Huawei's new MateBook X Pro delivers more power and more storage

Last year, Huawei launched the MateBook X Pro, a stunning laptop that offers the right balance of performance, portability, ports and price better than anything you could buy. So, for the new MateBook X Pro, announced today and available later this year, Huawei did not rock the boat: it still has the same design and the same number of ports. The novelties are rather small: a slightly faster processor, a slightly upgraded graphics card, a slightly upgraded Thunderbolt 3 port and an option to store up to 1TB of storage.

Along with the new MateBook X Pro, Huawei also announced the MateBook 14, a lower-level model that shares the same design language, but is content with a lower-resolution display, a significant weight gain and some other concessions. It will also be available later this year, and pricing information will be announced.

There is only one visual difference between the new MateBook X Pro and the one released last year: the logo on the lid of the laptop is now only the Huawei wordmark, instead of the full logo located on the old model. Otherwise, it is exactly the same laptop, featuring a touch screen of 3,300 x 2,000 pixels of 13.9 inches, 450 inches digital; full keyboard with key stroke of 1.2 mm; fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button; and 2.93 pounds of weight. The two USB-C ports and a USB-A port remain, although the Thunderbolt port has been upgraded to full bandwidth, which, according to Huawei, is capable of supporting external GPUs such as the RTX2080's Nvidia.

Huawei has also retained the same contextual webcam, which it has integrated into the row of keyboard functions. This was the most controversial feature of the MateBook X Pro, as it offered a horribly unflattering shooting for video calls, but Huawei apparently did not think it was necessary to change it for this year's model.

Inside, the processor options are the Core i5-8265U or Core i7-8565U, which, according to Huawei, are 10% faster than last year. The X Pro has 8GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB to 1TB of storage. The Core i7 version comes with Nvidia's MX250 discrete graphics, a slight bump compared to last year's MX150 GPU.

On the visual side, the MateBook 14 is very similar to the X Pro, but it has a touch screen of 14 inches, 2160 x 1440 pixels and a slightly larger housing. It weighs a little more at 3.28 lbs and swaps Pro's Thunderbolt 3 port for a USB-C port, HDMI port, USB-A 3.0 port and USB-A 2.0 port. It has the same keyboard, trackpad, fingerprint scanner and webcam as the most expensive model. Instead of the Pro's four-speaker system, the MateBook 14 has two speakers.

The MateBook 14 shares the same processor and GPU options as the X Pro, though it reaches 512 GB of storage. According to Huawei, the 57.4 Wh battery is sufficient for 15 hours of video playback or 10.5 hours of web browsing, which is slightly longer than the battery life of the X Pro, thanks to the screen lower resolution 14.

Both models feature a new software feature called Huawei Share that facilitates the transfer of images and other files between a Huawei phone and a laptop. Huawei says that it can transfer data at 30 Mbps and that this feature is triggered by the NFC chips of the laptop and the phone. If it looks a lot like Apple's AirDrop feature, it's because it's so.

It is not surprising that Huawei has not changed much for this update of the X Pro and that the MateBook 14 offers many of the same qualities at an even lower price. Both models should be more convincing than the MateBook 13 released earlier this year, which had strange limitations in its USB ports and a disappointing battery life. Of course, no reduction will be taken into account if you share the same mistrust as the US government with respect to Huawei's products. But if that's okay, the latest Huawei notebook models look just as appealing as last year's models.

Huawei announced that the MateBook X Pro and MateBook 14 would first be available in global markets, before arriving in the United States later in the spring. We will be sure to keep you informed about pricing and availability information as soon as it is available.