Xiaomi on Friday as expected unveiled a new variant of its Mi Notebook Air laptop, with LTE Cat. 4 4G connectivity support. The Windows 10 Home-based laptops were launched in collaboration with China Mobile, and the laptops natively support the telecom operator's networks without requiring a separate SIM card. The company has also announced that users will get free access to 4GB of 4G data every month, totalling 48GB a year. The Mi Notebook Air 4G 12.5-inch model has been priced at CNY 4,699 (roughly Rs. 46,500) while the 13.3-inch model has been priced at CNY 6,999 (roughly Rs. 69,500).
To recall, the non-4G variants of the Mi Notebook Air were launched back in July, and featured price tags of CNY 3,499 (roughly Rs. 34,000) for the 12.5-inch variant, and CNY 4,999 (roughly Rs. 49,500) for the 13.3-inch variant. The premium can be attributed to the 4G data plan - said to be worth CNY 1,560 a year, however, some other upgrades exist on the specifications front for the 13.3-inch variant.
The 12.5-inch Mi Notebook Air 4G retains its full-HD display resolution, is powered by an Intel Core M3 processor coupled with 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM (1866MHz), and offers a 128GB SSD (SATA) that's expandable via a second SSD slot. Other features include Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v4.1, AKG dual speakers, and Dolby Digital surround sound support. It is 12.9mm thick at its thinnest, and weighs in at 1.07kg. The company is touting a battery life up to 11.5 hours. It comes with an HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air on the other hand comes with a sixth-generation Intel Core i7 (2 cores, 4 threads, max clock speed of 3.0GHz) processor, which the company says will provide a 10 percent improvement over the Core i5 processor of the non-4G variant. Other specifications remain the same as last time, including a Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU with 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB PCIe SSD.
Just like the 12.5-inch model, a second SSD slot on the 13.3-inch Mi Notebook Air 4G can be used for expansion. As before, the new 4G variant is touted to deliver a battery life up to 9.5 hours. Other connectivity, ports, and audio options are the same as the 12.5-inch model. It weighs 1.28kg and is 14.8mm thick.
