Xiaomi has definitely been growing fast in emerging markets, but until now the company has focused mostly on stealing as much of Samsung’s Chinese smartphone market share as it can. According to Gartner’s most recent numbers, the company rose in Q3 to take a spot in the world’s top 5 smartphone manufacturers. But the company has other products beyond just smartphones, and now it has apparently begun working on a new Mi-branded laptop—and, to no one’s surprise, it looks just like a MacBook Air.
Update: a Mi spokeperson has refuted that the image in question is a Xiaomi laptop. This appears to be the original.
As you can see in the image above, everything from the black chiclet keys to the wedge-shaped sides are eerily similar to Apple’s line of thin laptops. The design of the back hinge, the device’s camera, trackpad, and the aluminum and black color scheme would confuse most if it weren’t for some obvious differences. The Xiaomi “Mi” logo is placed directly in the center of the screen’s bottom bezel, and it looks like the company decided to go with bright orange for the device’s keyboard power button as well.
All of this comes via Gizmochina, which claims to have a little insight on what kind of hardware this device will pack as well. The insides of the device will supposedly include an Intel Haswell i7-4500u processor, 2 x 8 GB dual channel memory, and a 15-inch 1080p display. As for software, it’s apparently going to run a version of Linux that has been customized by Xiaomi. It’s said to be starting at about half the price of a real MacBook Air—somewhere in the range a little less than $500.
Here are a few more images of the device:
Xiaomi announced today that it completed a round of $1.1 billion in funding, with the company now valued at around $45 billion total. Along with that announcement, the company says that its next flagship smartphone (which will likely be almost as much an iPhone copycat as this is a MacBook copycat) will be announced at some point this month.
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Buuuurn those copy-cats!!!! Maaaan even their copy looks ugly. They are not capable of even doing that right.
Many people appreciate their effort and strategy of providing high spec devices at low price. Instead of spending millions on advertisements they rather lower their price. Hence the winner is the end user. To copy something partially is to show admiration which i do not find an issue at all unless apple feels insecure / offended. A smart buyer values his money and knows where and how to spend.
The issue is that Apple creates jobs and pays people.
Xiaomi is stealing from Apple’s property.
Why doesn’t Apple just steal their products?
Not a smart buyer, a cheap ass buyer that has no respect for the society, deserves to be sent to China to work in their factories, and not a good one, like Foxconn. To see what’s like when there’s no respect for the intellectual property.
How can anyone possibly say this looks like a Mac? There’s no orange button on a Mac.
Well yea, that’s what they’re going to say in the lawsuit.
Because -other than the orange power button and “Mi” logo- it looks exactly like a MacBook Air.
*woosh*
This is a fake:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/12/29/fake-product-listing-inspires-rumors-xiaomis-first-laptop/
“Picasso had a saying — ‘good artists copy; great artists steal’ — and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Neither Picasso nor Jobs were talking about stealing finished work, which is what these thieves have done and people like you who throw around that quote fail to understand. The idea is a thin ultraportable laptop computer and of course Apple was not the first to have that idea. What they did do was spend years executing and refining that idea, the result of which is being blatantly copied like this.
Is there a point to this, or are we just doing random quotes?
Although I suspect you’re totally misrepresenting what that quote means, there is a delicious irony in Samsung getting their arse kicked by a company that is even more brazen and shameless about copying Apple.
In my business I’ve found that when you compete on quality, second best is often good enough, but when you compete solely on price, second cheapest is never good enough.
The meaning of that quote is that a good artist “copies” the essence of the subject, a great artist “steals” it and makes it their own. Think of a landscape. A good artist will accurately copy what they see, a great artist will steal the essence of it and turn it into something that inspires those who look at it (or at the very least, the person who created it). They put a bit of themselves into the work and create something beyond the original.
That’s what Picasso did. That’s what Apple do.
Tried many times explaining that quote to Apple naysayers. It won’t do any good. It just goes woosh over their heads.
The irony is that Picasso took that quote from somebody else.
I’m tired of these so-called brilliant thieves copying our products and not having a single case brought against them.
I don’t understand Xiaomi at all. Why do they bother with the copying? Because apart from the direct 1:1 copies of various Apple phones, and now also laptops, they have perfectly good looking other phones.
These use a design language very similar to, but also really different from Apple. You can copy the Apple style without copying the actual products. Which, I think, would be just fine.
But the outright copies – meh. Horrible.
Never thought I’d say this, but forget Scamsung… These thieves have stooped to a whole new low, and are literally riding on Apple’s coattails, and getting away with it because they’re protected by the Chinese government, where corruption and theft is the norm…
DISGUSTING!
We are where were at because people gave Samsung a pass. Now another company has stepped up with practical photocopies of Apple products. Good thing it can’t run OS X, thus remain second-rate.
In any case, we all now know Samsung is no Apple. Just a bunch of cheap opportunists, like Xiaomi.
Would love to see how user friendly this “version of Linux that has been customized by Xiaomi” really is.
You want to have nightmares tonight?
When confronted with accusations of design plagiarism, Xiaomi officially stated that “great minds think alike” and that how it was “just a coincidence”.
I must have been a hell of a coincidence for their entire range of hardware and software interfaces to closely resemble the designs of the top market leaders’ products.
Hey, Hugo (Barra) claims that both companies employ equally skilled industrial designers. Who are we to judge, right? :-D
Just one reason why the so called imminent dominance of China is WAY overblown. If you’re copying, you’re just following. If you’re following, you sure as hell aren’t leading…
Samsung has proved to the world shameless copying designs makes money, These guys go one step further
Reblogged this on Configcrazy.
Shame on 9to5Mac for publishing a story without verifying the facts and trusting a dubious source. The image is clearly photoshopped. I guess churnalism is 9to5Mac’s modus operandi.
For those specs, it’s a great buy. However, I despise them for copying Apple bluntly. Hopefully, Apple will take them down hard in a way that the company makes loss for a year or so due to heavy fee for competing/losing the lawsuit.
It’s the only thing that can happen. Apple will come after them.
At the moment the Chinese government seems to nourish Xiaomi as the home made Apple copy. But somehow I don’t think this will last. China is the world’s biggest market but as long as they’re copying like that they won’t be able to sell anywhere else.
I don’t understand Xiaomi at all. Why do they bother with the copying? Because apart from the direct 1:1 copies of various Apple phones, and now also laptops, they have perfectly good looking other phones.
These use a design language very similar to, but also really different from Apple. You can copy the Apple style without copying the actual products. Which, I think, would be just fine.
But the outright copies – meh. Horrible.
“They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds. “
The funny thing is that Apple is still producing their hardware in China…
Chinese innovation at its best.
Why does 9 to 5 give these assholes any pub?
If this will help drive down the cost of the Macbook, then i’m all in…