After tasting success in the smartphone segment, Xiaomi this year dived into the laptop segment in India. The company entered the Indian laptop market with the launch of two new laptops — Mi Notebook 14 and Mi Notebook 14 Horizon. Both the laptops come under the affordable price range and promise to cater to your day-to-day needs. Out of the two we used the Mi Notebook 14. The less expensive among the two, the notebook comes with a metallic design and runs the Windows 10 Home operating system. The price of the laptop starts at Rs 43,000 and it comes with all the essential functionalities. We used the Mi Notebook 14 to tell you whether it is worth your money or not. So, read our complete review of the laptop and decide yourself.

Design
The affordable laptop from Xiaomi comes with an impressive design. The Mi NoteBook 14 sports an all-metallic design and an anodized sandblasted coating which makes the device sturdy. The sleek looking laptop just weighs 1.5kg. The Xiaomi Mi Notebook 14 Horizon edition and the Mi Notebook 14 look quite similar but you will be able to differentiate between the two after a close look.The Mi Notebook 14 come with thicker bezels as compared to the Horizon edition.

The laptop comes with a minimalist design and the company has also not added any logo or moniker on the device. The top of the laptop has a flat surface with nothing engraved on it. The bottom of the laptop consists of rubber grips which keeps the steady and also keeps the ventilation grills away from the surface. You will also notice two grills at the corners which are being used by the bottom firing speakers. Talking about the connectivity ports, the right side of the Mi Notebook 14 consists of a USB Type-A port with a 3.5 mm jack and an LED indicator for charging and power. The left side of the device consists of 2 USB ports and one HDMI port. The device features a pretty strong hinge which holds the display in place. Below the 14-inch display you will see a small Mi logo. One important thing which is missing from the Mi Notebook 14 is a webcam. Yes, Xiaomi has not included a webcam in the laptop. But buyers don’t have to worry as the company is giving a USB webcam with the device. You can simply attach it above the laptop to attend all your meetings.

Coming to the keyboard, the Mi Notebook 14 does not come with a backlit keyboard, this means that you will not be able to use the device in a dark room. The keyboard is based on a scissor mechanism and the keys come with ABS texture and offer a travel distance of 1.3mm. The manufacturer has also added an in-built dust protection layer to the keyboard. There is no numpad on the keyboard and there are no extra keys on the keyboard. In fact, the company has made the power button as part of the keyboard. Some people might like the MacBook inspired trackpad of the laptop, but we found it to be quite small. The clicks are integrated below the pad and we did not really like the trackpad. The clicks are not that smooth and the sensor below also feels quite unstable. At times you have to press really hard to register a click, which might not be liked by many. All-in-all the Mi NoteBook 14 is a good looking and lightweight laptop in this price segment.

Display
The Mi Notebook 14 comes with a 14-inch full HD anti-glare display with 16:9 aspect ratio. The device has a matte display which means that it is not reflective which is a good thing. This means that you will not see the reflection of overhead lights on the display and will be able to work without any distractions. Apart from this, the display offers ample amount of brightness. The colour contrast and sharpness levels are also fine and the viewing angles are also good. The videos don’t look washed out or smudgy. In this budget, the Mi Notebook 14 offers a pretty good display with great colour reproduction and brightness levels.

Performance
The Mi Notebook 14 comes in three variants and all the variants are powered by Intel Core i5 processor paired with 8GB of RAM. The laptop offers 512GB SSD storage and the graphics are handled by NVIDIA GeForce MX250. The laptop enables users to enjoy some amount of gaming with medium refresh rates. Apart from some amount of gaming, the GPU of the device also enables users to perform other tasks like video editing smoothly. The device can handle multitasking very well and it also remains cool most of the time.

Xiaomi claims that the cooling vents are spread across generously which prevents the device from heating up. The laptop includes one cooling fan which the company claims has a larger diameter as compared to its rivals. The device works silently most of the time and you will not feel that a cooling fan is working down below. The only issue we had with the Mi Notebook 14 is its audio performance. The laptop offered a decent sound output when used headphones, but the audio quality deteriorated when we used speakers. The device audio quality over speakers is not that great in fact it’s worse during video conferencing. Other than this, the laptop performs well.

Talking about the software, the Mi Notebook 14 runs Windows 10 Home operating system. Along with the usual Windows app, you will also notice some Mi apps like Mi Support, Mi Smart Share, MiService installed on the device. The software performance was smooth enough and you will not witness any lag. The laptop comes with a Mi Smart Share feature which enables users to transfer files wirelessly over WiFi. The smart share taskbar is present on the bottom bar enabling the users to access it quickly. It will not be wrong to say that the Mi Notebook 14 offers a smooth performance and the users will not feel any issue with the working of the device.

Battery

Xiaomi claims that the Mi Notebook 14 is capable of offering 10 hours of battery backup on a single charge. The laptop is backed by a 46Wh battery and during our testing, the laptop managed to churn out 8 hours of battery backup after a mixed usage. We were quite impressed with the battery life of the device. Also we noticed that it charged pretty fast as compared to the other laptops in the same price segment.

Verdict

Xiaomi Mi Notebook 14 can be your pick if you are looking for a laptop in the price range of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000. The device comes with an Intel Core i5 processor and also performs quite well. It comes with a matte finish display and also enables users to enjoy casual gaming. The only things missing out is a backlit keyboard and an in-built webcam. But it is still better as compared to the other laptops which offer Core i3 processors in the price segment.