 GHz per core (without Hyper-theading). The company was forced to abandon Kaby Lak due to the low difference in performance and a twofold difference in price.
The missing graphics card power is made up by using the latest NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with fast 5th generation memory (1 GB). An excellent solution that will allow you to freely play most games with native resolution, engage video encoding and solve almost any problem for which hardware processing is available video core. For example, Dota 2 runs on Xiaomi Mi Air 13 at 50 fps, Half-Life 2 at 100 fps.
Since the video card and processor have quite high performance, Xiaomi engineers had to equip the laptop with active cooling with 2 turbines. It ensures the device operates at a stable 45 degrees - ideal parameters for a device of this class.
Hardware performance is limited to a single 8 GB RAM module; there is no additional slot for another stick. The drive is represented by a 256 GB SSD, and there is also an additional free connector of the same type for connecting an additional solid-state device.
Unlike many competitors, Xiaomi Mi Air 13 uses USB-C as the main peripheral port on USB 3.1 controller. It is suitable for charging a laptop and as a data port; video output and pass-through also work charger. In addition to it, the new product has 2 USB 3.0 and HDMI 2.0 with support for 4K broadcasting.
Wireless connectivity uses 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. An external dongle is required to use 4G. All other devices connect via wireless interfaces without problems.
Multimedia
On the rear panel there are very cool AKG stereo speakers for its price range. The audio system allows you to really enjoy the sound of music, watch movies with a high-quality audio track - and refuse to use external acoustics.
The sound is loud, clear, with enveloping bass and excellent implementation of 3D surround sound.
Autonomous operation
Xiaomi Mi Air 13 is equipped with an excellent battery with a capacity of 40 Wh. A classic indicator for a portable laptop with low power consumption and economical video.
With moderate brightness in airplane mode, the laptop can work for a serious 9 hours, unavailable for most competitors in its price category. Watching videos over Wi-Fi will eat up the battery after 7 hours. Intensive calculations are available to the user for 3-4 hours.
The device is equipped with fast charging - the full energy reserve can be restored in just 1 hour.
Conclusions: the best portable laptop
The main competitors are twice as expensive. And higher. The most current model in this class, the Dell XPS13, costs about 100 thousand rubles - and it includes a discrete card! MacBook Air 13 starts at 80 thousand - and also does not shine with hardware capabilities.
Still in doubt? Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3″ for $700 is the only productive laptop with a diagonal of 13 inches. And one of the best laptops on the market altogether.
