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Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

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Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#211

Post by soylentcola »

puranjay wrote: post #8

People shit on Xiaomi here but even imitation requires some level of artistry and finesse. This looks like a good clone of Air, and I haven't seen Acer/Lenovo/Dell manage to do that yet.

I don't typically buy ultra-think notebooks (or really many notebooks in general) but I've had good experiences with Asus if you want that "85% of a MacBook quality for 50% of the price" thing.

Last laptop I bought was due to needing something for occasional DJ and projection graphics projects. Since it needed to be mobile, even a small form factor desktop build was not really feasible so I went looking for the best thing I could grab at Microcenter for under a grand.

Now this was a few years ago so the specs aren't top notch anymore but for just under $1000 I got an Asus that's not quite all metal (bottom half of the shell is plastic but the rest is aluminum), 1920x1080 screen (but worse viewing angles than a premium display), an i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and the mobile variant of the then-current class of nVidia GPUs (because I needed something that could handle all of the OpenGL stuff I was messing with). The only other sucky part was it came with a HDD instead of a SSD but at some point I'll upgrade the SSD in my desktop and hand that one down to the laptop.

The nearest competing Apple notebook at the time (at least 1920x1080, i7, 16GB RAM, and discrete graphics) would've run me about $2500. Build would've been better, display would've been a bit better, and if it had a SSD or one of those hybrid drives, that obviously beats spinning platters.

But none of those things (or all of them together) was worth spending more than double. If it was going to be my only machine for everything I'd have probably paid the premium for an Apple or another higher-end notebook with nicer display and SSD but for a secondary computer at around $950-ish it is still running perfectly when I need to take something on the road.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#212

Post by drzaiusapelord »

sievebrain wrote: post #58
Fuxy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acer/Lenovo/Dell can't risk getting sued by Apple. Xiaomi is a Chinese company they don't care since if they ever do get sued the Chinese court will always side with the Chinese company. The again if the clone works just as well as the original I don't really care but this would have been a really good chance to copy and improve.

Lenovo is also a Chinese company, no? And Acer is Taiwanese.

Lenovo inherited its entire design style from the IBM sale. A modern thinkpad isn't that different from one from 2003. Lenovo doesn't need to copy anyone. Its designs are already considered classic and unique to their brand.

Xiaomi is the new kid on the block and just copies Apple designs. Some examples:

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2014/07/xiaomi-copying-apple.html

Also they have no legitimate sales channel in the US/EU, so there's a jurisdiction issue with a lawsuit. Apple knows it can't just march into China and win a lawsuit. Acer and Lenovo sell in the US/EU, so they have to play ball with our IP laws.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#213

Post by FT_intern »

smhg wrote: post #170
MichaelGG wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, nothing comes close to ThinkPads. I dislike Lenovo a lot and would ditch them at first chance. No vendor wants to be that chance though. (Proper keyboard, 3-physical-button pad/point, not too hot, etc.) I'm not too concerned about Superfish - that was only the consumer junk, right? The BIOS-Windows-auto-install stuff was more concerning. But hey, little choices. Lenovo is certainly incompetent - look a…

Don't forget the Ctrl - Fn key swap. On some Lenovo models they are the same size (and can be swapped), but not on the Carbon X1.

I assume this was implemented to improve usability for people with short fingers. As someone with tiny fingers, I would rather have a huge Ctrl key and a tiny fn key

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#214

Post by JBiserkov »

dorfsmay wrote: post #178
MichaelGG wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, nothing comes close to ThinkPads. I dislike Lenovo a lot and would ditch them at first chance. No vendor wants to be that chance though. (Proper keyboard, 3-physical-button pad/point, not too hot, etc.) I'm not too concerned about Superfish - that was only the consumer junk, right? The BIOS-Windows-auto-install stuff was more concerning. But hey, little choices. Lenovo is certainly incompetent - look a…

I'm in the same boat. Additionally there is a huge immunity of people running Linux on the thinkpads which make it easier to pick the right components when buying, and sovle and find work around when you do hit a problem.

I know this is probably auto-correct, but find it hilarious that you misspelled 'community' as 'immunity' :-)

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#215

Post by cptskippy »

ForFreedom wrote: post #101

I dont understand why everyone is comparing their products to the Mac/iPhone and then they say "cheap" as $xxx. You cant compare a KIA to Bugatti and say cheap as $xxx. The point is create a product people speak about and has a value

If we're going to be using the car analogy, Vertu is the Bugatti of consumer electronics and Apple is more like BMW although they desperately want to be Mercedes.

Regardless, KIA's reliability and repair-ability ratings trump all three of them. So I'll let your original comparison stand.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#216

Post by zdkl »

soylentcola wrote: post #211
puranjay wrote: post #8

People shit on Xiaomi here but even imitation requires some level of artistry and finesse. This looks like a good clone of Air, and I haven't seen Acer/Lenovo/Dell manage to do that yet.

I don't typically buy ultra-think notebooks (or really many notebooks in general) but I've had good experiences with Asus if you want that "85% of a MacBook quality for 50% of the price" thing. Last laptop I bought was due to needing something for occasional DJ and projection graphics projects. Since it needed to be mobile, even a small form factor desktop build was not really feasible so I went looking for the best…

On some of the models you're describing the motherboard is soldered to the chassis, that makes changing the HDD a bit perileous. Apart from that point I echo the sentiment. These are (were?) great little laptops for the price point/form factor

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#217

Post by ryanlol »

mi_sucks wrote: post #180
snemvalts wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Full encryption is available on almost all Mi phones, including my Redmi Note 3 Pro: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/4nkrcj/encryption_f... .

http://en.miui.com/thread-40877-1-1.html http://en.miui.com/thread-29306-1-1.html a google search on MI3 encryption will help you out and their customer care sucks when you ask them I have been using MI phoneS for more than 2 years Now

>I have been using MI phoneS for more than 2 years Now

But why?

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#218

Post by [deleted] »

comboy wrote: post #54
aoloe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you misssing in a Dell XPS 13?

I have both air and xps 13 and to me they are not even comparable. Yes, thin bezel looks cool at the first glance but that's about it. Instead of metal under your hand you have this weird something, keyboard works much worse, they did not even make reasonable handle to open the laptop like there is in macbook air. Also the power supply is chunky and you cannot fold it nicely. Don't get me wrong, it's a really good la…

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#219

Post by cptskippy »

klackerz wrote: post #26

The best thing about Xiaomi is that they support their products very well. Almost all of their phones get security updates each month. That is a rare thing in Android nowadays especially with Motorola announcing that they will stop updating their phones with the new security updates. [1] [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/motorola-confirms-tha...

The worst thing about Xiaomi is their invasive software. In order to use a Mi Fit band you have to create an account with them and grant their app every permission under the sun.

I love their hardware, it's a frugal premium grade that's hard to come by. I just wish it were more open and their software wasn't so questionable.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#220

Post by baldfat »

eloycoto wrote: post #9
anilgulecha wrote: post #4

If the RAM is user-upgradable, this will make for an excellent dev machine. Given it's a chinese laptop, it will surely not be locked, so Ubuntu will run well as well.

Ubuntu and batteries are not good friends :-( I tried few times and still using apple

Well was that with Apple products?
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