Great specs, great price, it is not exactly clear how good the display is, but at least it doesn't seem to be a TN panel if that 170 degree viewing angle is true.
If they commit to supporting Linux I'd totally buy a few. But with W10 and from a Chinese company - no thanks, that a bit too much spyware for my taste.
You're probably right. They say 170, but that's probably for just (best case) horizontal, with vertical it's probably 40 degrees. Also 50% sRGB gamut, so it's probably a landfill-grade panel all around.
FWIW I checked one out in the store today, the screen seems fine, I tried viewing angles on both axes through to extreme angles (like sideways) and there were no color (inversion) or brightness issues at all. Keyboard is also good (and I'm picky), as is the webcam (face tracking was accurate) and the touchpad performed very well with gestures, clicking and tracking (I hate touchpads). Build quality was good, some slight flexing but nothing too extreme for something this thin.
its better than any GPU inside sub-$700 laptops nowadays.. (maybe, since its processor and memory is power efficient, maybe it will perform worse than it should be)
what do you source? it's well known all macbook air displays are TN based. they are color calibrated at the factory is all. google any macbook air review here at anandtech
Waiting for India launch, Xiaomi usually takes few months to launch in all the markets they are present in but India is their second biggest market, so hoping for faster launch this time.
Since the 1990s, tethering has been one or more of 1) fiddly 2) power hungry 3) slow 4) needing extra gear.
I don't want to fish out the phone and turn tethering on just to use the laptop (fiddly). Wifi hotspot tends to be power hungry and usually you can't use wifi if you have hotspot on. Bluetooth tethering could be on all the time but it's slow. USB tethering is again fiddly and needs the extra gear.
@ddriver Great price, what are you talking about? If anything it's way overpriced for the specs, core M & a starting point of over 500$ is just ridiculous, for what I've known of MI products. The "Air" looks to be a (not so) subtle attempt to tide over Apple users with the sleek design & win10 though I doubt it'll gain "too much" traction.
Core m may be pretty useless performance wise but they are rather expensive chips for ultrabooks, and that's what the air is. And yes it's for the apple fans. *sigh* Personally I'm interesting in the pro which is quite light enough, and has decent hardware at that price. It'll be competing against the likes of xps13 and spectre. :)
Hope they had released a laptop with i7 6700hq and 970m under $1000 as per some rumors. :p
Get this, Both the I5 CPU and the Core M CPU have the exact same tray price of $280. Blame intel for charging stupid amounts of money for under-powered core m's. you can buy a skylake desktop i7 for that price. and the die size of the core m is super small, intel just has the margins jacked waaaay up on that particular product line.
For $250 more you are paying for, bigger screen, more ram, more storage, more battery. as i said, the cpu's are the exact same price, so no upsell there.
As a Chinese, the naming creativity and Macbook look-alike desgin is embarrassing for me. Also the choice of weak dGPU is questionable, I would much prefer the Iris iGPU. I guess it saved them some money.
It would be nice to know if the version with nvida gpu gets to hot to have the laptop in your legs. I guess there is no ultra book that can be bought with better price with same specs right?
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pashhtk27 - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Very interesting. Looking forward to release in India.ddriver - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Great specs, great price, it is not exactly clear how good the display is, but at least it doesn't seem to be a TN panel if that 170 degree viewing angle is true.If they commit to supporting Linux I'd totally buy a few. But with W10 and from a Chinese company - no thanks, that a bit too much spyware for my taste.
mobutu - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
170 degree IS a TN panel ... anything good (IPS*type) is 178 degreehybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
You're probably right. They say 170, but that's probably for just (best case) horizontal, with vertical it's probably 40 degrees. Also 50% sRGB gamut, so it's probably a landfill-grade panel all around.ddriver - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
Yeah, by bad.. and too bad.bigjer888 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
FWIW I checked one out in the store today, the screen seems fine, I tried viewing angles on both axes through to extreme angles (like sideways) and there were no color (inversion) or brightness issues at all. Keyboard is also good (and I'm picky), as is the webcam (face tracking was accurate) and the touchpad performed very well with gestures, clicking and tracking (I hate touchpads). Build quality was good, some slight flexing but nothing too extreme for something this thin.Eden-K121D - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Interesting productgregounech - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
I doubt that the Air 13.3" model is configured in 7.5 cTDP Up :) (first array)gregounech - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
WIll be interesting to see the battery life, especially on the 13.3 inches model with a dGPU and with a pretty small 40Wh battery.zeeBomb - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
That's cheap pricing for a notebook of this caliber... Right guys?nandnandnand - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
It's hitting the right notes. How good is NVIDIA GeForce 940MX?ragenalien - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Equivalent to the surface book GPU depending on what memory is used.hemedans - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
nop its not there are many laptops with Nvidia 960m/950m for around $700 with i5 6300HQ (quadcore)iBend - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
its better than any GPU inside sub-$700 laptops nowadays.. (maybe, since its processor and memory is power efficient, maybe it will perform worse than it should be)mobutu - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
both are equipped with crap TN screens ...Flunk - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
So does the MacBook Air and it costs more.skavi - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Source?Morawka - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
what do you source? it's well known all macbook air displays are TN based. they are color calibrated at the factory is all. google any macbook air review here at anandtechBMNify - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
@Morawka: He is asking for the source regarding Xiaomi Notebook Air laptops display not the Macbook Airs display.[email protected] - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Is there any TN panel that provides 170 degree if viewing angle?Samus - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
It's unlikely TN if it is a 170 degree viewing angle. And if it is TN with that viewing angle it's a top notch display, not some AU optronics crap.mobutu - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
170 degree IS a TN panel ... anything good (IPS*type) is 178 degreeluca5 - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
11.5 and 9.5 hours of battery life sounds a tad too optimistic. besides that, color me impressed!damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Nah. Microsoft Surface Book.BMNify - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Waiting for India launch, Xiaomi usually takes few months to launch in all the markets they are present in but India is their second biggest market, so hoping for faster launch this time.ruthan - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
No integrated LTEmodem, so no thanks.Murloc - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
what's wrong with tetheringamrs - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
Since the 1990s, tethering has been one or more of 1) fiddly 2) power hungry 3) slow 4) needing extra gear.I don't want to fish out the phone and turn tethering on just to use the laptop (fiddly). Wifi hotspot tends to be power hungry and usually you can't use wifi if you have hotspot on. Bluetooth tethering could be on all the time but it's slow. USB tethering is again fiddly and needs the extra gear.
So, that's what's wrong with tethering.
Meteor2 - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
If you've got WiFi you don't need to tether ('and usually you can't use Wi-Fi if you have hotspot on')R0H1T - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
@ddriver Great price, what are you talking about? If anything it's way overpriced for the specs, core M & a starting point of over 500$ is just ridiculous, for what I've known of MI products. The "Air" looks to be a (not so) subtle attempt to tide over Apple users with the sleek design & win10 though I doubt it'll gain "too much" traction.pashhtk27 - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Core m may be pretty useless performance wise but they are rather expensive chips for ultrabooks, and that's what the air is. And yes it's for the apple fans. *sigh*Personally I'm interesting in the pro which is quite light enough, and has decent hardware at that price. It'll be competing against the likes of xps13 and spectre. :)
Hope they had released a laptop with i7 6700hq and 970m under $1000 as per some rumors. :p
Meteor2 - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
Define 'useless'. Core M with SSD does everything but game and encode lag-free.Morawka - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Get this, Both the I5 CPU and the Core M CPU have the exact same tray price of $280. Blame intel for charging stupid amounts of money for under-powered core m's. you can buy a skylake desktop i7 for that price. and the die size of the core m is super small, intel just has the margins jacked waaaay up on that particular product line.For $250 more you are paying for, bigger screen, more ram, more storage, more battery. as i said, the cpu's are the exact same price, so no upsell there.
Vlad_Da_Great - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
@Morawka. The trade off is the TDP vs frequency. Plus Xiaomi is not paying those prices. They probably bought 1M of each.WorldWithoutMadness - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
No info about what the OS?Ubuntu? Win10?
WorldWithoutMadness - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Ah, don't mind it. I missed the "Both notebooks are made by Tian Mi, a partner of Xiaomi, and will run Microsoft Windows 10 Home."Maybe OS can be put into the table
Eden-K121D - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Yes.Windows 10Samus - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
This is almost too cheap for something with those specs. Intel charges half the value of those machines for just the CPU.prisonerX - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
No-one pays those prices.antifocus - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
As a Chinese, the naming creativity and Macbook look-alike desgin is embarrassing for me. Also the choice of weak dGPU is questionable, I would much prefer the Iris iGPU. I guess it saved them some money.http://article.fd.zol-img.com.cn/t_s640x2000/g5/M0...
The placement of fans on the same side of heat source is also questionable.
prisonerX - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
Why be embarrassed? Apple claims things as their own which were created by others. At least here they're not lying about the "hommage."Murloc - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
because it's a throwback to the SciPhone and the idea that they copy, despite the creation of successful chinese tech brands in the last years.prisonerX - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
Might be great, if you can Hackintosh it.Michael Bay - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
"Might be"?It will be the ultimate applehead trolling device then!
titooo7 - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
It would be nice to know if the version with nvida gpu gets to hot to have the laptop in your legs.I guess there is no ultra book that can be bought with better price with same specs right?
realbabilu - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
Rose GOLD please...Hackintosh compatible? Tonymac please check!
zodiacfml - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Interesting but we are forgetting that ASUS already has this configuration with their Zenbook UX305 and probably better looking than this one.ET - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I bought a Dell XPS 13 recently, otherwise I would have been very tempted. GeForce 940 is drool worthy compared to the integrated Intel.rms141 - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Tech sites need to stop lending credibility to these Chinese carbon copies.