OVERVIEW: Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 “- gaming competitor MacBook

In the spring and summer of 2016, many manufacturers presented their own vision of a compact version of the MacBook. Xiaomi announced two copies at once: Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 12.5 “and Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3”.

The first device is designed to replace the 12-inch Apple laptop and is, rather, a typewriter. We also got a flagship 13.3-inch version – a full-fledged working machine with a top processor and a discrete video card. Even cooler than the MacBook Pro 13 “.

Characteristics

Design

What should be the clone? Similar to the original product and slightly better on several parameters. In this case, Xiaomi decided to bet on reducing the size. The main weapon was the thickness of the device: it is only 14.8 mm. The thickness of the MacBook Air is 17 mm. Thus, the Xiaomi laptop is thinner than the Apple solution by 13%.

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 “as if cut from a piece of aluminum. Strict lines, extremely small gaps. But at a certain angle it is easily confused with the MacBook: in place of even a finger recess, making it easier to raise the screen. The lack of a logo on the lid only serves good. If desired, you can glue the bitten apple – hardly anyone will be able to guess the origin of the laptop.

The assembly is sound. At the top of the lid is a set of magnets, which secures the halves. Hinges do not lyuftyat, do not creak. The opening is very soft. The screen can be placed at any angle up to 130 degrees.

The frame around the display is noticeably smaller than the popular Apple laptops up to 13 inches. By the way, it is here that the MI badge is hidden, which is noticeable during normal operation.

The only non-metallic part of the case was the inside of the cover: the display and the frame are covered with a protective glass. As a result, the screen is glossy, which means it will shine.

The keyboard almost completely repeats the already familiar layout and design of the MacBook right up to the placement of the power button. The key stroke is soft. There is a backlight, but without adjusting the brightness.

One of the most important advantages of the entire line of the MacBook is the touchpad. It is almost impossible to find it more convenient – all analogs lose. Xiaomi is no exception. The speed of response is very good, pressing and touching are practiced very well. But with the MacBook can not be compared.

Display

For ultrabooks with a diagonal of 13.3 inches, the resolution of 1 920 × 1 080 pixels is not the most modern choice. Many manufacturers equip laptops with Retina-screens. Anticipating possible questions, we will make a reservation at once: Full HD is more reasonable from the point of view of productivity and time of independent work. Large resolutions allow for more efficient scaling of interfaces.

Xiaomi went to a reasonable compromise, which can hardly be seen with the naked eye. The type of the matrix used is IPS, the screen is glossy. So, there are no distortions of color rendition, contrast or narrow dynamic range. And excellent viewing angles. The brightness level is quite high, especially in comparison with other notebooks of this price category.

Performance

As a platform Mi Notebook Air 13.3 “was chosen Intel Core i5-6200U with a clock speed of 2.7 GHz. Why not the newest Kaby Lake? The seventh generation of Intel processors is not yet available for most manufacturers, and the cost is too high. And there are not so many advantages to Skylake. The performance gain in the processor tests for Kaby Lake is no more than 5-10%. Another advantage of the platform – the updated video accelerator – is leveled using the discrete NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics card with 1 GB of memory.

One can argue that such a choice is not the most correct, especially for an ultrabook, where embedded graphics are more than enough. The thing is that the GeForce 940MX overtakes the majority of integrated solutions, including the latest Iris models. The possibility of disconnecting a discrete graphics card should appear with the December update of the drivers. If it is superfluous, you can use an integrated Intel HD chip.

Thus, Mi Notebook Air 13.3 “can be recommended as an efficient workstation. The existing 384 pipelines of the discrete card allow you to play, paint, and even count something. By the way, about the games: Dota 2 shows about 50 fps.

The power of the device is such that engineers have equipped the laptop with a full cooling system with coolers. The design is good – the noise of rotating fans is minimal. In this case, the processor does not heat up to more than 45 degrees.

But not everything is so radiant. On sale there is only a modification with 8 GB of RAM. There is no additional memory slot, so do not count on the extension. And this despite the fact that the engineers of the company foresaw the need to expand the permanent memory: in addition to a regular SSD 256 GB, you can add another hard drive.

All interfaces comply with the specifications. So, the installed USB-C works on a USB 3.0 controller and it can be used both for charging a laptop and for synchronizing other devices. Full-size classic USB also works according to the new standard and supports high speed transmission. There is no official information on the type of HDMI, but 4K-video broadcast support is present.

Wireless interfaces are represented by a dual-band module Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. It provides full compatibility with most devices, even with wireless acoustics there are no problems.

Multimedia

In the description of the appearance, one important point was deliberately missed: the location of the speakers. Meanwhile Xiaomi lures the buyer with the AKG sticker. Indeed, the proprietary speaker system is present. But enjoy high-quality sound will not work.

The fact is that the speaker grilles are located on the back cover, and they are directed downwards. Any soft surface muffles the sound. Even when the laptop is on its knees, distortions begin.

When the laptop is stable, the sound is loud and clean. Low frequencies are weak, they are not enough. But the middle and tops are enough for watching movies and listening to music. In addition, the technology of sound surrounding the user is implemented. And, oddly enough for a portable device, it really works.

Battery life

For a device with a discrete video card, the battery capacity of 40 Wh is not a record figure. It is more suitable for true ultrabooks with low power consumption and built-in video.

Despite this, with a low brightness display in aircraft mode, you can work with office documents for nine hours. Watching Full HD videos over Wi-Fi burns energy for six hours. With capacious calculations using all the hardware capabilities for more than two hours, the laptop will not last.

Not too joyful situation with the battery is compensated by fast charging through the fashionable USB Type-C. To replenish the battery by 50%, only 30 minutes is enough.

Comparison with competitors

The price policy of Xiaomi forces buyers to turn a blind eye to most of the possible problems. The nearest competitors in offline stores in Russia cost more than 80 thousand rubles. Asus, Acer, Dell – they are all much more expensive and do not always offer balanced models. In particular, Dell XPS13 with similar parameters will cost the buyer more than 100 thousand. MacBook Air 13 costs from 80 thousand (and with processors of Intel of the sixth generation – for one hundred).

In such circumstances, the cost of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 “looks much nicer. It will be enough to install the Russian version of Windows 10 Home or Ubuntu, and the hands will be an excellent competitive device with high performance and nice design.

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