Xiaomi’s latest in the Mi Notebook line is the Intel 8th Gen powered 15.6″ Mi Notebook Pro model. It’s now up for order for $899 (with coupon MIBOOKPRO) this is around the same price I first paid for my 13.3″ 2017 refreshed model with the i5 6200U. This quad-core CPU should be a nice step up in terms of CPU power, the GPU, remains the Nvidia MX150 with 2GB of DDR5 RAM it’s basically a Nvidia 1030. The i7 8550U & 16GB model won’t be released for a good month yet, expecting to ship late October. And the preorder pricing on Aliexpress and other sites is just crazy, well over $1500!
So due to the i7 + 16GB price and the wait I decided to order the Core i5 8250U model to review, the good news it has already shipped from Shenzhen, China. I expect it to arrive early next week if it’s not held up in customs so look for the unboxing & hands-on preview soon.
Overall the Mi Notebook Pro looks promising with more CPU power, double the ports, new cooling design, larger touchpad and keyboard over the Mi Notebook 13.3. If you missed it, my Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 2017 Kaby refresh review is here.
LaniaKea
the code “MIBOOKPRO” will drop the price under 1k. (though the lesser edition, i5&8GB that are presale)
just have in mind you can expect close to 1 months before there socalled presaledate are ended and dispatch around 28 oct. so there could be a chance that it will drop further before ewen the presale’date rounds up.
LaniaKea
btw good call with lesser version Techtablets and partically if you found a source there could handle it that fast.
Dont feel that Xiaomi are reasonable with there upgraded models. (simply to steep, there prices for what your getting)
no doubt that the i7 and partically the 16GB are the one people have set there eyes on, but on the older versions the i7 editions on the skylake/940 newer reached highly attractive-level, the lowest i saw the ultimate edition for was 799USD, while the lesser i5 was as low as 616USD before CB.
that is imply to much difference i5 vs i7 if you take an look what inner-margin-value there useally seperate a i5 skylake vs
LaniaKea
Hmm a little weird that Xiaomi claims a maximum read speed at 1.5gb on the NVMe drive. (seems like a mistake)
https://i.imgur.com/FqIYdFe.png
the other drive is sata like we seen on all Xiaomi motherboards.
also do wonder about the panel Xiaomi have used with relative 800/1 contrast and max 300nits brighsness.
Thats pretty fare from the 1300/1 contrast there was present on the first Samsung 13.3 panel Xiaomi used back in 2016.
4k 60hz native output. +
and ewen higher wattage speakers (2×2.5watt) then the otherwise very solid AGK features’speakers we saw in 12.5 (2x1watt) and 13.3 (2x2watt) , and with Harmon Kardon featured here in 15.6 edition.
3nits key brightness with 1.5mm travel and seems again on/of light, no dimming.
sounds promissing, ewen thow it overall seems a little heavy with 2kg 15.6 and not as thin and light as some of the competition, and a shame they didnt implement a fast IO socket like Thunderbolt3, so the lacking MX150 can get a helping hand somewhere down the line, as the CPU seems insanely fast and reaches 4ghz..
a little puzzled that we dont see any higher scores on the MX150 on Xiami lineup..(people gotta have clocked it by now, and still only tops out around
there is now numerous scores on the TIMI1701 (Pro15.6) on Geek4 compu and TIMI1604 (Kabylake13.3). and the highest scores scores tops out at 42.600 (pro15.6) and 41.2k (kaby13.3) and thats merely +19% and +23% from the very old 940mx with only 1GB Vram there tops out at 34.622k ..
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/search?dir=desc&page=3&q=TIMI&sort=score
The Mx150 seems a little lacking, for an 2kg 15.6 formfactor bur the 4core CP is amazing for 15w TDP i7 = 16k multi and i5 14k multiscore in Geek4.
Chris G
If it had a Nvidia 1050, Thunderbolt 3 and larger battery it could have been a killer system I think. Still, it looks promising. Mines in Valencia right now, seems I missed the delivery for today but I have a feeling it stuck in customs.
1.5GB reads on the NVMe must be a typo should be over 3Gb/s unless they have gone with slower drives this time and not the Samsung PM961 (OEM 960 Evo basically)
seer
hmm, I don’t understand the attraction, except maybe the gee whiz screen you guys must be anticipating. Check the stats of this new model against the new 800.00 Acer Swift 3 14 model with the same i5 and MX 150 with 8gigs ram for sale on amazon. If you are wondering, yeah, i actually have one, and it is MUCH faster than the previous gen i5’s in actual use as even tho it has a low base clock, the near instantaneous ramp up to 3.4 ghz on ALL cores/threads make it pretty spiffy for a lappie. Once i got all the nvid and intel vid drivers updated and sorted, the graphics are handled off pretty much seamlessly, AND the 150 does a creditable job of running the current A list games at medium or lower settings at 1080p. Framerates are fine for anything other than the hardcore gamer crowd. The 14 is only a fraction bigger than the 13.3’s and is still an ultraportable thin and light. The port selection is excellent (only Thunder 3 is left out, probably to justify the much higher cost of the i7 models etc. I wonder, however, given intel’s/Nvidia’s TDP strategy, hard to see how an i7 is going to perform any better in real life. The only apparent diff is the very slightly higher clockspeed, (I think that in laptops, the 8th gen i7 and i5 are both 4core). The limiting factor for performance in these small laptops is heat. Only thing interesting I have heard of there, is that new crowd-sourced Finnish Surface Pro competitor that Intel invested some new cooling tech in…otherwise, heat is heat and small thin and lights are only going to handle so much before throttling down. Anyway, for the money, the Acer is a wonder, and the build quality extremely good. I am liking mine aLOT.
Guillaume
I am a bit skeptical about this one. While I have a MiAir13 which is brilliant, I do not find this 15 inches version a lot better.
Sure, an i7 with 16 Gb of RAM is good, and if Xiaomi keeps the dual SSD slots, I would gladly put my 2 1Tb SSDs there (and if the dual boot Windows / OSX86 is kept, that’d be perfect).
But I expect a bit of more graphic processing power and upgradeability. I mean the MX150 is only a little notch over the 940MX of the previous model, and far behind the other Pascal cards. While I’ve been gaming a bit (XCOM 2 is nice), you can forget about the more GPU intensive titles (took me 20 minutes to load a No Man’s Sky play, and it was basically a slideshow in 720p).
What would have me change my mind would have been a Thunderbolt 3 implementation. Therefore the CPU could have used a nice eGPU setup. Unfortunately Xiaomi skipped this.
so this is why I think I’ll stick to my “non pro” version of the Xiaomi Air 13, and skip the 15 inches one. The color looks great though, and if the finish is as good as my 13, it will be a tremendous machine. It is just not for me.
Also it’s a bit expensive at the moment. I have paid roughly 900-1000 euros for the 13 at its launch (and add roughly the same for 2 1Tb SSDs), and it’s been down to 600 euros recently. So if we can expect a 40% drop in price, this would put it at 900 euros, which is a nice price.
Guillaume
Also, I’m looking forward to the review to see if there are any game changer for a 13″ owner. 🙂
(and also because your reviews are really nice to read and very informative)
Luke
Definitely excited to see the review. I’ve got high hopes!
David Stone
$1000 (£650) is simply too expensive for what it is. You can buy an i5/1050 machine for only slightly more.
Lets hope the price drops by another $200 or so.
Chris G
I’m sure it will, the Mi Notebook Air 13 was $1000+ and is now around $789
Andy
With coupon “GBPCPCS” you can lower the price a bit.
Arief Pratomo
Would you review the i7 + 16GB version when its available and the price has stabilized?
Chris G
Yes, if the price drops and isn’t something stupid as I prefer that spec for editing my 4k videos.