Chances are, you’ve never owned a Huawei laptop. You may not even know how to pronounce it (it's 'wah-way'[1] if you're a stickler). Along with being a target of U.S. politicians and spy agencies[2], the Chinese tech giant is best known for its Android smartphones and tablets[3]. That will change if it keeps making laptops like the MateBook X Pro.
It may have just made its big push into laptops[4] last year, but Huawei’s new MateBook X Pro makes a strong statement, and it does it by making almost no statement at all: If you sat it down next to some of the fanciest notebook computers, it would fit right in.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Huawei has made laptops for years. The MateBook X Pro looks and feels as luxurious as some of the most sought-after ultrabooks from established brands. It has everything you’d expect: a slim aluminum chassis, spacious touchpad, superb battery life, speedy boot times thanks to a solid-state drive, and souped-up processor. Its cool brushed exterior and island-style keyboard look right at home sitting next to a Surface Laptop[5], Dell XPS 13[6], HP Spectre 13[7], or any MacBook[8] inspired machine.
Ports, Pixels, and Power
The MateBook X Pro gives you perks competing laptops don’t have, too. The high-end configuration I tried comes with a 2GB Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics card, a big step up from the usual integrated Intel graphics many similar machines rely on. It’s not powerful enough for hardcore, frame-rate intensive software, but it does open the door to some light gaming and will help in Adobe Photoshop or Premiere.
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