What’s a computer? Well, it looks like Xiaomi‘s idea of what a computer will look like in the next year will be some kind of small form factor PC (SFF), as images appeared online of a Mac Mini looking device sporting a Xiaomi badge. Could this be the company’s foray in to the realm of desktop computing?
Now, I must clarify upfront that these are still rumours but it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. According to reports, this Xiaomi Mini PC will be running an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H APU, which is a 45W processor with built-in Radeon 680M graphics (built on the RDNA2 architecture). You can apparently get this without memory an storage for CNY2999 (~RM1,882) or with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for CNY3999 (~RM2,509).
What’s interesting to me is that while it undoubtedly looks like a Mac Mini from the overall aesthetic, Xiaomi appears to be forgoing the clean front plate design of the Mac Mini and opting to include two USB-A ports and what looks like a headphone jack in the front as well. Even the power button has been relocated to the front for added convenience.
This isn’t the only “Xiaomi desktop PC” that made its way onto the internet however. Another Weibo user shared images of what I assume is a press invite or early preview device of some sort (I can’t read Chinese so I’m going off Google Translate here) that looks like an aluminum PC case. From the size, it looks like another SFF mini-ITX system, but from just photos it’s kind of hard to tell.
Also included is a card and a few small bags with various parts labelled in Chinese (if you could translate them in the comments that’d be great), like screws, standoffs and washers as well as a single switch from a mechanical keyboard. Perhaps most interesting is the card that says Win+M which could be a hint towards the Windows + M shortcut that minimises all your desktop windows. Could this be a sign that Xiaomi wants to “minimise” the computer?
It’s interesting that Xiaomi would want to go into the desktop PC market considering how every other year I hear stories of how it’s supposedly a dying form factor because you can do all the desktop thinks you’d want to do on a laptop these days. Xiaomi is also a company whose name literally stands for Mobile Internet (MI), so it seems abit peculiar that they’re going for something as immobile as a desktop under their main brand.
Regardless, them joining a space usually means good things for the consumer because they’ve built a cult following for making affordable products in any market or niche they enter, so it’ll be exciting to see what comes of this.
