Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition Review

Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition Review – The Union Journal

Xiaomi has entered the laptop market in India with its new Mi Notebook 14 and Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition products. These models are light and compact, with few bells and whistles. Xiaomi aims to own universal appeal whether you’re an office worker, home user, or student. However, if you’re expecting shockingly low prices, you may be a little amazed – Xiaomi isn’t likely to turn the laptop market on its head want it has with smartphones and smart TVs. With prices ranging from Rs. 41,999 (introductory offer) to Rs. 59,999, Xiaomi is aiming for one’s heart of the laptop market rather than the budget segment.

Instead of rock-bottom prices, there is an focus on style, specifications, and affordability. This is definitely an interesting technique for Xiaomi, with a long history of pulling the carpet out from under its competitors’ feet with unbeatable prices. Still, laptops are still very costly investments for many people, and no one wants to spend Rs. 60,000 without having to be sure of the product quality and performance they’re getting.

Today, we’re reviewing the Core i7 version of the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition, which is the absolute most expensive of the five laptops that Xiaomi has just launched in India. Can the business take on conventional giants including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Acer?

Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition: Models and prices

Xiaomi’s naming scheme is somewhat confusing, since the Mi Notebook 14 and Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition are in fact split up product lines. There are three variants of the Mi Notebook 14 and two of the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition. Within this latter product line, you have two choices: the variant costing Rs. 54,999 features a Core i5-10210U CPU, 512GB SATA SSD, and no Type-C USB port, and for Rs. 59,999, you receive that port along with a Core i7-10510 CPU and a much faster 512GB NVMe SSD. The price difference is really small that many people will choose the more costly variant.

There are also three Mi Notebook 14 variants which are not all that different, specially compared to the Core i5 version of the Horizon Edition. You can read exactly about their specifications right here. You’ll be able to save yourself quite a lot of money by opting for the lower-end series unless you mind a slightly larger and weightier laptop.

The lid of the laptop is completely blank, without a good company logo

Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition: Look and feel

Xiaomi has been accused of copying Apple before, and there exists a trace of inspiration here as well. The Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition comes with an all-metal human body, specifically an aluminium-magnesium alloy. We just like the minimialist look that Xiaomi has gone with – specially the fact that there isn’t any logo or any kind of design on the lid. It’s just a plain flat surface, with nothing but the sandblasted texture of the metal for relief. We also realized that the silver metal assumes on a warm hue when seen under bright sunlight, and looks almost grey when it’s dark.

Weighing just 1.35kg and at 17.15mm thin, the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition is incredibly portable. It won’t be an excessive amount of a burden in virtually any backpack or sling bag even if you need to carry it around every day. Xiaomi is also happy with the balance of weight – you can improve the lid with just one finger, and the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition will not tip backwards or slide around on your own table.

The hinge seems fairly sturdy and has a fair range of motion. The screen stays put without wobbling when utilizing this laptop, and the lid it self barely bends even with pressure applied. Another thing we liked is that the keyboard bed does not flex when typing. The only slight disappointment was the trackpad, that has been wobbly whenever we were just sliding a finger without intending to click it. Overall, construction quality is impressive.

Several low-cost phone makers including Xiaomi routinely attempt to incorporate design elements from high-end models into low-cost ones, such as narrow screen borders. That idea has carried to the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition which has a claimed 91 per cent screen-to-body ratio (for the lid at least) with 3mm borders to the most notable and sides of the display panel. This is something we typically see on very high-end compact lifestyle laptops such as the Dell XPS 13 or HP Spectre x360 13, but there’s a catch.

While Dell, HP yet others have was able to integrate a little webcam in to the screen frame, Xiaomi simply decided these laptops could do without one. The company says its research indicated that would be ok with clients, but the recent lockdown situation and rise of remote working has led to a surge popular for video, and so you’ll receive a simple USB webcam in the box with every Mi Notebook model.

The webcam is just a rather large grey block that can stay perched at the top of the lid of any slim laptop, but there’s no clip or clamp so its angle can not be adjusted independently, and it will not stay in place if you’re active. This isn’t ideal, and you should have to make sure to carry the webcam around with you, but it’s better than various other solutions we’ve tried, like the Acer Swift 7’s pop-up camera or the ones below the screen and off-centre on some Asus models.

The keyboard is fairly well spaced and laid out

Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition: Software and usability

Xiaomi’s reputation for spam and bloatware precedes it, and many individuals have questioned perhaps the company’s laptops will be filled with annoyances similar to of its phones are. We’re pleased to see that there is not much preloaded software at all. Windows 10 Home is just exactly like it would be on any other laptop, without intrusive overlays or apps running in the back ground.

You do get two preloaded apps: Blaze Unlock uses Bluetooth to detect a compatible Mi Band, and can lock the screen or sign you in depending on the band’s proximity. This could be convenient, and Xiaomi promises that it is quick, but we were not able to test it for ourselves. The other app is named Smart Share, and it aims to end up like AirDrop on Apple devices, letting you send files and bits of information from one to some other. We also found an unnecessary Mi Support app that only linked us to Xiaomi’s website for help.

As for over all comfort and ergonomics, the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition gave us no trouble. The keyboard is just a little crisp, but we got used to it pretty quickly. We did not like the cramped arrow key cluster, however the extra-stiff power button is just a nice touch, because its location makes it simple to hit unintentionally. The trackpad doesn’t have independent buttons, so when we discussed earlier, the one on our review unit was slightly loose, which caused it to be sink slightly under our touch.

At Xiaomi’s selling price of Rs. 60,000, we’re in premium laptop territory, and thus we really would have liked a keyboard with backlighting – this is actually the kind of thing you cannot live without if you’re used to it.

We always prefer a non-reflective screen, which is better to work with under overhead light and in bright environments. Some people prefer glossy panels simply because they make colours pop more, but we think the tradeoff will probably be worth it. That said, the panel isn’t great when it comes to colour vibrancy or brightness. It’s ample for work and casual entertainment, but don’t are expectant of great visuals. In our experience, black areas in videos looked blotchy and motion was not very smooth.

There are two 2W speakers that fire downwards from the underside to reflect off a table. Sound is scratchy and hollow, but could possibly get quite loud. You will not enjoy music very much but this is fine for the sporadic casual video or game.

Only the bigger priced variant has a USB Type-C port

Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition: Specifications and performance

The usage of Intel’s 10^th Gen processors will give Xiaomi a marketing advantage, because so many competitors continue to be selling 8^th Gen models. The CPUs used listed here are from the mainstream 14nm Comet Lake-U family, maybe not the more contemporary 10nm Ice Lake series. Our review unit features a Core i7-10510U processor with four cores, clocked at 1.8GHz with a lift speed as high as 4.9GHz.

The best feature though may be the discrete Nvidia GeForce MX350 GPU with 2GB of dedicated memory. The Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition is the first laptop we’ve tested with this GPU, which is meant only for entry-level graphics performance. It isn’t anywhere near as capable as Nvidia’s GeForce GTX or RTX families so don’t be prepared to play heavy games. It’s still a large step up within the CPU’s built-in graphics capabilities though, and certainly will come in handy for light entertainment along with photo and video editing.

Unfortunately, the 8GB of DDR4 RAM is soldered down rather than upgradable. 8GB should be enough for most people within the next several years, but Xiaomi doesn’t even offer more RAM during the time of purchase. The SSD however is replaceable. There’s also a 46Wh battery, which Xiaomi says should offer 10 hours of usage per charge, plus quick charging as much as 50 per cent in half one hour.

You get two USB 3.1 Gen1 (5Gbps) Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI video output, and a 3.5mm combo audio socket. The higher priced variant with the Core i7 CPU also offers a USB Type-C port, which works at the exact same 5Gbps speed. Oddly, DisplayPort video output isn’t supported, and neither is charging. The undeniable fact that the lower variant doesn’t have this port at all is surprising, but its functionality is limited even though you do pay more. We’re also disappointed that there’s no SD as well as microSD card slot.

The Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition (Core i7 variant) handled our usual benchmark tests well. PCMark 10 gave us 4,451 and 4,173 points in its standard and extended test runs respectively. Cinebench R20’s single-threaded and multi-threaded test scores were 477 and 1,777 points. POVRay managed its ray tracing benchmark in a reasonable 2 minutes, 36 seconds.

We were also pleased with CrystalDiskMark’s SSD test outcomes. We got sequential read and write scores of 3,507.6MBps and 1,895MBps, and random scores of just one,074.3MBps and 475MBps respectively. As for our real-world tests, compressing a 3.24GB folder of assorted files using 7-zip took 3 minutes, 36 seconds, and transcoding a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 took 2 minutes, 28 seconds.

The USB webcam doesn’t have to be clipped onto the top of the lid

Xiaomi mentions gaming in its marketing push for the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition, which we thought was a stretch considering its specifications. Graphics benchmarks showed lukewarm results: 3DMark’s Night Raid test posted a score of 13,723 points while the Fire Strike Extreme score was 1,955.

We did load up some of our usual game tests, starting with Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We loaded it up at 1920×1080 with AA disabled and the quality set to medium, but got just 24fps on average, with severe dips. Still, the overall game was significantly playable. At 1280×720, the common went as much as 36fps but we still saw significant texture popping, lag, and poor graphics, especially around characters’ hair.

Doom (2016), which is regarded as forgiving to weak hardware, ran quite nicely at 1920×1080 with the product quality set to Medium. This game was fully enjoyable, though the frame rate stayed at around 42fps. We wouldn’t have tried a casino game like GTA V, but Xiaomi specifically cites it as playable. It defaulted to the best possible 800×600 resolution with all effects turned off, but we could get a playable frame rate after by hand raising this to 1280×720 and tweaking some of the visual settings.

For a change of pace, we fired up Civilization 5, utilizing a large map with lots of AI opponents. This game also default to the lowest resolution of 1152×864, with most quality settings at medium. It was playable, but the experience was absolutely scaled down compared to what we’re used to.

At this point we need to note that the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition got extremely hot when we were playing games – the left side where our left hand rested was thankfully cool, and we could have the fan pulling air among the keyboard keys, however the right side, including the entire metal human body, was too hot to the touch for higher than a second or two. Fan noise wasn’t too bad, but you’ll absolutely hear it when the system is running full tilt.

Battery life is quite good. We could get through a workday with moderate use and with standby disabled. If your work involves document creation and being online, with a little audio and video streaming thrown in, you ought to be able to produce a full charge last at the very least 8 hours. We noted that two hours of HD quality video streaming brought the battery level down by about 15 percent.

Verdict: Should you get the Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition?

The Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition is not yet another Xiaomi product that will cause stampedes due to an unbelievably low price. It is, however, a competent and attractive thin-and-light laptop, and its particular price continues to be quite reasonable. It will be most suitable for office workers or students who prioritise productivity and portability more than entertainment. Xiaomi has smartly plumped for very modern specifications and gone with a style that anyone will be happy with. Sure, the lack of a webcam is unfortunate, and there are some things we would have liked done differently, but there are no dealbreakers here.

The thin-and-light laptop segment is definitely underserved – many laptops with comparable specifications are either too expensive or too bulky. Xiaomi has identified an appropriate niche for itself and we think a lot of people will soon be interested. On the question of whether to give Xiaomi laptops the opportunity, we would say yes. We also aspire to see a lot more models serving a wider range of price points.

A lot of people reacted negatively to the launch of the premium-tier Mi 10 5G (Review) smartphone, because Xiaomi’s brand is so intrinsically tied to low-cost devices. The Mi Notebook 14 Horizon Edition is even more high priced, and this year will mark a shift in perception for the Chinese giant in India. With its own-brand retail and experience stores, along with a vast after-sales service network in place, enough time could be right for premium products. We hope the established brands are taking note.

Is Mi Notebook 14 series the best affordable laptop range for India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you yourself can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or simply hit the play button below.