Chinese tech giant Xiaomi on Wednesday unveiled it first laptop – the Mi Notebook Air, and reviewers immediately pointed out that it bears striking similarities in both look and branding with Apple's Macbook Air. The announcement came as a surprise at a press event, where the company was set to launch its new Redmi Pro smartphone, TechCrunch reported.

The laptop will be available in two models that will cost $540 and $750 (approximately Rs 36,000 and Rs 50,000), with both running on Windows 10. The Macbook Air, in comparison, costs between $899 and $1,199 (Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000).

The Mi Notebook Air's 13.3-inch model has an Intel Core i5 Processor, a 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 256GB PCIe SSD, with an expandable SSD slot. It also comes with an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics card, specifically for gamers. The 12.5-inch model, however, has lower-end features in comparison – an Intel Core M3 processor with integrated graphics, 128GB in expandable SSD and 4GB RAM.

Xiaomi says the Mi Notebook Air is 13% thinner and 11% smaller than the Macbook Air. The laptops go on sale in China on August 2.