We can’t say that we weren’t expecting something like this but the sudden reveal has come as a bit of a surprise. There were nebulous reports swirling around in October 2015 that Xiaomi would be launching its own notebook some time this year. Xiaomi, at an event to announce the new Redmi Pro handset, also took the wraps off its first notebook. The name? The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air. Gee, we wonder which company Xiaomi has in its sights…

The Windows-based machines are going to be available in two sizes. There’s a 12.5-inch and a 13.3-inch version in the offing but its the rest of the specs and the apparent pricing that caught our collective eyes. Well, that and the all-metal bodies and the USB-C support and… you get the idea.

Introducing #MiNotebookAir, ultra performance in an ultra-light package pic.twitter.com/ejnYM8OpAV

— Xiaomi (@Xiaomi) July 27, 2016

The Mi Notebook Air 13.3-in will measure just 14.8mm, making it thinner than a MacBook Air, but it will somehow fit an HD screen, Core i5 processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 256GB SSD (and space for expansion), as well as a GTX 940MX GPU inside. How, we’re not really certain, but we’d like to find out. The 12.5in (also HD) edition will use a Core M3 chip, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and an integrated graphics processor but it’ll also be cheaper. The 13.3in model is set to cost around R10,700 in the company’s native China. The smaller notebook will retail for close to R7,800.

What we don’t know is whether the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air will be seeing release outside of China or what they will cost. It’s set to launch in China on 2 August (yes, that date again) but there’s no word on whether other countries will be getting a look in. We certainly hope we do – Xiaomi’s handsets have us interested in what it can do on the notebook front.

Source: TechCrunch