Macbook Air clone to be launched by China's Xiaomi?

Macbook AirApple

Xiaomi seems to be living up to being called the "Apple of China." It is almost feels like it is a division affiliated with the Cupertino-based firm with the products it releases. After launching smartphones and tablets identical to Apple's offerings, a new leak is indicating that Xiaomi is not at all done. This time, the MacBook Air is apparently getting a twin. 

Gizmochina reported that Xiaomi has a laptop in the pipeline and it will almost be impossible to tell apart from the MacBook Air if it weren't for teeny-tiny bit changes.

There is the Xiaomi logo etched at the bottom of its display. The emerging Chinese firm also slapped its emblem on the back of its alleged offering, the same spot where the bitten off fruit is plastered on the MacBook Air. Lastly, the power button was made orange instead of black. Everything else is a replica of Apple's device. The same black keyboard, the aluminum frame is no different and even the hinge is unchanged. 

Although looking like a copycat, its anatomy is undeniably imposing. The laptop is sizeable with a 15-inch display that renders decent 1080 pixels. Under its hood is the most modern Intel mainframe, the Haswell i7-4500u processor. The cherry on top is the 8 GB RAM module — well, two of them, actually. That's a hefty 16 GB of memory in the purported Xiaomi laptop. It is also speculated to support a Xiaomi-modified Linux operating system. 

With insane specs on the cards, its $481 price tag makes the laptop a potential chartbuster. The Apple offering it resembles has a starting price of $899, almost double its clone's value. Tech First Spot hopes that CES 2015 will be the event Xiaomi will unveil its new laptop, assuming this leak is accurate. With its sundry offerings, like routers and even air purifiers, it is not impossible that the firm is on the move for a notebook. 

Xiaomi has been unstoppable this year as it found its way to the third spot, next to Apple and Samsung, in the smartphone category. It captivated the world with superior-specced devices with price only half of what its competitors offer. After generating a towering $1.1 billion from investors in its latest funding schemes, the company earned its $45 billion value. With this in mind, Xiaomi may be seen crossing the borders in the future to come.