Huawei has had a busy year releasing a number of flagship products that have shown off the tech company’s scope for creating innovative but accessible devices.
Amongst the year's big releases is Huawei's latest flagship laptop, the MateBook X Pro, which is stacked with unique features.
The X Pro is the latest iteration of Huawei’s Matebook laptop series that utilises new specs to surpass its predecessor's performance power.
Following suit like the rest of the MateBook laptops, the X Pro is ultra-thin and only weighs 1.26kg. It may be thin but the X Pro is made from a smooth but durable Magnesium Alloy.
This robust build makes the X Pro highly portable and able to take all kinds of knocks. It comes in three different colours, Ink Blue, Space Gray and White, each of these muted variations adds to the laptop’s elegant design.
The X Pro is a smart-looking laptop that will feel right at home in an office or any professional setting.
That being said the laptop does have a limited amount of ports, with just four USB-C ports and one 3.5mm audio jack being available.
Two of the USB-C ports have Thunderbolt 4 support which is a nice inclusion as it grants the laptop a little more versatility.
But like with a lot of modern laptops there aren’t any ports for older connections which is understandable, however, even adding one USB-A or an HDMI port will greatly reduce the need to lug around an extension dock.
The keyboard and trackpad are very responsive with the latter featuring Huawei’s Free Touch control scheme. Like its predecessors, the trackpad is a joy to use as the haptic feedback gestures work accurately and grant a lot of control over the laptop.
The MateBook X Pro comes built with a 14.2-inch screen with a resolution of 3120 × 2080 at 264 PPI and an aspect ratio of 3:2.
It has a 92.5% screen-to-body ratio which is great as you get more screen for your cash.
Huawei have opted for an LTPS screen over an OLED, which given the price seems like a weird omission, but this sacrifice will grant the laptop more battery life as it does not light up every pixel individually.
The required amount of Nits depends on the device being used and arguably a laptop’s brightness shouldn’t fall under 300 nits, which makes X Pro’s 500 great. The X Pro is very bright, granting users visual clarity during any time of the day.
The X Pro has a great feature that lets users swap between two different colour gamuts.
Having a choice of sRGB and Display P3 colour spaces is amazing as it grants the user access to a wide range of colours which are excellent for creative work.
This choice also lets the user tailor their visual experience by choosing the colour setting they feel is visually appealing.
The laptop has a refresh rate of up to 90Hz and users can select lower options which will help extend their battery life.
But I recommend keeping the refresh rate on the high setting as the laptop performs amazingly, especially when using the touch screen, which is very responsive.
The MateBook X Pro’s screen is fantastic, displaying rich and vibrant visuals during my time with it.
It comes with a built-in camera that has a resolution of 720p, which can be a little frustrating given the price and that external 1080p webcams are very cheap to purchase.
It is not all bad as the webcam comes with Huawei’s Smart Conference software that includes a plethora of features like virtual backgrounds and tracking features that will keep you centred in an image.
Huawei has managed to fit six speakers within the X Pro’s slim body and they sound fantastic.
I normally would recommend using an external speaker with most laptops, but the X Pro surprisingly comes with a wide soundstage, offering powerful bass that is accompanied by clear-sounding highs and mids.
The MateBook X Pro comes fitted with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1260P Processor, which is leaps ahead of its 11th Gen counterparts.
This new CPU has been designed for Ultralight laptops and even though it pales in comparison to Intel’s flagship i7-1280P due to having two fewer cores, with 16GB of Ram and 1TB memory it still performs like a champ during all the day-to-day tasks.
Alongside the Intel Iris Xe Graphics processor, the laptop is good for light gaming and I say that because it did slightly struggle with more demanding games at full settings. But it was able to play titles like League of Legends very well.
It comes with Windows 11 which is standard for most laptops and computers now, but the X Pro really shines in how well the Huawei Super Device software has been optimised.
This software will let any other Huawei product work in unison with the laptop allowing users to mirror images with the MatePad or share screens with one of their phones.
The software is very intuitive and easy to use, I fully recommend Huawei fans to use it as it helps to bring all the different devices together.
The laptop has a 60Wh battery that will grant me about 7-9 hours of use after one full charge.
This will massively depend on what software is running, as watching movies or playing games to name a few will drain the battery much faster. That being said, I was impressed with the overall battery life during day-to-day tasks.
Huawei MateBook X Pro Verdict 4 / 5
Huawei’s MateBook X Pro is a great flagship laptop that delivers a great performance rivalling other new generation ultra-lightweight laptops. It handles the majority of tasks admirably, with the screen being one of the best I have reviewed.
