Xiaomi working on a laptop that looks strangely familiar…

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Remember Xiaomi? The company isn’t too well known outside of China, but in its domestic market it is absolutely huge – making it the third largest smartphone maker in the world. Photos have emerged today showing that phones isn’t all the company is interested in – it is also building a laptop.

GizmoChina got the leaked photos, showing a laptop that looks awfully similar to the MacBook Air:

xiaomi-notebook-pc-leak

The machine is said to be pretty powerful too: sporting an Intel Haswell i7-4500u processor, 2x8GB of dual channel RAM – with a 15″ 1080p screen. The best part is the price – which looks set to be $481 – just over £300 in real money.

Interesting too that the machine doesn’t run Windows (or indeed, Mac OS, even if it looks like it should) – it runs a custom Linux distribution.

If the machine ever makes it over here, it could be a hugely competitive choice – Xiaomi made its name in smartphones by cutting overheads and selling only online, meaning it could over faster phones at lower prices. Could it be about to do the same to the laptop market?

James O’Malley
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