One morning, someone from Huawei’s laptop team woke up feeling more motivated than usual and decided that by 2024, their best ultra-light laptop, the Huawei MateBook X Pro, would be a product with many significant changes.
And here I am, enjoying my new laptop after several weeks of testing the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2024, a laptop that is not only lightweight, but also has enough changes to make it one of the best ultralights of the year.
At Computer Hoy, we tested several versions, the latest being the 2022 model, and although at first glance it may look like the same laptop, there are very important changes and details that make this device, which costs around $2,500, the lightweight, powerful laptop with great battery life that you’ve been waiting for.
A new material, changes to the connections, a new battery, and an extremely comfortable keyboard and trackpad combination make this 2024 MateBook X Pro one of the options to consider.
Huawei maintains a familiar design, but with a lightweight and durable magnesium alloy.
The change in the blue design we have seen for several generations may seem like more of the same, but no, Huawei has replaced aluminum with a new magnesium alloy that makes it ultra-lightweight and truly deserves the name.
The magnesium finish has its advantages, such as maintaining durability and adding lightness, but on the downside, it feels like plastic at first touch. It isn’t, but it feels like it. And when you run your hand over the body, you notice a certain difference, such as how hard and stable it is.
It’s thin, with a maximum thickness of 13.5 millimeters and a total weight of 980 grams, keeping it under a kilogram.
Inside, everything is pretty standard, with a full keyboard (although I tested the English keyboard version) and a huge FreeTouch trackpad that hides special movements.
The keyboard is very comfortable, among my favorites, along with the ThinkPad and Apple keyboards. It has an almost chewy, soft feel. The trackpad is perfect for picky people like me; you can click anywhere without any problems, and it also has many gestures that I’ll talk about later.
There are also changes on the outside. The headphone jack is gone, although Huawei includes USB-C wired headphones in the box. It also loses one USB-C port, leaving a total of two USB-C ports compatible with Thunderbolt 4 and one USB-C port on the right with a privacy switch that disables the webcam and microphones.
It also has Wi-Fi 6e connectivity that captures the best wireless connection your router can provide. Of course, it has Bluetooth 5.3 to connect more peripherals such as keyboards, mice, headphones, game controllers, and whatever else you can think of.
A leak-free OLED screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio and twice the brightness
This is Huawei’s first laptop to feature an OLED screen. The brand calls it flexible OLED, but make no mistake, you can’t bend it. It refers to the fact that there is no loss of image quality regardless of the angle from which you view it.
It measures 14.2 inches and with this 120 Hz OLED panel you are guaranteed deep blacks and vibrant colors with great contrast, as well as lower power consumption. In addition, this screen has a resolution of 3,200 x 2,860 pixels, meaning it has a 3:2 aspect ratio, so you gain a little screen space vertically.
The body-to-screen ratio is 93%, so the bezels are very narrow and practically unnoticeable, creating a better experience with no distractions.
I won’t forget a detail that is relevant for those of us who have been using a MacBook as our main platform. The screen is touch-sensitive, even though it doesn’t convert into a tablet PC. It is compatible with 10 pressure points. The downside is that since it’s not a convertible, you have to manually activate tablet mode, which makes some Windows elements larger for finger touch.
The screen size, resolution, high brightness level… There’s not much I can say that’s negative about the screen on this 2024 Huawei MateBook X Pro. Even the rounded corners are well executed. The only thing I could ask for, being very picky, is a wider viewing angle so that the screen can be adjusted lower.
Top performance for a Core Ultra 9 with battery life suitable for demanding users.
In addition to 32 GB of RAM in the model I’m testing. With this combination, it’s pretty hard to run into problems with programs. Even Chrome, which takes over the RAM like a man possessed, doesn’t cause many performance issues.
For normal everyday tasks, which, let’s be honest, basically boil down to using Chrome, Spotify, some office applications, and little else, this laptop can handle everything without any problems. It can even open large files such as Excel databases.
It’s relatively interesting to see the results of static tests with benchmark programs. This combination of processor and RAM gives results very similar to an Intel Core Ultra 7 with half the RAM and, as expected, far from the results of Apple’s chips.
Where we can’t say much more is in terms of graphics performance. With integrated graphics, Intel Arc has more than enough power for any program that demands a little extra, such as editing large RAW photos or exporting video with programs like DaVinci Resolve.
I don’t recommend buying this laptop if you’re someone who regularly uses video editing, photography, or 3D programs. It’s fine for simple tasks, but it’s not ready for intensive tasks.
There aren’t many changes in terms of temperature control. When you have a lot of programs open or are performing tasks that require the performance cores or integrated GPU, the fan starts spinning and the noise is noticeable. The temperature can get high, but not so high that it will burn you.
The laptop model I’m describing includes a 2 TB NVMe M.2 SSD drive in two partitions, one 200 GB for Windows and another 1.8 TB for larger files and programs. Its performance is remarkable, doubling the read and write speeds of a couple of generations ago.
Fast charging and battery life for those who need to work all day on the go.
The battery in this 2024 Huawei MateBook X Pro has been upgraded from previous generations. We’ve gone from 60 Wh to 70 Wh, while maintaining its 90W USB-C fast charger.
This is great news for those looking for battery life that allows them to work every day without having to worry about the charger, something you should never have to do anyway.
Huawei says the battery can last up to 11 hours of video playback. Obviously, this is under very specific laboratory conditions. The reality is that it will always depend on how you use it.
I’ve already mentioned which programs I use most with this laptop, and I can tell you that it has lasted a whole working day without any problems. That’s from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with several breaks where Windows goes into sleep mode and with different moments of varying performance. But it’s very tight, so you should always have the charger handy.
The charger is part of what makes this ultrabook so great. With 90 W of power and a USB-C port, you can fully charge the battery in 1.5 hours. Plus, fast charging gives you 2 hours of use with just 10 minutes of charging.
A webcam with almost decent quality, but with face detection
We were doing well until we came across one of the worst things about this Huawei MateBook X Pro: the webcam.
I’m surprised by the low quality of the camera for a laptop that is clearly aimed at a type of person who, unfortunately, is going to spend many hours on video calls. The sensor is so small that, although you can record video in Full HD, the quality is decent, but little else.
As you can see in the video, for some reason the camera tends to give whites a pink tint. In this test and in several photos I took in different positions, for some reason my face and T-shirt ended up with a pink tint.
And it’s a problem with whites; as soon as you add something else, the white balance is more normal.
But the good news is that although the quality should improve, the laptop includes a 3D camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello, which is supported by a fingerprint reader.
A virtually clean Windows, with no bloatware and Huawei services well integrated
Fortunately, Huawei has not filled this laptop with pre-installed software. I only found two help programs that come by default, and both are from the brand itself.
Huawei PC Manager, a program that allows you to adjust your laptop settings, such as performance profile or link to one of your tablets or mobile phones. Very useful if you have a Huawei tablet and want to use it as an external screen.
Huawei Cloud is, as its name suggests, the program where you can control all the data you store in the Huawei cloud. From photos and videos to notes, contacts, and audio recordings you make with your phones or tablets.
Among the features I liked the most are the trackpad and the software settings. It was already compatible with edge scrolling to control screen brightness, volume, or video playback position with haptic feedback.
It also has gestures such as double-tapping with your knuckle to take a screenshot, double-tapping with two knuckles to record the screen, tapping the top left corner to minimize the screen, the top right corner to close it, or swiping two fingers from the outside in to display the notification center.
The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2024 is the laptop you need
The 2024 Huawei MateBook X Pro is a powerful laptop with a large battery and a stunning screen for anyone looking for performance and lightness in a device you can take anywhere.
It is clearly a high-end laptop with a price tag to match, at around $2,500 for a laptop that not only offers better performance and battery life, but is also 300 grams lighter and has an AMOLED screen.
But if you’re looking for a lightweight, powerful device to work on or carry out your daily tasks without any bottlenecks, this MateBook X Pro is a highly recommended choice.
