Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro Review

Xiaomi is a fast-growing manufacturer in China and it has been consistently penetrating the global market with its cheap and durable products. In the just concluded Xiaomi conference, Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro was unveiled alongside the most-watched full-screen smartphone, Xiaomi Mi MIX 2. This Xiaomi notebook belongs to the flagship model and many believe that it could be directly comparable to the MacBook. In this article, we give a detailed review of the features of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro to ascertain if this is truly a professional notebook as widely peddled. The previous generation Xiaomi Notebook Air teardown available here.

Specifications

Screen	15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS
Processor	Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-8550U Processor (1.80GHz)
Video	MX150 2GB
Memory	16GB DDR4 2400 MHz
Storage	256GB PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD
Connectivity	802.11 AC + Bluetooth 4.1
Ports	2 x USB 3.0, 2x USB Type-C, 3.5mm headset jack
Battery	60 Wh
OS	Windows 10
Weight	1.98 kg (net weight)+ 2.13 kg(charger and cables)
Extras	backlight keyboard, Web webcam

Design

The front side of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro has a minimalist design. The fuselage A side has a large free play space and you choose personalized stickers or laser engraving patterns. Compared to the previous Xiaomi Air notebook, the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is more delicate, comfortable, smooth and has a premium feel. It has an all-metal body using the matte process.

At the rear, the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro has a row of spaces for ventilation and heat dissipation. A similar outlet is also located inside the shaft thus this notebook is designed to let out as much heat as possible thus protecting it from overheating. From the markings at the rear, it can be seen that this laptop will be compatible with Harman Infinity custom speakers and Dolby sound, and after some check, its bass is very rigorous, treble is quite delicate and generally, it has a very good sound effect.

Just like the fuselage A surface, the fuselage C, and D surface texture look premium with a soft feel. Xiaomi added a magnesium alloy skeleton in the build of the C and D surface which gives it a solid shaft making it much better than the Air product. Xiaomi has obviously done a high-quality job with the design of the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro and this product will definitely compete intensively with other brand flagship products.

Screen

The screen of the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is quite elegant with a very narrow frame design and only the bottom of the screen has an “MI” logo. It has an 81.5% of the screen-to-body ratio which gives it a very catchy visual effect. With a bezel thickness of just 6.52mm on both sides, the Xiaomi Pro screen quality is outstanding and you can feel the delicate color combination and high brightness. This fully fit screen reduces the reflection which in turn, improves vision.

A lot of nice words and descriptions have been used on the screen of this notebook. However, a test will be more appropriate for a proper conclusion on the screen performance. Thus we used the red spider 5 generation professional color instrument on the screen test, test results show that Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro screen covers 94% of the sRGB color gamut and 70% of the NTSC color gamut. From this, we can see that the screen is acceptable and there will be no problem with the daily image processing of this device.

Keyboard

This aspect of this notebook is another plus, especially when compared with Xiaomi’s previous version. The keys have 1.5mm spacing, its rebound and feedback are more obvious which certainly feels good. Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro uses a double curved surface design which can reduce keyboard fatigue on the long-term.

On the right side of the keyboard, we have more function keys and this product uses a full-size directional key design but the power button is still integrated in the keyboard and this may be a problem for some users because a simple touch mistake can turn off your laptop especially due to the fact that the power button is close to some very important buttons such as “delete”, “home” and “backspace” which are used almost on a daily basis.

This laptop can be used even in a dark room because the keyboard has a white backlight with a 3nit brightness which is just convenient as it is bright enough to direct your fingers and not too bright to reflect into your eyes.

Interface and Accessories

On the right side of the fuselage, there is an SD card reader, a USB Type-C data transfer interface and a USB Type-C full-featured interface.

 

On the left side of the fuselage, there is an HDMI interface, two USB 3.0 interface, and a power interface. With these, Xiaomi Pro is very rich in connectivity interface and will meet the needs of daily external equipment.

If the external interface of the fuselage does not meet your demands, you can also choose to buy a Xiaomi adapter. You have the option of choosing either the USB Type-A interface or the USB Type-C interface depending on your needs.

The USB Type-C interface adapter with a Gigabit Ethernet port, a VGA interface and two USB 3.0 interface, is currently priced at 199 Yuan ($30). There is also the USB Type-A interface adapter with a network interface, a Micro USB interface and three USB 3.0 interface.

Portability

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro has a body thickness of 15.9mm, although it was widely speculated that this product is thinner than the 15.5mm MacBook Pro, it appears that the picture at the press conference was a bit misleading.

Nevertheless, Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is a 15.6-inch notebook which has a net weight of 1.98kg and a travel weight of 2.13kg which makes it a great device to go out with.

Performance Testing

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is equipped with the latest Intel Gen 8 Core i5 / i7 (i7-8550U) processor which was released at IFA in Germany in August as well as an MX150 graphics card.  Xiaomi official said that this notebook locks 4 core 8 threads and professional-adjusted graphics card thus we tested true performance.

Processor Performance

We use the CineBench R15 processor performance test to access the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro which is equipped with i7-8550U clocking 1.8GHz with a core frequency of 4.0GHz and a thermal design power of 15W. We got a final single-threaded score of 169cb and a multi-threaded score of 550cb. This is far better than the processor of its previous version that we have tested before and the i7-8550U has gone beyond the previous generation of standard i5 -7300HQ processor.

Graphics Performance

We use 3DMark’s Fire Strike mode to test the graphics card, and Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro’s graphics score of 3194 is only slightly higher than 2922 which Xiaomi Air recorded.

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is equipped with the MX150 graphics card and after a professional-level adjustment, its performance increased by 32%. From the GPU-Z value, Xiaomi Pro performed better than Xiaomi Air13 equipped with the same GPU whose performance increased by about 30%. Although the GPU in Xiaomi Air13 is not the full version and that may be responsible for its lower performance. This may not be the best gaming laptop, but the 32% increase in the low-power version of the GPU in Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro will definitely give gamers some appeal for this laptop.

SSD Performance

We use AS SSD hard drive speed test to access the performance of this laptop which sports a Samsung PM961 SSD. It scored a final read speed of 1605.24MB/s, and a write speed of 1189.04MB/s which are good results.

Although the SATA channel for the SSD will be a lot faster, this speed does not meet the PM961 standard. We replaced the Samsung NVMe driver, the speed did not improve. However, for everyday use, it will deliver a quality performance.

Heat Dissipation

We use AIDA64 to test the stability of the notebook. This laptop baked after 30 minutes. We then used the thermal imager to detect the temperature, and we got a maximum positive temperature of 49-degrees. The temperature control is pretty good, but at the middle of the keyboard area, the temperature is quite high. During high load usage, you may feel some discomfort. However, much of the temperature is concentrated at the middle of the air inlet.

Battery Life

To test the battery life, we set the notebook brightness at 50%, volume at 10%, turned off all background software and initiated a continuous video playback on 1080P. After an hour, we had a total of 12% power consumption and this implies that a continuous playback of high-definition video on Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro can reach 8 hours which is quite impressive.

Upgrade Space:  M.2 SATA SSD Can Be Extended

The internal work of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is very neat, it has memory for the onboard and there is a scalable space on the right side of a reserved M.2 SATA SSD slot.

When dismantling, please remember that there is a hidden screw on the top of the notebook pad and more screws are behind the notebook. Never violently dismantle the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro or indeed any other notebook as this might cause damage to varying degree.

Conclusion

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is a 15.6-inch notebook which has not disappointed in most part of its performance. However, it did not impress enough to be compared with Apple’s MacBook Pro especially when you consider its low-version MX150 graphics card which played down its overall performance.

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is largely not a gaming laptop but it can meet the needs low energy games. Generally, it is a professional notebook with excellent screen quality and sound experience to meet the daily requirements of an average user. Its excellent keyboard coupled with its thinness and premium design gives it an edge over its competitors. This notebook is worth the purchase if you are an average everyday laptop user.

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