Xiaomi Launches Glaring Macbook Air Clone, and It’s Actually Pretty Good

In typical “monkey see, money do” fashion, Chinese consumer electronics heavyweight Xiaomi on Wednesday effectively laid out to pasture years of rampant rumors and speculation — when the firm officially took the wraps off its all-new 12.5- and 13.3-inch MacBook Air clones — appropriately dubbed the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air.

As if the forthcoming laptop’s name, in and of itself, wasn’t enough of an indication, Xiaomi is clearly hoping to take Apple’s MacBook Air head-on with its new Mi Notebook Air. As a matter of fact, the Chinese manufacturer alluded to that exact sentiment at the notebook computer’s launch event this week.

Much like Apple’s MacBook Air, Xiaomi’s new Mi Notebook Air boasts an impressively thin, minimalist design. It’s constructed of a solid block of super-strong, anodized aluminum, and, as the larger, 13.3-inch variant is pertinent, weighs in at a modest 2.82 pounds, measuring a mere 14.8mm at the waist. The 12.5-inch variant, in comparison, weighs in at just over 2.3 pounds, and measures 12.9mm thick.

Ironically enough, these measurements render Xiaomi’s Mi Notebook Air roughly 13% thinner than Apple’s MacBook Air. Both variants feature full HD displays, thin bezels, and strong protective glass covers shielding the display.

As you might imagine, the marginally larger, 13.3-inch variant is the more powerful of the two machines. Featuring Intel’s 6th generation Skylake processors, clocked at up to 2.7 GHz, the Mi Notebook Air also boasts 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, a 256 GB PCIe-based SSD, and much more.

Additional features include 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB-C port, a full-size backlit keyboard, as well as an additional SSD expansion slot located on the side.

Alternatively, the smaller, 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air will come equipped with an Intel Core m3 processor, sport 4 GB of RAM, a 128 GB SSD, and like its bigger sibling, will run Windows 10 out of the box.

The larger Mi Notebook Air is slated to boast approximately 9.5 hours of battery life on a single charge, and the battery is said to be able to reach 50% charge within just 30 minutes. The smaller Mi Notebook Air, on the other hand, claims to offer an impressive 11.5 hours of battery life.

Xiaomi’s 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air has been priced at RMB 4999 ($749 USD), while the smaller, 12.5-inch variant will be priced at RMB 3499 ($525 USD). Both variants will be launched in China on August 2nd, and will retail directly from Xiaomi’s website — mi.com.

What do you think about Xiaomi’s new MacBook Air clone? Let us know in the comments!