HUAWEI
MATEBOOK X PRO BRIEF DESCRIPTION
- Huawei Matebook X Pro is a stylish and powerful Notebook Laptop and is powered by 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8550U processor processor and sports a 13.9 inch LTPS that comes with a resolution of 3000 X 2000 pixels, so the picture quality is crisp and detailed. The screen size is big enough for an enriching gaming, surfing and video watching experience. On the memory front, the laptop is equipped with a hard drive of 256 GB and a 8 GB LPDDR3 RAM, thereby making it possible to store ample amount of data. All the above features ensure that you breeze through all your tasks throughout the day. It is backed up by a lithium-polymer battery that keeps the device running for upto NA hours or a considerable amount of time. It is loaded with Quad and Dolby Atmos Sound System for a great audio experience.
- The aluminum Huawei MateBook X Pro reminds me a lot of Apple's MacBooks, and that's a good thing. Not only is it a slim, silver wedge (also made in Space Gray), it's easy to open its lid with a single hand, a hallmark of Apple's notebooks. It also sports a shiny beveled edge around its keyboard deck, which the MacBooks do not.
- I still prefer the Apple's designs in two slight ways: the Huawei logo -- which looks like you chopped an Apple into a bunch of wedges -- isn't as elegant. Also, the MateBook X Pro's lid and edges are flatter, lacking the tapered curves of the MacBook Air.
- The 14-inch MateBook X Pro weighs 2.9 pounds and measures 0.6 inches thick, making it similar in size and heft to the 3-pound, 0.6-inch thick Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Touch Bar). The Dell XPS 13 (2.65 pounds, 0.5 inches) is lighter, while the HP Spectre 13 (2.4 pounds, 0.4 inches) is both thinner and lighter.
- The vibrant 3000 x 2000-pixel display on the Huawei MateBook X Pro provided plenty of detail and brightness. Watching a trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story, I appreciated the vibrant green laser blasts, the eye-popping red of Emilia Clarke's cape and the warm glow of a fire reflecting upon Alden Ehrenreich and Woody Harrelson. I also noticed crisp details in the mask of a raider and a leather holster.
- The MateBook X Pro's screen produces 124 percent of the sRGB spectrum, which exceeds the 113 percent premium laptop average. The MacBook Pro earned a similar 123 percent and the Spectre 13 measured a lower 111 percent, while the XPS 13's 1080p screen (117 percent) and its 4K screen (130 percent) straddled the MateBook X Pro's rates.
- The MateBook X Pro's display emits up to 458 nits, making it one of the brightest laptops to ever cross my desk, and its powerful enough for colors to stay strong at 80 degrees to the left and right. The category average is a dimmer 300 nits, while the MacBook Pro is tied at 458 nits. The XPS 13's 4K screen is a slightly dimmer 415 nits, while its 1080-pixel screen is even less bright, at 372 nits. The Spectre 13 measures a dim 247 nits.
- As I wrote this review, I noticed how comfortable it is to type on the Huawei Matebook X Pro. Taking the 10fastfingers typing test, I hit a rate of 78 words per minute, coming close to my 80 words per minute average. This rate of success is pleasantly surprising, considering the keys measure a shallow 1.1 millimeters of vertical travel (we look for at least 1.5mm); the 69 grams of force required to actuate each key makes up for that.
- The Huawei MateBook X Pro pumps out a lot of sweet sound, enough to fill a medium-size conference room. Listening to TV On The Radio's "Young Liars," I was happy to hear accurate vocals, crisp, jangly drum cymbals and solid thumping bass.
- The included Dolby Atmos Sound System utility can be ignored. Its default Music setting provides a solid balance for all kinds of media, including interviews, trailers and your favorite tunes. The Games preset will muddy instrumentals, while the Movie setting overemphasizes them, as if to provide more gravitas to a score.
- The Intel Core i7-8550U CPU and 16GB of RAM in the Huawei MateBook X Pro provides tons of speed for nimble, seamless multitasking. After splitting my screen between a 1080p YouTube video and 12 Chrome tabs (including Giphy, the Google Doc for this review and Slack), I saw not a stutter or pause when scrolling through pages or opening new tabs.
- The MateBook X Pro earned a solid 12,913 on the Geekbench 4 general performance test, crushing the 9,930 premium notebook average. That's close to the 13,090 from the Spectre 13 (1.8GHz Intel Core i7-8550U with 8GB of RAM), higher than the 9,213 from the 13-inch MacBook Pro (Intel Core i5-7267U with 8GB of RAM), and lower than the 14,180 from the XPS 13 (Core i7-8550U with 8GB of RAM).
- The Huawei MateBook X Pro provides close to all-day battery power. The system lasted an impressive 9 hours and 55 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test (web surfing at 150 nits). This runtime is over an hour longer than the 8:53 category average and obliterates the Spectre 13 (5:16), and it's in between the times from the 1080p XPS 13 (11:59) and the 4K XPS 13 (8:23).
- I hope you like the look of your knuckles and torso. Because the Huawei MateBook X Pro's 0.9-megapixel webcam is hidden inside the button between its F6 and F7 keys, it shoots at an angle that focuses on your fingers, and not your face. While this is a boon for security-minded users, the system's microphone is still usable when the webcam is tucked away, so you're not completely safe from the chance of being spied on.
