Xiaomi Book S 12.4 review

Lengthy a mainstay of the mid-priced Android market, Xiaomi has now turned its hand to 2-in-1 laptops, with its Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 providing worth and flexibility in equal measure.  

It’s an ARM-based Home windows 11 PC laptop computer that, because of its 12.4-inch LCD touchscreen, additionally doubles as a extremely moveable pill.

However with rivals such because the Floor Professional 8 and Huawei MateBook E additionally enjoying the hybrid recreation, is its £650 price ticket, Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chipset and 8GB of RAM sufficient to make it stand out?

Design & Construct 

• Easy design 
• Home windows Howdy however no fingerprint sensor 
• Just one (USB-C) port 

The Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 sits someplace in the midst of the wonder spectrum, that includes an uncluttered design that may sit discreetly in your desk with out turning any heads. Constructed utilizing a dark-grey aluminum-magnesium alloy, its inoffensive black chassis weighs a sensible 720g and is simply 8.95mm thick.  

Whereas the gadget’s clear design most likely received’t win any awards, the bezels surrounding the 12.35in touchscreen are comparatively slim for its worth vary. There’s additionally the welcome matte end that received’t decide up too many fingerprints or smudges, so it’ll look greater than presentable in an workplace or skilled setting. 

With a 12.35in display and dimensions of almost 300mm x 200mm, it may be slightly too massive to carry for lengthy lengths of time. That is the place the official keyboard is available in, which is offered individually for £129 and which additionally features a rear cowl, with a useful built-in stand. Clearly, this addition turns a mid-range laptop-tablet into one thing a bit pricier, however the simply adjustable, and durable, stand did typically make my life simpler. 

As with many different 2-in-1 tablets in its bracket, the Guide S’ design is capped off by a rear digicam (extra on that later) which actually makes an in any other case clean canvas (aside from the Xiaomi emblem) look extra attention-grabbing.

There isn’t a fingerprint sensor wherever on the gadget, but it surely does present a 3.5mm earphone jack and a single USB-C port. There’s additionally a microSD card slot on the right-hand facet of the pill, enabling you to improve its 256GB of inner reminiscence. 

Aside from that, the Xiaomi Guide S 12.4’s touchscreen is constructed with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, making it extra sturdy than a few of its rivals. Nevertheless, it doesn’t characteristic an official IP ranking, so be sure you care for it round water particularly. 

Equipment

• Responsive keyboard add-on with massive key spacing 
• Xiaomi Good Pen makes drawing and note-taking simpler 
• Each equipment offered individually 

Whereas Xiaomi is promoting its Guide S 12.4 as a 2-in-1 gadget, house owners will be capable to use it as such provided that they buy its official keyboard. As said above, that is offered individually at £129, reworking a £650 gadget into one costing £729.  

To be truthful, many 2-in-1 tablets are offered individually from their appropriate keyboards (e.g. the Microsoft Floor Professional 8), so the Guide S isn’t uncommon however together with it could be a draw for potential consumers. And for what it’s value, its keyboard is a good one. 

Imaginatively named the Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 Keyboard, it encompasses a typical Home windows structure, with the Begin button among the many Management and Alt keys on the backside and the F keys on the prime. There aren’t any fancy extras however the trackpad beneath the keyboard does substitute for a mouse very nicely. 

Simon Chandler / Foundry

Becoming the keyboard to the pill itself is frictionless, with the magnetic Pogo Pin connector satisfyingly highly effective. When you’ve hooked up it, you may then match the rear cowl which comes packaged with the keyboard, which can be magnetic and simple to use. 

At first, I didn’t suppose the quilt may very well be folded to face the display up. Nevertheless, you’ll want to give its backside half an excellent pull, in order that it fixes right into a extra steady folded place. When you’ve accomplished that, you then really have a 2-in-1 in your palms, with the angle of the display barely adjustable by way of cautious refolding of the quilt. 

The keys of the keyboard provide a comparatively massive key width, at 1.3mm, in addition to a top of 1.5mm. This makes typing simple and intuitive, whereas the trackpad is delicate with out being too delicate. The one minor draw back is that opening the ‘laptop computer’ upon getting the keyboard and rear cowl hooked up doesn’t really feel fairly as seamless as it could with an precise laptop computer. 

Shifting to the Xiaomi Good Pen, it is a rechargeable stylus that attaches magnetically to the left-hand facet of the Guide S. It’s right here that it recharges, with a full recharge requiring solely 18 minutes and a single minute of charging offering 20 minutes. As soon as absolutely charged, it could possibly final near eight hours. 

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With a 240Hz sampling fee and the flexibility to tell apart 4,096 ranges of strain, the pen is enjoyably easy to make use of, with low latency. It pairs routinely with the pill by way of Bluetooth when charged, and makes drawing or note-taking a fluid and articulate expertise. Serving to it on this regard is its palm rejection, which remained constant all through my time utilizing the Guide S. 

It’s additionally value mentioning that the Good Pen is mild and ergonomic, so utilizing it for extended classes received’t be a pressure. That stated, the keyboard will add 317g to the pill, taking it over a kilogram. This isn’t too heavy, but it surely does undermine the portability issue of the Guide S by itself. 

As with the keyboard, the Xiaomi Good Pen additionally must be bought individually, at a value of £89. Mixed with the keyboard, this takes the value of the Guide S as much as £819. 

Display & Audio system 

• Brilliant 12.35in LCD show 
• 60Hz refresh fee 
• Balanced twin audio system 

In a market the place many 2-in-1 tablets boast an OLED show, the Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 settles for a extra cheap LCD touchscreen. It provides a decision of 2560 x 1600 (WQHD) pixels, with a pixel per inch depend of 244ppi and a 16:10 facet ratio. It additionally supplies a fundamental 60Hz refresh fee.  

In different phrases, the show’s specs aren’t nice, particularly when OLED panels with 120Hz refresh charges at the moment are kind of de rigueur. Nonetheless, with a typical brightness of 500 nits, and with the flexibility to cowl 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, it’ll show sufficient for most individuals. Movies are clear and vivid, whereas pictures are typically sharp with a large dynamic vary. 

Simon Chandler / Foundry

One factor chances are you’ll not discover in regards to the show at first is that it helps 10-point multi-touch, that means it could possibly recognise and course of ten factors of contact on the similar time. This makes it helpful in work-related conditions the place extra precision and effectivity is required, with the flexibility to scroll with one hand and open/shut home windows with one other actually dashing up duties. 

Sound is carried by twin audio system sited on the left and proper of the gadget, offering stereo sound of respectable high quality for the value. Music clearly isn’t fairly as full-bodied or wealthy as you’d hear from a extra premium audio gadget, but it surely stays balanced sufficient, with the pill simply in a position to assist convention calls and the like. 

Specs & Efficiency 

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chipset
• Restricted efficiency 
• Solely a single RAM and inner storage configuration accessible 

Unsurprisingly for its worth, the Guide S registers middle-of-the-road efficiency compared to its friends. Outfitted with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 (7nm) processor, it could possibly’t fairly sustain with Intel-based gadgets, but will probably be quick sufficient for many functions. 

That is helped by its use of a Qualcomm Kryo 495 octa-core CPU, in addition to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. Nevertheless, there aren’t any fashions of the gadget accessible with both extra RAM or greater than the 256GB of inner reminiscence, so customers shouldn’t set their expectations too excessive.

That stated, efficiency is nice within the spherical. On a regular basis duties similar to net looking, phrase processing and multitasking are all managed with out noticeable points. Home windows open rapidly and apps load with few or no delays, whereas customers may run a number of home windows with out placing an excessive amount of undue pressure on the pill. 

Simon Chandler / Foundry

See also  Lenovo Tab P12 review

By way of extra intensive duties, the Guide S doesn’t come off in addition to dearer 2-in-1 gadgets such because the Floor Professional 8 or Samsung Galaxy Guide Professional 360. Extra demanding video games have a tendency to present it slightly an excessive amount of to digest directly, whereas it falls beneath the minimal requirement of many current titles (e.g. I attempted and didn’t obtain and run the Forza Horizon 4 demo).

Likewise, sure skilled enhancing apps will probably additionally drag efficiency down additional, with apparent slowdown and lag. In spite of everything, there’s no discrete graphics card right here to deal with that stuff.

Different specs value mentioning embrace assist for Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1. These full the image of a 2-in-1 pill that may do most issues nicely, however with out really excelling in any specific space. 

That is additionally supported by its benchmarks, which reveal the Guide S 12.4 surpassing cheaper fashions such because the Floor Go 3 however lagging behind barely dearer rivals such because the Huawei MateBook E and the Floor Professional 8.

Cameras

• 13Mp rear
• 5Mp entrance
• Home windows Howdy

The rear digicam on the pill is a good 13Mp though images taken utilizing it are variable in high quality. Particularly, pictures captured in good pure mild end up fairly nicely, with out being spectacular, whereas something with an excessive amount of or too little mild taxes the gadget’s software program simply an excessive amount of to be helpful.  

Alternatively, the Digital camera app can be utilized to seize the content material of whiteboards and scan paperwork (and barcodes), so it performs higher as a multi-purpose picture instrument than as a severe digicam. The identical goes for the 5Mp front-facing digicam, which received’t actually give you flattering selfies, however will a minimum of be helpful for convention calls and video-chatting with family and friends. 

One other attention-grabbing characteristic supplied by the entrance of the gadget is a Home windows Howdy face unlock. It’s actually not fairly as efficient or dependable as Apple’s Face ID, however in case you’re in respectable mild and never too distant, it often does an excellent job of saving you the hassle of getting into your PIN a thousand occasions. 

Battery Life & Charging 

• 42Wh battery 
• Underwhelming battery life 
• Respectable 65W charging by way of USB-C 

With a battery weighing in at 38.08Wh, Xiaomi guarantees customers that the Guide S 12.4 will maintain going for round 13.4 hours. This relies fully on how you utilize it although, with the addition of the keyboard and the Xiaomi Good Pen often leaving you with considerably much less endurance than 13 hours. 

The shortage of stamina of the Guide S’ battery can be borne out in case you use it repeatedly as a media gadget, particularly for watching TV and movies. For instance, binge-watching a number of episodes of your favorite Netflix collection may end up in the gadget working out of steam inside round half of the time marketed by Xiaomi.

Simon Chandler / Foundry

This isn’t nice, notably when watching video is among the commonest makes use of for a pill. In our common video loop battery check at 120 nits brightness, the Guide S 12.4 lasted a center of the street eight hours and 37 minutes.

Whereas the battery itself is considerably disappointing, Xiaomi’s 65W GaN charger goes a way in direction of compensating for its longevity points. It might probably take you from nearly flat to 50% in about 40 minutes, whereas a full cost arrives in simply over an hour and a half. That is fairly spectacular, though you’ll have to do not forget that, in case you plan to work a full day with the gadget, take the charger with you. 

Software program & Apps

• Home windows 11 in S Mode 
• Streamlined UX with out bloatware or muddle 

Operating on Home windows 11 out of the field, the Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 makes use of Microsoft’s OS in S Mode by default. It is a secure mode that will increase the gadget’s general safety, largely by erecting boundaries in opposition to the downloading of unauthorised or unvetted apps.

For some folks it’ll come as a helpful addition, though extra specialised customers could favor to deactivate it, liberating them as much as set up extra area of interest functions that don’t come instantly from the Microsoft Retailer. 

Extra typically, the Guide S’ implementation of Home windows 11 is easy and easy, with an absence of bloatware or pointless apps. Actually, a scroll by the functions pre-installed on the gadget reveals that Xiaomi has opted to not add something additional (not like its Android telephones), so customers will just about obtain the inventory Home windows expertise. 

Simon Chandler / Foundry

Home windows 11 stays an inviting interface, with an intuitive structure that’s simple to navigate. The OS has been optimised for tablets in numerous methods, with the inclusion of the Begin menu (and accompanying icons) within the middle-bottom taskbar being the obvious distinction from earlier iterations. Once more, the Guide S handles all of this nicely, with the gadget loading apps and home windows rapidly. 

One slight disappointment, nonetheless, is that the OS doesn’t make any apparent use for the Xiaomi Good Pen, a minimum of not by default. You may clearly use it as a glorified finger, in addition to with the inventory Phrase and Paint apps, however extra particular makes use of should include the downloading of third-party apps. 

This quibble apart, software program is finally one of many gadget’s strongpoints, with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen processor enabling it to supply a frictionless expertise. Xiaomi hasn’t made it clear for the way lengthy it’ll obtain updates although, so don’t count on it to be higher supported on this respect than Microsoft’s Floor gadgets, as an illustration. 

Value & Availability

By itself, the Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 will value £649.99/€699/$750. This could qualify it as a mid-range 2-in-1 pill/laptop computer, but if customers need it to perform as such, they’ll should spend £129 extra for its keyboard and £89 extra for the Xiaomi Good Pen.  

In whole, this may push the associated fee as much as £819, making the Guide S £450 dearer than the bottom mannequin of the Microsoft Floor Go 3, and solely £181 cheaper than the Huawei MateBook E, which comes with its Good Magnetic Keyboard and boasts largely higher specs. 

There aren’t any alternate variations of the Guide S with extra RAM or inner reminiscence, that means 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage are your solely choices. It might probably at present be bought by the official Xiaomi web site, with assist from third-party retailers being minimal in the meanwhile.

Test our chart of the very best tablets and 2-in-1 laptops.

Simon Chandler / Foundry

Verdict

The Xiaomi Guide S 12.4 is an efficient possibility for anybody in search of a 2-in-1 pill that doesn’t value an excessive amount of however nonetheless provides a large gamut of performance. It does almost all the things its dearer rivals such because the Floor Professional 8 and Huawei MateBook E do, whereas additionally saving the consumer a minimum of a few hundred kilos (or euros), relying on which add-ons they buy. 

Regardless of utilizing an LCD panel and lacking a quicker refresh fee, its 12.35in show is huge and vibrant sufficient to supply an fulfilling viewing expertise, whereas being greater than ample for work functions. Its efficiency can be greater than adequate for many day-to-day functions however nothing too demanding. 

It’s extra of a blended bag with battery life, as a result of whereas the Guide S recharges rapidly, it could possibly lose energy with nearly as a lot velocity. Utilizing it in tandem with the keyboard and Xiaomi Good Pen can sap its juices simply whereas utilizing it as a piece gadget will necessitate having it plugged in (except you need it to conk out on you by the afternoon). 

These criticisms apart, the Guide S’ implementation of Home windows 11 is laudably clear, whereas the gadget has sufficient robust factors to advocate it on the entire. It could value barely greater than its marketed price ticket of £649 if you wish to absolutely actualise its 2-in-1 standing, but it surely nonetheless undercuts a handful of its nearest counterparts.

Specs

• Home windows 11 in  S mode 
• 12.35in 2560 x 1600 LCD show, 60Hz, WQHD+ 
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 processor 
• Qualcomm Kryo 495, Octa-core CPU, as much as 2.84GHz 
• Qualcomm Adreno 680 GPU 
• 8GB RAM 
• 256GB SSD 
• microSD slot 
• 13Mp rear digicam 
• 5Mp front-facing digicam 
• Twin audio system 
• Wi-Fi 5 
• Bluetooth 5.1 
• As much as 13.4 hours of battery life (quoted) 
• 65w charging (charger offered individually) 
• 720g (pill solely)