Mi Smart Projector 2 Pro Test

TechRadar Verdict

The Mi Notebook Pro is a bang-up laptop – an astounding slice of tech, in fact. It uses cutting-edge components and can be had for far less than rival machines. Some fundamental issues remain, though.

Pros

+
Exceptional performance
+
Swell value for money
+
Stunning design
+
Great battery life

Cons

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US keyboard
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Chinese Windows installation
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No touchscreen display
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Noisy under load

Xiaomi has fingers in a lot of pies. The Chinese company is amend known for its smartphones but also manufactures a host of other products, from electric rice cookers to air purifiers. Its laptops, however, take been the real caput-turners over the past 18 months. Following the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3 (2017) and the Xiaomi Air 12, see the new child on Xiaomi's block, the Mi Notebook Pro.

Where to buy?

Online Chinese retailer, Gearbest (opens in new tab), sent the states the sample and sells the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro for but over £868 ($1,140) at the time of writing.

(ed: Use the coupon MTPro to bring down the toll to but £687.71. The coupon expires midnight on 31/12/2017)

Note that, while this cost includes delivery, it is sectional of whatsoever taxes that may be levied past HMRC or the courier companies on behalf of the vendor. Want to buy tech from online Chinese retailers? Read this beginning.

Design

Ruthless postmodernism is how one might ascertain the design of the Mi Notebook Pro – the chaps in charge at Xiaomi opted for a darker color scheme compared to its smaller sibling. 'Deep grey', equally they call it, is an attractive alternative to the silver brushed metal designs that nigh thin-and-slim laptops sport.

In that location's no significant tapered contour here. Instead, you have an almost perfectly rectangular slab of metal blend – with some curves here and there – that weighs but under 2kg, with its dimensions (360 ten 244 x 15mm) making it inappreciably portable; that's the toll to pay for a larger display.

In comparing, the Mi Notebook Air, which sports roughly the aforementioned configuration, is more than a 3rd lighter and costs less. The biggest differences are the size and fewer ports.

With the Notebook Pro, you get i HDMI port, two USB Blazon-A connectors and an audio jack on the left side, with two USB Type-C ports and an SD menu reader located on the right. Note that 1 of the Type-C connectors is used as a power port.

The power push button is located at the top right-manus side of the device, not our favorite location.

Every bit is usually the case with Xiaomi laptops, there'southward no logo on the top of the device. Flipping information technology over exposes a large flat surface with a Mi logo, a removable sticker, 5 rubber feet, a pair of speaker grills and a multitude of air vents.

Open the laptop and you'll see the xv.six-inch display, which is covered by a Corning Gorilla Glass sheet, an odd pick given that the display is not touch-capable.

The long, single hinge, is reminiscent of Apple's notebooks, and then is the layout of the keyboard. Remember, this is a fifteen.6-inch model and so information technology has plenty space for a numeric keypad. You won't find i here, though, and instead Xiaomi engineers opted for full-size keys with a depression activation force, short 1.5mm travel (to give better sense of confirmation), a 0.3mm thick hyperboloid keycap (rather than a flat ane) and a noticeable absence of any double-function keys (at least on the master bank of keys).

And yeah, this is a backlit keyboard and unlike some competitors, it only offers an on-off option. The touchpad is large and houses a fingerprint reader. It doesn't accept physical right and left buttons which might put off some folks.

Spec Sheet

Here is the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro configuration sent to TechRadar Pro for review:

CPU: Core i5-8250U quad-core iii.4GHz

Graphics: Nvidia GeForce MX150; Intel UHD Graphics 620

RAM: 8GB DDR4

Screen: 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution brandish

Storage: 256GB Samsung PM961 SSD

Ports: 2 ten USB Type-A, 2 x USB Type-C, 1 x HDMI, sound jack, microSD

Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2

Camera: 1MP front end webcam

Weight: 1.99kg

Size: 360 x 244 x 15mm (West x D 10 H)

Battery: 61Whr

Specifications

The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro is one of the very few laptops to feature Dolby's Atmos audio engineering science, which is used in conjunction with Harman Kardon Infinity speakers; there'south a pair of the latter on-lath (two.5W models).

Information technology is as well i of the first to offer an 8th-generation Intel Core CPU. Our review sample came with the Cadre i5-8250U, which is far superior to previous Core i5 processors for one good reason: it is the beginning time that Intel has opted for a quad-core model for that range, and i that supports multi-threading.

And so it has four cores, eight threads, a base frequency of 1.6GHz and a Turbo frequency of 3.4GHz. Add together in 6MB enshroud, back up for DDR4-2400 and a new graphics subsystem (Intel UHD Graphics 620) and y'all have a compelling processor that should easily surpass even a Core i7-7600U CPU in multi-threaded tasks.

The Nvidia GeForce MX150 discrete GPU which is equipped with 2GB GDDR5 memory is based on the Pascal architecture and should deliver upwardly to effectually a third extra performance compared to the GeForce 940MX. The MX150 besides supports Optimus technology which allows applications to switch seamlessly betwixt integrated (UHD Graphics 620) and dedicated graphics to salvage battery life when the latter isn't needed.

Also check out our review of the Xiaomi Mi Laptop Air 13.iii (2018)

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Désiré has been musing and writing about applied science during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in faddy and started narrating about the bear on of engineering science on society just earlier the start of the Y2K hysteria at the plough of the last millennium.