The thin and light Xiaomi Notebook Air 12.5 was born in 2016, initially equipped with the sixth generation of Core m3-6Y30 ultra-low power processor. Later it was upgraded to the seventh generation of Core m3-7Y30. Just recently, Xiaomi upgraded it to the Core i5. Now it is available for purchase at $719.99.
Though the new Xiaomi Notebook Air 12.5 has switched to the i-series, the i5-7Y54 is not a U-series low-power chip. In fact, like the m3, it is a Y-series ultra-low-power version. It was originally called m5. Later, it was changed to i5 in order to sell well.
The i5-7Y54 is still part of the 7th generation Core, the process is still 14nm, maintaining dual core four threads. However, the frequency is increased from m3-7Y30 1.0-2.6GHz to 1.2-3.2GHz. The thermal design power is kept unchanged at 4.5W, maintaining a fanless design. It is naturally impossible to have a discrete graphics card or an integrated core graphics HD 615 with a frequency of 300-900MHz. The memory is 4GB LPDDR3-1866, the storage is 256GB SATA SSD, and the card slot is reserved to support hard disk expansion.
Other features remain the same: an integrated solid color full0metal body (12.9 mm thickness/1.07 kg weight), a 12.5-inch 1080p screen (5.71mm narrow border/78.6% aspect ratio), dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1 support, Realtek ALC233 sound card and AKG special custom dual speakers, full-size backlit keyboard, 37Whr battery providing up to 11.5 hours of battery life and supporting 1C fast charge, USB-C/HDMI/3.5mm interface, etc. However, the new model is only silver, and there is no gold.
The Xiaomi Notebook Air 12.5 comes with a list of features corresponding premium laptops. Especially it refers to the all-metal housing, edge-to-edge glass protection, keyboard backlights, and slim body. Though we have seen much respectable hardware under the hood, and it’s been supposed the laptop should be bulky. But Xiaomi pays much attention to design, and as it’s called as Chinese Apple.
The i5+4GB+256GB is already available for purchase at $719.99.
