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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So this is a laptop that's been out for a couple months,
00:08and I've had it for a couple months, and you guys have been asking me to make this video
00:10for a couple months, but I've purposefully avoided doing it because I wasn't sure if
00:14I was going to make this video. I wasn't sure if I was going to make content on this thing
00:19because of an interaction that I had with the company, and you'll understand at the
00:22end of the video why, but this is the Xiaomi Notebook Pro, and this is, for all intents
00:28and purposes, a really, really good laptop for the money. It starts at $900, and it's
00:33packed with just great performance, great specs, and a really good design. It's obviously
00:38been inspired by Apple. Inspired is a gentle word, but it looks a lot like Apple laptops.
00:43They've done a great job building this thing, and there's a lot to like about it, so I'm
00:47going to kind of go through things I like about it, talk about a few things that I don't
00:51like about it, and then kind of go into the reasons why I kind of hesitated on making
00:56this video. Okay, first, the build quality on this thing is great. It's got aluminum
01:00everywhere, very minimal design, it has very little branding on the top and on the bottom.
01:04The only obvious branding you'll see on this entire laptop is right at the bottom of the
01:07screen, and it's just a very muted look to a very well-built laptop. Now, it comes pre-loaded
01:13with Chinese Windows 10, which you're going to have to wipe and then install whatever
01:16language of Windows 10 you'd like. I used English, and, well, the good thing is that
01:20the digital license is activated, so you don't have to purchase a separate license or anything.
01:26It works. Windows 10 Home ran perfectly fine on this laptop. I like the port selection
01:31on this thing. There's two USB-As, an HDMI, two USB-Cs, as well as an SD card slot. Now,
01:36there's only one USB-C that supports charging as well as high-resolution display output,
01:42but it is a good selection of ports. It's pretty easy to get inside. It's a bunch of
01:46screws on the bottom, one of them being underneath one of the feet, and when you're inside, you
01:49can't replace the Wi-Fi card. It's a good one, the A265, but it looks like it's built on board,
01:54but you can replace the SSD, and there's room for a second SSD if you want.
01:58The keyboard is nice. It's easy to get used to. It actually reminds me a lot of the older
02:02generation MacBooks, like the 2015 and earlier MacBook Pros. It's got, like, a nice, plush key
02:07travel, and the layout is really good. I mean, it's kind of weird that a Chinese company has
02:12one of the better English keyboard layouts, but they do a good job at it, and I also like
02:15the speakers. Now, they're positioned on the bottom, so they don't have the best location,
02:20but, I mean, they sound good. It's just, you lose some of the audio clarity because it's
02:25sitting on the table, and it just kind of deflects off of whatever surface you're using,
02:28but they do sound good. Now, the screen, I have kind of mixed feelings about. It's a 1080p panel,
02:33not touchscreen, and it looks pretty sharp. The color gamut and accuracy are a little bit lower
02:38than expected. It just looks nicer than it actually is, but when you measure it with the
02:42Spyder, it comes out kind of mediocre. The battery life is really good, though, so this thing's
02:47coming in at seven and a half hours of regular use with the screen at 250 nits. I've mentioned
02:51this in other videos with 15-inch Ultrabooks, but I really like laptops that have 15-inch screens
02:56that are using U processors. You just get better battery life, and for a lot of people,
03:00it's a good fit. This particular model is running 16 gigs of RAM and an i7 Kaby Lake R CPU,
03:06and for multi-core stuff in short bursts, this thing kicks ass. The thermals are good. They're
03:10running two fans in the chassis, which is pretty rare for a U processor, and the thing is, there's
03:15so much thermal headroom with those two fans that you can bump up the waters on this thing
03:18pretty comfortably. Like, you can hit 35 watt TDP on this thing pretty easily, and that lets you
03:23sustain higher clock speed, higher boost speed, so if that's what you want to do, this is a great
03:27laptop for that option. The fan noise at stock is pretty quiet, not that it's a completely silent
03:32computer or anything like that. It does come on, but it's just a quiet fan. Now, this thing is
03:36paired with an MX150, which is one of the best budget GPUs out there. It'll give you reasonable
03:42gaming performance, and it's just better than the integrated chip from Intel, and it gives you a
03:46little kick when you're doing some 3D applications or video edits. I mean, it's not a beast for 3D
03:51stuff, but if you're looking to do some casual gaming or graphical work, it's a good option.
03:55Now, there's a couple things that I don't like about this laptop, but the truth is most of it
03:59is just nitpicky stuff. The first thing I don't like is, when I mentioned the build quality,
04:03everything about it is good, except the bottom edge is super sharp. Like, it feels unfinished
04:08compared to the rest of the laptop, and it's actually a little bit uncomfortable to hold,
04:12and the other thing I don't love is the trackpad. So, the actual tracking surface is good. It's
04:16very smooth. It's a great glass texture. It feels very similar to a Mac trackpad, but the button
04:21mechanism, ugh, I don't love it. It needs way more force to press down than almost any other laptop
04:26that I've tried, and I also don't like the fingerprint sensor location. It's just in the
04:30way of the actual tracking stuff. I've seen fingerprint sensors that have been on trackpads
04:35that have been fine, but this one kind of gets in the way when you're just using the trackpad.
04:39Another thing that's kind of weird is that they only give two PCIe lanes for the drive. So, instead
04:42of the regular four lanes, they're given two, and the drive that they include is a really fast drive.
04:48It's the Samsung PM961. It's one of the fastest OEM drives you can get out there, but the speeds
04:52are crippled a little bit because of the reduced number of PCIe lanes, but overall, this is an
04:57awesome laptop for the money, right? 900 bucks gets you so much on this laptop, and it's such
05:01good value that when you compare it to North American brands or just any other big-named
05:06laptop brand, it's really hard to compare them because you're just getting such good value with
05:10this device, but the big issue with this thing is the customer support. So, I had a friend who
05:17purchased the Xiaomi Air, like their smaller, lighter laptop, under my recommendation because
05:23I said it's a good value. He bought it, and then like three months later, something went wrong with
05:27it, and he went through hell to try to get that thing replaced, and I would, you know, I tried to
05:32get involved, and just, it never happened. We're literally sitting on a brick of a laptop. So, I don't
05:39know how to recommend this thing. Like, I feel like for 99.9% of people that purchase this thing,
05:44they'll be happy. They'll get this great laptop with great value, and they'll just, those people
05:48get it great, but for that small percentage of people that purchase this, if you guys are watching
05:53this, and you're interested in buying this, and if you buy it, and it busts, like, that would just break
05:57my heart. There's people that save up for months, maybe even a year, to buy one of these things, and
06:01if it breaks, like, that's, this is a Chinese company, and if you're trying to get customer support with
06:08this thing, like, this is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to customer support. These guys are
06:12one of the most difficult companies I've had to interact with for repairs or replacement of a
06:16laptop, but you kind of expect it for the price of this thing, right? Okay, hope you guys enjoyed
06:21this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. See you guys next time.