Over the past few years, the Huawei Mate X Pro line of laptops have become regarded as some of the best Windows notebooks available… even as the contentious relationship between Huawei and the US government may be behind Huawei’s decision to offer Linux versions in its home country of China.
This year Huawei is updating its thin and light laptop and while many of the laptop’s best features remain unchanged, the actual upgrades seem… kind of underwhelming.
Like its predecessors, the new Huawei MateBook X Pro is a 2.9 pound laptop with a 13.9 inch, 3000 x 2000 pixel display with support for up to 450 nits of brightness, a 57 Wh battery, support for up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, USB-A, and audio ports.
What’s new is that Huawei has moved to a 10th-gen Intel Core processor… but the laptop tops out at an Intel Core i7-10510U Comet Lake quad-core chip, which is rather disappointing for a laptop expected to sell for 1499 Euros ($1625) and up.
A Core i7-10710U hexa-core processor or Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake processor with Intel Iris graphics would have made the high price tag a little easier to swallow. And while Huawei does offer optional support for discrete graphics, that tops out at NVIDIA’s GeForce MX250 GPU, which is an entry-level solution for laptop graphics.
Also disappointing? The laptop has a USB-C port, but no Thunderbolt 3 support. The camera is still tucked into the keyboard… which is fine if you never use a webcam, but a recipe for awkwardly framed shots if you do.
The new 2020 Huawei MateBook Pro X should be available in select markets starting in April.
Say hello to the new #HuaweiMateBookXPro, designed for a borderless experience.#TOGETHERConnectingPossibilities pic.twitter.com/n6dwiI4Lj2
— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) February 24, 2020
Huawei is also updating its lower-pried MateBook D 14 and MateBook D15 laptops with new models available with up to a Core i7-10510U processor or an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U chip.
They should be available soon with prices starting at:
- €699 for a MateBook D 14 with AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
- €649 for a MateBook D 15 with AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
- €949 for a MateBook D 14 with Intel Core i5-10210U + NVIDIA GeForce MX250
- €949 for MateBook D 15 with Intel Core i5-10210U + NVIDIA GeForce MX250
The #HuaweiMateBookD 14 & 15:
✔️FullView Display
✔️Slim & lightweight
✔️Intel Core i7 Processor
✔️Shark fin Fan 2.0
✔️Fingerprint Power Button
✔️Versatile connectivity
✔️Recessed camera
✔️Portable charger#TogetherConnectingPossibilities pic.twitter.com/RtUnKzBwoU— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) February 24, 2020