1: Preamble
Xiaomi Notebook, which has been popular for many years but has never been seen, until 2016, under the banner of "thin performance book", Xiaomi officially released the Xiaomi Notebook Air, with a total of two configurations, namely the 12.5 inch integrated display version and the 13.3 inch unique display version. Xiaomi once represented the performance monster in the mobile phone industry, which came to the fragmented PC world, Can Xiaomi set off another bloody storm in the Red Sea?
2: Hardware Introduction
Xiaomi Notebook Air There are 12.5 inch integrated display version (hereinafter referred to as standard version) and 13.3 inch independent display version (hereinafter referred to as high configuration version), both of which are in addition to screen size In addition to the differences between the main components such as the CPU and the graphics card, there are also many differences between the two in terms of some secondary components. For example, in addition to the memory size, the high configuration version uses DDR4 memory while the standard version uses LPDDR3 memory. The same is true in terms of storage. The high configuration version uses 256GB SSD based on the NVMe transmission protocol of the PCIE channel, The standard version is a 128GB SSD with a common SATA channel. The difference in read and write performance between the two versions is huge. From the hardware point of view, the high configuration version is very cost-effective compared with the standard version, which costs 1000 yuan. Xiaobian has also compared other brands' 5000 grade notebooks, and almost no SSD based on NVMe transmission protocol of PCIE channel is used as the hard disk. Compared with the 940MX unique display, this is the finishing touch.
3: Appearance introduction
It should be noted that the Xiaobian won the high configuration Xiaomi notebook Air this time, so this review is mainly about the high configuration version. The packaging design similar to that of Xiaomi mobile phone series - white background+notebook main body
After opening the package, we can see that only the power adapter and San Bao instructions are available for accessories. The adapter uses the USB 3.1 Type-C (Gen1) interface in line with the trend.
The power of the power adapter is 65W, which is conscience compared with the 45W equipped by most of the friends.
Finally, Xiaomi came to the air of Xiaomi notebook. Xiaomi is very powerful in materials. It uses an integrated metal body design, and its surface is anodized. It feels comfortable but not slippery.
There is no logo on the Air A side of the Xiaomi laptop. The official meaning is to let users do their own DIY A side design. If they do not choose, the A side is a smooth aluminum plate, which is slightly abrupt.
The official meaning of thickness seems to be that it is thinner than a dollar, but for the reasons you know, I don't want to demonstrate it.
In terms of interfaces, there is an HDMI interface, a USB 3.0 interface and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left side of the Xiaomi laptop Air high configuration version. On the right side are the power indicator, USB 3.1 Type-C interface and USB 3.0 interface.
From the overall point of view, the shape of the Xiaomi laptop air is relatively rough, the cross section transition is almost straight, there is not too much camber transition, it looks OK, but it is a bit painful to hold it in the hand. In addition, it is very easy to open and close a little more Xiaomi laptop air with one hand.
The D side of the Xiaomi laptop also uses metal materials that are integrally molded, and it should be noted that the heat sink on the D side is only available in the high configuration version. The standard version does not have slots because of the low power consumption of the m3+integrated display scheme.
When you open the screen, you can see that the B side of the Xiaomi laptop Air is made of all glass, while the C side is made of metal.
The screen is designed with a narrow frame, and a 1 megapixel camera and microphone are integrated above the screen
The C-side keyboard adopts a chocolate design, with short key stroke, hard feedback, and medium level. In terms of lighting, there are only two switches, and the user cannot adjust the brightness of the keyboard.
The power switch is set in the upper right corner of the keyboard, and it is not independent. Users can easily press the shutdown key by mistake when using the return key or delete key. If the power switch is placed between two keys with such high usage, the editor can only give a bad comment.
The touchpad is made of glass, which has a good sliding feel and a large bearing surface area. When using the touchpad, users can find the bearing position in their palms.
4: Screen test
In terms of screen test, CalMAN 5 Home Theater is used for test, and all tests are conducted under 100 nits.
The maximum brightness of the screen is 300.68 nites, and the contrast is 1074:1
The average color accuracy test is 2.5, and the screen quality is very good.
The sRGB color gamut of the screen is 92.3%.
5: Performance test
In terms of system, the high configuration version of Xiaomi notebook Air is equipped with Windows 10 Home Edition, so our tests are based on Windows 10 Home Edition
The high configuration version of the Xiaomi laptop Air uses Intel Core i5 6200U 2.30GHz, two cores and four threads. The highest single core can reach 2.8GHz. With the 14nm process and Skylake architecture, the TDP is 15W. Although the power consumption is good, the performance is weak. Compared with the fourth generation desktop version, the CPU-Z is only similar to the I3.
8GB DDR4-2133MHz in memory
In addition to the HD 520 integrated display of the CPU, the GPU is also equipped with the GTX940MX. Although it is an enhanced version, its memory is only 1GB in terms of specifications, and its video memory bandwidth is only 64 bits.
The hard disk adopts 256G PCI-E SSD from Samsung, which is based on NVMe transmission protocol.
Disk performance test results
PCMark 8 Home conventional 3.0 scored 2450
PCMark 8 Creative conventional 3.0 scored 2391
PCMark 8 Work conventional 3.0 scored 2817
3DMark's score of running Fire Strike: 1938 points. Compared with most ultrabooks that use the integrated display HD520, the score of Fire Strike as high as 1938 is much higher than the 800 points generally obtained by the HD520. Unfortunately, this score also shows that the 940MX will be unable to cope with some large-scale online games and stand-alone games
3DMark scored 483 points when running Fire Strike Extreme. 1GB of video memory became the bottleneck, and performance dropped significantly when running at 2K resolution.
Cinebench R15 test results show that OpenGL is 53.45fps and CPU is 289cb
6: Heat dissipation and noise test
It should be noted in advance that the ambient temperature of the test environment is about 25 ℃.
The CPU temperature is 39 degrees in standby mode
After 10 minutes of full load operation, the CPU temperature rises to 63 degrees and the frequency is maintained at 2.7 GHz, which is quite good.
After passing through the toaster, the full load temperature of GPU was maintained at 58 degrees, and the frequency was stabilized at 405MHz
In terms of noise, the noise measured by the noise meter when the Xiaomi laptop air high configuration is in standby mode is 44.2dB, which is average.
When fully loaded, the noise rises to 53.1dB. At this time, the user can already hear the sound of the fan, which affects the user experience
In terms of fuselage temperature, the temperature of surface C is 36.5 degrees and that of surface D is 34.2 degrees in standby mode
After 10 minutes of full load operation, the maximum temperature of surface C is 46.4 ° C, while that of surface D is 47.6 ° C. The performance is relatively good, and the heat source of surface C is mainly concentrated in the keyboard, which has little impact on the user experience.
7: Interior details
At the internal overview, it should be noted that although the back cover of the Xiaomi laptop Air is easy to remove, there is a screw under the foot pad, which needs to be removed before taking it out.
The Xiaomi laptop Air is equipped with two cooling fans, which theoretically can have a better cooling performance, but I don't know why it only uses one heat pipe to heat the CPU and GPU, which is the balance of merits and demerits. Moreover, since two large heating users are concentrated together, even using two fans can bring little cooling dividends.
The battery capacity is 5107mAh.
In terms of SSD, the high configuration version of Xiaomi notebook Air adopts an OEM version of Samsung PM951. Theoretically, the continuous reading can reach 1000MB/S, and the continuous writing can reach 280MB/S. The reading performance can be described as quite brutal. However, it should be noted that the two M2 ports of the high configuration Xiaomi notebook Air are different. One is the PCIE channel, and the other is the SATA channel. Users need to pay more attention when expanding memory.
8: Summary
As the first notebook released by Xiaomi, Xiaomi Air is qualified. Compared with other brands at the same price, there are no weaknesses in hardware, such as narrow border design The 256GB SSD of PCIE interface based on NVMe transmission protocol is also more conscientious than competitors at the same price, but it does not give consumers a sense of surprise on the whole, and there are many friends' notebooks with similar hardware specifications whose prices are lower than Xiaomi's Air or whose hardware specifications or design materials are better, In addition, as a latecomer, Xiaomi has no own software available on the software side, which also gives consumers a layer of concern. Xiaomi is also slightly embarrassed to position the high configuration version of Xiaomi notebook Air as a light and thin game book. Compared with the i5-6500U+940MX scheme adopted by most official game books (the price is about 5500), the i5-6300HQ+960M scheme is obviously weak in terms of CPU core number, performance and graphics card performance, which makes itself in a passive state at the beginning, If Xiaomi's slogan is a super book that can play games, I believe it will be much better. However, for Xiaomi, who released the notebook for the first time, Xiaomi Air is full of sincerity. After all, no one in the Red Sea market dare to reduce the price and manufacture the price advantage by purchasing parts in large quantities. If you use word input and light image processing in your daily work, and you want to travel on business, you can also write 2 LOLs, Xiaomi notebook might be a good choice.
