Xiaomi Air 12 laptop with a 12.5" screen
The Laptop usually is upwards of £450, and this is the cheapest it has been (if paying in dollars and using a FX free card, $489.99 = roughly £390)
Great specs for the price! Very slim, and has some great reviews
Comes with Chinese Windows 10 can be converted to English but fresh install offEnglish OS the better option.
Original Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air Windows 10 12.5 Inch Intel Core M3-6Y30 Dual Core 4GB RAM 128GB SATA SSD FHD 1920*1080 Bluetooth 4.1 Laptop
Top comments
da1em to *Sloman*
19 Apr 175#27
Terrible use of fractions
badboyofrock to *Sloman*
19 Apr 174#28
Are you speaking from experience? If stuff doesn't arrive, why would you continue to buy things? Everything I've ordered from Gearbest has arrived, and nothing has ever taken more than about a fortnight.
In that case, no Apple or Amazon products should be on here either since they pay virtually no UK tax despite having £BILLIONS worth of sales in the UK.
Amazon
Total UK sales in 2014 - £5.1bn
UK corporation tax - £11.9m
Ebay
Total UK sales in 2014 - £1.6bn
UK corporation tax - £617,000
Apple
UK sales in 2014 (estimated) - £7.2bn
UK corporation tax - £11.8m
Those companies are the biggest tax scammers on the planet.
Latest comments (58)
da_murphster
7 May 17#58
£479.26 now.
About the keys - do most laptop keys not 'pop' off somehow? Can you not just swap the keys over? Would not really want stickers on a nice new shiny laptop
Picard123
21 Apr 17#57
Couldn't you simply change the keyboard layout / region to UK and then get some keyboard stickers off Ebay or Amazon?
MrHot
21 Apr 17#56
If you use PayPal this is not true, so you're now having to trust PayPal.
I love how Xiaomi show that Apple products are overpriced junk in some cases. I love how they're directly challenging Apple in China better than any company here in the 'West'
da1em
18 Apr 17#11
What's the quickest way of getting a fair fx card please? Do you have to wait for the physical card to arrive or do they provide them straight away for you to make a purchase? Also I think it works out cheaper in euros?
madnlooney to da1em
19 Apr 172#32
Revolut don't charge fees and you can sign up through the app and use virtual card so don't need to wait for real card
joker_ftrs_reborn to da1em
20 Apr 17#50
Hello, Revolut is a good app that I've used for some months. When you setup the app, you get a virtual card that you can use straight away for purchases. You can then order the physical card that matches and you'll receive it around 5 days. The exchange rates are pretty fair (compared with reuters), you get more value than paypal and sometimes than transferwise. It works with a bunch of currencies and you can use it abroad (I've used it in South America for example).
tigerstyle2ne1
20 Apr 171#49
Well full charge, doing my office work with wifi on, screen at 60% (it is a bright screen so happy to not having to have it at 100% like previous cheap laptops) Outlook open, 12 Chrome tabs, few spreadsheets, saying 5 hours left. Kind of wanted the promised 7-8 for all day no charge usage, but the battery does charge very quickly via the USBC charger.
Hard to tell what is really going on though! Think some Win10 updates have finished and now says 6:13 left on battery :smiley:
winchman
20 Apr 17#48
And a type C, and an HDMI. Thats about a 1000% better than a Macbook. At least you can charge it and use a usb without having to buy an expansion port.. Lovely bit of kit but they need to provide some kind of UK warranty.
If anyone wants a half decent tablet and keyboard for £137(nice 3:2 aspect), http://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_605518.html
*Sloman*
19 Apr 171#25
You've got to be insane spending more than £15 at GearBest. 8/10 the item never shows up, is dead on arrival or breaks within a few months and you have a costly postage bill and very poor customer service!
thekanester to *Sloman*
19 Apr 173#26
Not true. I've bought hundreds of things and only one hasn't turned up, but that was around christmas. I've had more things not turn up from amazon than GB. I've had great service from them.
da1em to *Sloman*
19 Apr 175#27
Terrible use of fractions
badboyofrock to *Sloman*
19 Apr 174#28
Are you speaking from experience? If stuff doesn't arrive, why would you continue to buy things? Everything I've ordered from Gearbest has arrived, and nothing has ever taken more than about a fortnight.
idroidmaniac to *Sloman*
20 Apr 17#47
I always hear bad stories but i've never had an issue and i spend a fair amount with them. One day i may but people have issues with every seller at some point.
Picard123
19 Apr 174#46
In that case, no Apple or Amazon products should be on here either since they pay virtually no UK tax despite having £BILLIONS worth of sales in the UK.
Amazon
Total UK sales in 2014 - £5.1bn
UK corporation tax - £11.9m
Ebay
Total UK sales in 2014 - £1.6bn
UK corporation tax - £617,000
Apple
UK sales in 2014 (estimated) - £7.2bn
UK corporation tax - £11.8m
Those companies are the biggest tax scammers on the planet.
tigerstyle2ne1
19 Apr 172#44
Have got the 13.3 Here (using it now) do like it a lot, however the battery life isn't as great as the adverts or reviews for it suggest, but still good given it's size, and to be fair it might be my day to day usage and wi-fi etc is just that bit heavier than most? Gearbest were fine with the order, but it took 2 weeks to get here.
Win10 English installed fine using the Chiense Key that came with the laptop.
Annoying the " and @ keys are in the US layout so now they are 'wrong' but you just have to touch type to get them.
Would like to be able to later the brightness of the keyboard backlight
Doesn't have a software numpad, if that makes sense, so still working out a few keyboard shortcuts, things that would normally be ALT+NUMPAD 1234 for example...
gebbet to tigerstyle2ne1
19 Apr 17#45
How much battery life do you get?
malky39
19 Apr 17#43
No band 20 am out
☺️
Dobko
19 Apr 17#38
What about a VAT/Custom Tax when ordering from China especially Gearbest? Any experience?
sotomonkey to Dobko
19 Apr 17#42
This is hotukdeals. Gearbest wouldn't be on here if Hotukdeals really gave a toss about tax evasion.
knocik
19 Apr 171#41
Chuwi, not Chewi.
Picard123
19 Apr 171#40
This is simply one of those laptop deals which will appeal to some but not others.
On the the plus side, you will simply never find an ultraportable like this for anything close to £400 in the UK. In that respect, it's a superb deal.
On the downside, there's the Windows OS hassle, risk of additional customs duties, and the logistics of support/repair if the machine develops a fault. Having owned several Xiaomi phones, I have to say that their build quality is very impressive. They're a premium Chinese manufacturer and don't produce rebranded generic junk, so I'd be surprised if a fault were to develop within the typical lifecycle of a laptop like this. I suspect the 2nd generation of this laptop (if there is to be a 2nd generation) will be even better.
If I was after an ultraportable in this form factor and had a spare Windows key, I'd seriously tempted by this deal. This deal one for the tech savvy who don't mind taking a risk.
I'd still give deal a HOT.
ismaildeals123
19 Apr 17#39
warranty here is a joke
you have to submit a ticket and then after 2 weeks they reply and expect you the ship the item to china out of your cost for repair
would never give £400 to them
Magnets
19 Apr 171#35
£400 on an item with basically no warranty :confused:
plewis00 to Magnets
19 Apr 17#37
Well that's basically no different to buying a used iPhone (over a year old with no manufacturer warranty) on eBay or a second-hand car from a private seller. £400 isn't exactly a crippling amount of money to spend and lose should it all go wrong...
fishmaster
19 Apr 171#36
Yes there's definitely a manufacturer called Chewi their tagline is "We're back!"
robertvan1
19 Apr 17#34
I have this machine. Picked it up at the xiaomo store in Beijing. Very well made, fast, light and good battery life. My only gripe is that it only has one USB port.
da1em
19 Apr 17#33
Thank you. I was hoping / expecting that this would be able to be done. I think I'll go for the 13.3" version tonight - about £538 if paying in euros
If things don't turn up you should get your money back, I believe aliexpress don't release the money to the seller until you have received it. Pay with a credit card as they are jointly liable.
Picard123
19 Apr 17#29
Very nice machines these if you're looking for a budget ultraportable that's light and has zero noise.
Only thing that's stopped me from pulling the trigger on these is the lack of UK support / repair capability if it were to develop a fault and the slightly high price (typically £450-£550). That said, I've owned lots of UK sold laptops from the other manufacturers such as Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Asus, HP etc and with the exception of a Medion laptop, none of them developed any faults that couldn't be fixed with a component swap (eg. failed HDD on an HP laptop) despite years of usage.
Also a guide here for converting the Windows Chinese version to the English version (it's a bit of a faff, so get a native English version of the OS if you can): http://en.miui.com/thread-338431-1-1.html
speculatrix
19 Apr 17#24
absolutely, if there's a fault you have to send it back to China, which will be expensive.
winchman
19 Apr 173#23
I don't think that's the issue, you can get the money back from credit card. The issue is if you have a problem with it in 3 months time.
jameswalker457
19 Apr 17#22
+1
myOpinion2
19 Apr 172#20
Probably a personal thing but I wouldn't pay this much money for a laptop without a UK keyboard.
garethsmith72 to myOpinion2
19 Apr 173#21
I wouldn't pay that amount to a non UK/USA company for fear of the goods not appearing/working.
haritori
19 Apr 171#19
With a revolut card right now its roughly £380.00
gebbet
18 Apr 17#16
Is it easy changing it to English without buying a new copy of win10?
badboyofrock to gebbet
19 Apr 171#18
Make sure it is activated, and then make a USB using the Microsoft media creation tool. Choose English UK when you start. Reinstall windows using the USB stick, and it will re activate when you go back online. Make sure you take a backup of the drivers etc, as Windows might not install them all.
SClub
18 Apr 172#17
I'd much rather get a Xiaomi ultrabook than a Chuwi tablet and keyboard. I love my Chuwi but it's a bit of a compromise, and Xiaomi's products are in a different league.
You need to convert to us dollar and pay via fx free card
elbs
18 Apr 17#13
showing as £570?
djdope
18 Apr 171#12
Haha you've hit the nail on its head. Once you add vat then the price isn't competitive anymore
djbenny1
18 Apr 174#10
Yea - I genuinely think that if and when Xiaomi comes to Europe officially, and if they can avoid adding the full rate of tax onto everything, they will absolutely clean up.
I take it back - it says £659 on the page listing all the Xiaomi laptops, but then it goes cheaper when you click into it
djbenny1
18 Apr 17#5
It's also worth noting that the 13.3" version is on offer at £550 I think with considerable upgrades over this - I think this size is a bit small personally.
da1em to djbenny1
18 Apr 17#6
Where did you find that?
I can only see £649 by clicking on the HK store.
Thanks
djdope to djbenny1
18 Apr 17#7
Yep saw that too.. Air 13 looks great. Great specs
Opening post
Xiaomi Air 12 laptop with a 12.5" screen
The Laptop usually is upwards of £450, and this is the cheapest it has been (if paying in dollars and using a FX free card, $489.99 = roughly £390)
Great specs for the price! Very slim, and has some great reviews
Comes with Chinese Windows 10 can be converted to English but fresh install offEnglish OS the better option.
Original Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air Windows 10 12.5 Inch Intel Core M3-6Y30 Dual Core 4GB RAM 128GB SATA SSD FHD 1920*1080 Bluetooth 4.1 Laptop
Top comments
Amazon
Total UK sales in 2014 - £5.1bn
UK corporation tax - £11.9m
Ebay
Total UK sales in 2014 - £1.6bn
UK corporation tax - £617,000
Apple
UK sales in 2014 (estimated) - £7.2bn
UK corporation tax - £11.8m
Those companies are the biggest tax scammers on the planet.
Latest comments (58)
About the keys - do most laptop keys not 'pop' off somehow? Can you not just swap the keys over? Would not really want stickers on a nice new shiny laptop
http://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html?wid=4
Hard to tell what is really going on though! Think some Win10 updates have finished and now says 6:13 left on battery :smiley:
If anyone wants a half decent tablet and keyboard for £137(nice 3:2 aspect), http://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_605518.html
Amazon
Total UK sales in 2014 - £5.1bn
UK corporation tax - £11.9m
Ebay
Total UK sales in 2014 - £1.6bn
UK corporation tax - £617,000
Apple
UK sales in 2014 (estimated) - £7.2bn
UK corporation tax - £11.8m
Those companies are the biggest tax scammers on the planet.
Win10 English installed fine using the Chiense Key that came with the laptop.
Annoying the " and @ keys are in the US layout so now they are 'wrong' but you just have to touch type to get them.
Would like to be able to later the brightness of the keyboard backlight
Doesn't have a software numpad, if that makes sense, so still working out a few keyboard shortcuts, things that would normally be ALT+NUMPAD 1234 for example...
☺️
This is simply one of those laptop deals which will appeal to some but not others.
On the the plus side, you will simply never find an ultraportable like this for anything close to £400 in the UK. In that respect, it's a superb deal.
On the downside, there's the Windows OS hassle, risk of additional customs duties, and the logistics of support/repair if the machine develops a fault. Having owned several Xiaomi phones, I have to say that their build quality is very impressive. They're a premium Chinese manufacturer and don't produce rebranded generic junk, so I'd be surprised if a fault were to develop within the typical lifecycle of a laptop like this. I suspect the 2nd generation of this laptop (if there is to be a 2nd generation) will be even better.
If I was after an ultraportable in this form factor and had a spare Windows key, I'd seriously tempted by this deal. This deal one for the tech savvy who don't mind taking a risk.
I'd still give deal a HOT.
you have to submit a ticket and then after 2 weeks they reply and expect you the ship the item to china out of your cost for repair
would never give £400 to them
https://techtablets.com/xiaomi-mi-notebook-air-12-5/
https://techtablets.com/2016/12/xiaomi-mi-notebook-air-12-re-review-4-months/
Only thing that's stopped me from pulling the trigger on these is the lack of UK support / repair capability if it were to develop a fault and the slightly high price (typically £450-£550). That said, I've owned lots of UK sold laptops from the other manufacturers such as Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Asus, HP etc and with the exception of a Medion laptop, none of them developed any faults that couldn't be fixed with a component swap (eg. failed HDD on an HP laptop) despite years of usage.
Can't see this for £399 at Gearbest but it is £444 from Bang Good: http://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Laptop-Intel-Core-i7-8G-DDR3-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-760M-15_6-Inch-p-941729.html?p=QZ14021624945201505Y
Also a guide here for converting the Windows Chinese version to the English version (it's a bit of a faff, so get a native English version of the OS if you can):
http://en.miui.com/thread-338431-1-1.html
I can only see £649 by clicking on the HK store.
Thanks