Huawei MateBook X Pro (2021) Review: A Sleek and Vibrant Notebook

Final Words

The laptop/notebook market is very competitive. The whole range of prices for laptops, from $200 to $2000+, involve a series of tradeoffs for performance, battery, versatility, customization, portability, and everything in between. It goes beyond simply putting a processor and a display into a chassis, as the form of the chassis will define the cooling, which in turn defines the power available to what is inside. Not only this, but companies in the laptop supply chain might offer discounts for buying multiple modules, or committing to stock, or have a variety of certifications which if the device can achieve, there might be co-marketing budgets applied. Not only this, but it also should look good – probably. Everything from the $200 Chromebooks, to the $1400 mid-range portables, to $2500 space-age sub 1.5kg 17-inch notebooks, and to the desktop replacements, all have to balance the cost and design for performance and appeal.

Huawei may only be a young entrant into the laptop OEM market, but in its fourth year it does have a good foothold in a number of these areas. Despite issues with the entity list, it can still buy processors from Intel, licenses from Microsoft, and offer machines into the global market with a design flair traditionally made for its smartphones. Ever since the first MateBook E 2-in-1, Huawei has applied a superior aesthetic to its devices, however what it has had to work on is usability.

The MateBook X Pro 2021 (13.9-inch) is one of the premium laptop offerings from Huawei. Our model features the latest Intel 11^th Generation Core i7-1165G7 quad-core processor, a thin-bezel 3000x2000 resolution display, 16 GB of LPDDR4X memory, a 1 TB Samsung NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6, and a 56 Watt-hour battery all in a 1.33 kg (2.9 lb) aluminium unibody chassis, 14.6 mm (0.57 inches) at its thickest point.

This laptop is designed to sit square opposite equivalent MacBook Pro 13-inch models, with a larger resolution, more default memory, more default storage, while being both lighter and thinner, for about the same price (give or take $100). The equivalent storage/memory version from Apple would be +$800, however the M1-based MacBook Pro wins on battery life and performance. There are also a large number of competitive Windows-based machines at this price point as well.

In isolation, Huawei does a number of things right. The portability and feel is good, the trackpad and keyboard are certainly better than average to use, and the power button as a physically separate key design with a built-in fingerprint is a big plus. The display is big, and vibrant, and the device has both Type-C and Type-A ports, which are a must.

However it does get a few things wrong – that webcam placement has to disappear at some point. It’s somewhere between not-present and useless. If Huawei doesn’t want to put it in the display where it traditionally sits, it needs to think of a solution. Beyond that, the battery life isn’t really as great as I thought it would be. We achieved just under 9 hours for light work – either video playback or web browsing – when really I would be expecting 13+. We’ve seen similar 10^th Gen and 11^th Gen Intel processors get 13-16 hours, although those have lower resolution (1080p) displays. The performance ultimately isn't that stellar, compared to others in this market, perhaps due to the design limitations and 15 W limit in order to get the display and chasis of this caliber. This is some of the tradeoffs that laptop manufacturers have to make.

The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2021, with 16GB/1TB, is available in the UK for £1300 (Space Grey) or £1400 (Emerald Green) with a current deal for £150 rebate as well as a choice between a free Huawei Monitor, Watch GT2, or Matepad T10, all worth ~£200.