Xiaomi's first laptop is the Mi Notebook Air, a $750 MacBook rival

From PC World: China’s Xiaomi has entered the laptop market with new, lightweight notebooks that run Microsoft’s Windows 10.

The company, which has been getting into new markets including air-purifiers and drones, introduced on Wednesday its Mi Notebook Air, at prices ranging from RMB 3499, or around $524, for the 12.5-inch model with the larger, flagship model at RMB 4,999, or about $749.

Xiaomi is entering the Chinese laptop market at a time when the market for consumer laptops is shrinking. The Chinese market for consumer notebooks is expected to contract by 10.4 percent this year, according to Bryan Ma, IDC’s vice president for devices research.

The announcement of the laptops came at an event where Xiaomi also rolled out a new smartphone, the Redmi Pro, a dual rear camera OLED phone. Xiaomi badly needs a new flagship phone as it has seen market share decline from 14.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 9 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to data from IDC.

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