Huawei’s latest 13 inch laptop is coming to North America later this month for $1000 and up, and the company is showing it off a little early during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
Like the Huawei MateBook X Pro, which launched last year, the new laptop has a 3:2 aspect ratio display and an an all-metal chassis. But it has a smaller screen (13 inches rather than 13.9 inches) and a larger top bezel (which means there’s room for a camera above the display rather than in the keyboard).
When placed side-by-side, it’s pretty clear that thew new model takes up less space, despite having a slightly more powerful processor and a slightly larger bezel.
The new laptop measures 11.3″ x 8.3″ x 0.6″ and weighs about 2.8 pounds. Under the hood it features an Intel Whiskey Lake processor, and there will be at least two configurations available:
- Core i5-8265U/Intel UHD 620/8GB/256GB for $1000
- Core i7-8565U/Geforce MX150/8GB/512GB for $1300
The laptop has a 2160 x 1440 pixel touchscreen display, a backlit keyboard, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, and a 42 Wh battery.
What it doesn’t have are a lot of ports: there’s a headset jack and two USB Type-C ports. On the bright side those ports are versatile: you can use them to charge the laptop, connect a display, or hook up just about anything else. but you’ll probably need a hub or dock if you want to connect more than two accessories at once.
I was pretty impressed by the MateBook X Pro that I reviewed last year, so it’s nice to see the company expanding its line of devices with a new model… even if it doesn’t look that different from last year’s model. The screen is a little smaller and the processor a little faster, but you also get a smaller battery and fewer USB ports. So there are some trade-offs to consider.
Brad, thanks for reporting on CES. On each of these laptop reports, it would be nice to know: does it have a fan or not?
Unless otherwise noted, the answer is almost always yes. When I do come across a fanless model, I usually point it out.