Verdict
The Xiaomi Book S is a 2 - in-1 laptop with a lot of potential difference . The sleek design and optional keyboard make it prosperous to expend , but the public presentation underwhelms during productivity labor and it does n’t work well as a standalone tablet , which makes it unvoiced to advocate .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Xiaomi Book S is a 2 - in-1 laptop computer that pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 processor and a bright and vivacious presentation , but the functioning leave something to be desired .
One of the most pop 2 - in-1 laptop computer on the market is theMicrosoft Surface Pro 8 , which has now been take over by theSurface Pro 9 – and the competition since then has been minimal .
Now Xiaomi has discombobulate its chapeau into the ring with the Book S , which has come after in Microsoft ’s footfall by not bundling the support keyboard in with its equipment . I ’ve been using the Book S for a good few weeks now , here is how I got on .
Design
The Xiaomi Book S can be used as a pad of paper , but if you also purchase the supported keyboard – which will be you another £ 129 – it can also be used as a improvised laptop computer . On its own , it weigh in at 720 gm , with the keyboard amount in at an extra 317 g.
For a 2 - in-1 machine , I think it was astonishingly heavy and I could really feel it in my haversack when I fill it to and from employment . I think it feel very similar to carrying a traditional laptop computer , which was a little unsatisfying , as I expected it to experience more portable .
The tab itself has an aluminium - magnesium admixture soundbox , and it has a sleek and mature design , housing a 13MP tv camera mental faculty on the back . However , for repose , I stay fresh the back blanket connected to the equipment for almost all of the sentence I used it . The back cover charge and keyboard are made of faux leather and have a like aesthetic , with the Xiaomi branding written on the back .
I did like the keyboard , despite it being smaller than what I ’m used to . It feel similar to the keyboard that supports theHuawei MateBook E , have a honorable answer clock time and a good key depth . However , on many occasion , it engage a while for the words that I typed to actually appear on screen , although we will stir on that more in the Performance section .
The touchpad was also serviceable , but it had a alike tactile property to theAcer Swift X ( 2022 ) , which is to say it felt up like I had to practice more pressure than common to highlight textual matter or tap a link , which slightly slow up down my productivity .
Housed on the side of the gimmick are the big businessman and volume buttons , which were tactile and responsive . Xiaomi has opt against using a fingerprint detector , instead using facial credit viaWindows Hello . This ferment great and made logging into the gadget finger seamless .
It is moderately marginal - bones in terms of ports , with only one USB - coulomb connection ( which doubles as a charging port ) , a 3.5 mm sound jackstones and a TF menu one-armed bandit . I struggled with this setup , as it entail I postulate a dongle to connect older USB - A peripherals .
However , I was impress by the audio . For a small gadget , I felt like the dual speakers could pump out tawdry sound recording that sounded coherent and knifelike , making watching TV and movies a breeze . medicine sounded natural and balanced , with bass notes come out as peculiarly favourable .
Screen and camera
Easily , the best part of the Xiaomi Book S is the filmdom . While it ’s small at just 12.3 - inches , it has a resolution of 2560×1600 , see to it a sharp picture quality than Full HD ( 1920×1080 ) displays . Despite packing an LCD panel and notOLED , the colours were vibrant and it handle abject - light source shows and movies with ease .
To back up my personal thoughts , I also track down some tests with a colorimter , which showed the max luminousness to pose at 557.83nits , with the contrast coming in at 1430:1 . The smartness is specially telling and much higher than the 300 - nit count find on most laptops . This even made it easy for me to work outdoors on gay days , and it definitely elevated a peck of medium content .
The colour truth also total out as reliable , with the sRGB , Adobe RGB and DCI - P3 hail in at 97.9 % , 85.2 % and 93 % , respectively . color gamut are measurements of the ambit of color that a twist can display , being a key metric unit for how realistic colours on screen will look in the real worldly concern .
Since this is a 2 - in-1 gimmick , it has touchscreen capability , and I was proud of to regain that it was very responsive . I could cursorily skim through a document or soar into pictures with no government issue , and I felt like navigating it as a tablet was somewhat simple , despite the fact that Windows 11 is not built with that in mind .
The refresh rate of the Book S is gravel at 60Hz and can not be altered . While this does not surprise me , it would have been courteous to see an adaptive refresh rate so it could gainsay the likes of Microsoft ’s Surface Pro 9 .
The Xiaomi Book S boasts two cameras ; a 1080p front photographic camera and a 13MP rearward camera . Both of these were serviceable , but in terminal figure of actual use slip , I got a lot more out of the front camera , using it for work calls and chatting with booster . It had more item than I expected , though I thought that both cameras struggle with exposure .
While the rearward television camera was a nice inclusion , it sense cumbrous to worst out for a quick shot , and I would n’t recommend using it if you already own a smartphone with a tv camera . As you may see from the pictures below , it was good to apply outside in bright daylight , and I experience like the colour accuracy on my book and plant were high . But in darker environments , the colours are washed out easily .
Performance
The Xiaomi Book S comes in one CPU conformation ; a Qualcomm Kryo 495CPU . It also came with 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM as well as 256 GB storage . While I felt the RAM was just , I was disappointed to see no more warehousing options past 256 GB , with 512 GB generally being the stem option for a laptop .
I really sputter to apply this gadget for agency work . The little sieve size of it made it hard to work with multiple tabs candid , and generally , it felt like the laptop computer could n’t wield more than a few Chrome check open at once without stalling or at worse , force quit my applications .
Looking at the performance board above , it ’s clean-cut that the single - core performance here is lack , coming in last out of the Windows portable . That short single - core result demonstrates how slow it can be for universal undertaking , with simple instruction taking a lot longer than they should .
I found it really frustrating to work on and it emphatically slowed me down during the workday , so I would n’t recommend it to anyone who take multiple applications , such as Slack , Zoom and Chrome , open throughout the daytime .
Moreover , while the screen is fit for content creation , the integrated GPU will not furnish enough power for this to be used as a creative gimmick . Since I had issues simply play a YouTube video while I leap between Chrome tabloid , I do n’t see it handling tasks like video editing or 3D animation , and I would n’t urge it for anything more advanced than draw .
With this machine run onWindows 11 , it did not finger visceral to voyage . Unlike using theiPad Prothere is no force - down bill of fare , and icons were a little too small to easily compact . That said , the experience as a laptop computer is n’t much better due to the inert carrying out . I would almost advise using it as a tablet and forgoing the keyboard totally , as I believe it ’s best used as a twist to check content on and engage in simple browse .
Moreover , since this portable uses anARMprocessor , it ’s seemingly suffer some compatibility result with select Windows coating running poorly or not at all .
Finally , the SSD gobs leave alone a little to be want , and match up with my behind - shipment experiences . The read score came in at 3091MB / s and the write at 1205MB / s. Such pathetic scores meant that loading data onto the physical drive took longer than I would like , which made the experience of using the tablet feel jilted .
Battery life
During my battery test with a YouTube television on a loop and the brightness fix to 50 % , the Xiaomi Books S lasted for 6 hours and 16 mo . Even compared to other 2 - in-1 laptop computer this falls short , with the Surface Laptop 8 lasting close to 10 hour .
While I do n’t feel that this laptop computer necessitate to last that long , at a lower limit I would like it to last throughout most of my working day , which the Xiaomi Book S is n’t subject of .
The battery life of the Book S is a hard pill to swallow and make it toilsome to recommend to anyone looking to habituate it for body of work or education . The 38.08Wh bombardment inside the Book S ca n’t compete with the likes ofHuawei MateBook 16andAcer Chromebook Spin 513 , which hold up 13 minute , and 13 hours 35mins severally .
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Should you buy it?
The small but vibrant screen on the Xiaomi Book S makes it a expectant gadget to catch movies and tv set shows on , and the touchscreen capabilities imply it can be used as a pad of paper .
The Xiaomi Book S is not powerful enough to betroth in productivity work and stutters often if too many Chrome chit are undecided . There are other 2 - in-1 laptop useable at like price point that come with more powerful processors , better suited for someone looking to use this for study .
Final Thoughts
I really wanted to like the Xiaomi Book S , and when I was merely watching movies and TV depict I remember it worked really well . If you are after a sleek 2 - in-1 to observe subject matter on and do episodic browse , then this is a comely selection .
However , in day - to - day use during body of work , I found it really hard to expend . Chrome would stutter and apps could take a few minutes to load , and it could take up to 30 seconds for words to come up on the covert after I typewrite them . I would n’t urge this if you want to work out on it in any meaningful way , which imply more than a few Chrome tabs open and applications like Slack or Zoom extend in the background .
in the end , while I mean it has a skillful design and I ca n’t really blame the screenland , this is not a laptop . Even as a tablet it ’s not stark , since it incline on Windows 11 it does n’t feel very intuitive to employ . I ’d sooner advocate a tablet with an operating system more optimised for touch navigation such as theiPad 9orLenovo Chromebook Duet .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every laptop computer we review goes through a serial of uniform checks designed to estimate key affair including build quality , performance , screen character and battery animation .
These include courtly synthetic benchmark and written tests , plus a serial publication of real - mankind tab , such as how well it runs the most oftentimes used apps .
We also verify to apply every laptop computer we brush up as our elemental equipment for at least a workweek to ensure our reexamination is as accurate as possible .
FAQs
This laptop computer is fix on ports due to its design , trapping only a USB - 100 port and a 3.5 mm audio jack .
This laptop apply a USB - C charger .
This laptop come in one conformation , the Qualcomm Kryo 495 central processor . There are also no option for an Intel processor .
Test Data
Full Specs
