Will Xiaomi's Mi Gaming Laptop be as disruptive as its Mi TV 4?
Xiaomi has forayed into the gaming computer territory with the launch of its Mi Gaming Laptop. The Chinese tech giant took the wraps off its first gaming laptop along with the Mi MIX 2S at an event in Shanghai on Tuesday. The company has unveiled two variants of the Mi Gaming Laptop, with the higher specced one priced at CNY 8999 (around Rs 93,000), whereas the lower placed variant will be available at CNY 5,999 (around Rs 62,000). The Mi Gaming Laptop will go on sale in China from April 13, however, there is no word yet on its launch or availability in other markets. The Mi Gaming Laptop seems to be packing a great deal of power under the hood for some intense gaming. Taking a look at the specifications, the higher placed variant of Mi Gaming Laptop runs Intel Core i7 7700HQ, a seventh-gen processor which is still a popular choice for gaming laptops. It comes coupled with 16GB of DDR4 2400MHz RAM, 256GB of SSD and a 1TB hard drive. Coming to the graphics processor, the Mi Gaming Laptop houses a 6GB GDDR5 stick of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. Xiaomi has something for casual gamers who might not want to spend as much. The lower-end variant of Mi Gaming Laptop comes with a seventh-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of 2400MHz RAM, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD. It sports a 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. Coming to connectivity, the Mi Gaming Laptop has four USB 3.0 ports along with USB Type-C, HDMI 2.0, Ethernet, a 3-in-1 memory card reader, and a microphone and headphone jacks. On the display front, the MI Gaming Laptop features a 15.6-inch full HD (1920x1080 pixels) screen with 72 percent NTSC colour gamut. The screen also boats 178-degree viewing angle and narrow bezels. Below it is a professional backlit keyboard with RGB lighting which supports 16 million colours. Even the Mi Gaming Laptop chassis gets LED lighting at four spots. On the left end of the keyboard are five programmable keys which can be programmed to do anything from triggering a move while playing a game to launch a food delivery application. The Mi Gaming Laptop comes with two 3W speakers which are equipped with Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Audio integration. The Mi Gaming Laptop has a smaller footprint than that of other gaming laptops, Xiaomi claims, measuring 20.9mm. Despite the slimmer profile, Xiaomi claims to have enough space in the laptop case for effective cooling. The Mi Gaming Laptop has fan grilles occupying 46 percent of its back for better heat dissipation. Xiaomi has added a dedicated Tornado key, which can lower laptop temperature in the range of 3-5 degrees. There are two thin turbine fans along with a total of five wide heat pipes - three for cooling the graphics card and two for the processor. With a competent spec list and a competitive price tag to boot, Xiaomi is looking to disrupt the gaming laptop scenario with its Mi Gaming Laptop just as it did in the TV space with its Mi TV 4. Xiaomi is comparing the higher specced Mi Gaming Laptop to comparable models from market leaders Alienware and Razer. The laptop holds its own even when pitted against gaming laptops from Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo. While Mi Gaming Laptop matches the competition in terms of specifications, it is the price where it takes the cake. The Intel-i7 Mi Gaming Laptop can be compared to laptops which retail for Rs 1 lakh or above, whereas the competition for the Intel-i5 variant comes has prices going as high as Rs 70,000.