Now Lenovo has a 13-inch 'Air' laptop, too

A new trend seems to be rising among Chinese manufacturers, and it's an odd one at that. While rumors chalk off Apple's MacBook Air as dead (the reasoning being that it's been all but replaced by the company's new ultra-thin MacBook) a crop of new ultraportables with "Air" in their names are showing up in China. 

A few days ago, it was Xiaomi's Mi Notebook Air; on Thursday, Lenovo  launched the Lenovo Air 13 Pro, a 13-inch, Windows 10-based ultraportable with a dedicated graphics chip. 

The Lenovo Air 13 Pro has a 13.3-inch full HD screen, an Intel Core i5 or i7 (Skylake) processor, 4GB of RAM, 256GB/512GB of SSD storage and Nvidia's GeForce GTX940MX graphics chip

It sounds like a dead ringer for Xiaomi's 13-inch offering, but there are differences. The Lenovo starts with less RAM — 4GB vs. 8GB — but it comes with a fingerprint sensor, and it has a more powerful graphics chip (2GB of RAM vs 1GB). The price of the two (at least during Lenovo's pre-order period) is the same: RMB 4,999, or roughly $750

That price will go up when the device hits stores. The least expensive version, with 4GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and an Intel Core i5 processor will cost RMB 5,499 ($827). Read more...