Xiaomi is launching a notebook with magnesium-lithium chassis

The Chinese smartphone maker threw down the gauntlet against Apple last year with the Mi Notebook Air, a sleek, lightweight ultrabook with hardware to rival the MacBook Air. This time, Xiaomi wants to push the boundaries of the portable laptop with a new notebook featuring a magnesium-lithium alloy chassis.

Reports say that Inventec will produce the laptop and that Xiaomi intends to release the product in 2017. This chassis will be made exclusively by a Chinese-based joint-venture established by Taiwan-based thermal management solution provider TaiSol Electronics and Japan-based Shinsho.

What makes magnesium-lithium alloy so appealing is that it is 75 percent lighter than aluminum, the material often used in today’s higher-end laptops, while still remaining sturdy. The main reason that more laptops don’t use magnesium-lithium alloy more frequently is its high cost.

This isn’t the first time the material has been used in laptops, however. Lenovo’s 13.3-inch LaVie Z weighs a mere 1.87 lbs, more than a pound lighter than the 13.3-inch MacBook Air. Notebooks vying for dominance of the ultra-lightweight laptop market include the upcoming Fujitsu LifeBook U937/P and this year’s 13.3-inch Samsung Notebook 9.

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