Huawei Matebook X Pro Ultra Review – Lightweight Power Workhorse.

Huawei is taking things light with the Huawei Matebook X Pro, a very powerful ultra portable laptop that features top specs and size that you dont really feel the weight when carrying it. We will look at this perhaps kind of underrated but in fact holds so much power that it could be one of the travel and work companion that one could appreciate.

Unboxing

HUAWEI MateBook X Pro
90 W / 65 W USB-C Power Adapter 
Charger cable (Type C)
HUAWEI USB-C OTG Cable 
Quick Start Guide 
Type-C digital headset

Design & Aesthetics : Looking great with a compact footprint

The Huawei Matebook X Pro is constructed with mix of metallic chassis and aluminium combined into a very slim, and very light weighted body at the weight of only 980 grams with thinness of 13.5mm, which to be honest, ranked as one of the lightest Core Ultra Gen 1 laptop that is in the market today. Besides that, the exterior is smooth to the touch with no dual tone colors to it, except for the Huawei logo only, which is real clean with no fancy add ons to it, and edges surrounding the ends are all nicely curved bringing in the sleek beauty on all corners.

The laptop is offered in two colors, Morandi Blue and White, whichever color you choose, all the texture and feel to the touch remains the same across both color.

Moving over to the I/O, the Huawei Matebook X Pro comes only with three USB C ports, two of which are Thunderbolt capable, which can be used for charging, display, data and possible replication and external GPU. Should some might want to use a normal USB A devices, the only solution is to carry a converter or dongle with you considering the laptop is built as an ultraportable laptop, so carrying the dongle or converter will be important to bridge the legacy ports to be used with the Huawei Matebook X Pro. There is also a webcam privacy toggle on the right side of the laptop to ensure maximum privacy.

The keyboard keys are pretty big and comfortable to type with as well at 1.5mm key travel which is just right and accuracy is good for day to day usage, and light gaming as well if you wanted to go over to the territory. There is also white LED as the keyboard backlight and features a three level brightness adjustment, unfortunately there is no CoPilot shortcut key on the keyboard. Onwards to the touchpad, now for an ultraportable laptop, the touchpad is quite big and it has X-axis linear motor and haptic sensing to provide accurate taps and gestures, so to me, it takes a short while to get used to it, but after that, its all smooth sailing on all taps and scrolling, and yes, it does supports Windows Precision Drivers as well. Additionally, Huawei also added their own gesture such as scroll to adjust volume and display brightness and also knocking the touchpad to capture screenshots, and this is definitely a genius way of making good use of the big size trackpad. From the security standpoint, both fingerprint unlocking and face unlocking via Windows Hello is fully supported.

Display & Audio : Mesmerizing Visuals and Strong Audio

This is probably one of the display that can rival even some of the higher end ultrabook display out there as the Huawei Matebook X Pro boasts a very high resolution 14.2inch, 3120 × 2080, 264 PPI, OLED multi touch display with HDR and peak brightness that can go up to 1000nits. Do take note that the display glass is glossy so you might wanna avoid using it if you are tapping and typing under very bright light, however for the most part, this is probably one of the display that shines in terms of deep blacks and vibrant color that is highly suitable for multimedia consumption and graphical type of editing, including video editing that can take advantage of the True 10-bit colour depth. For those who loves fast frames, the laptop display can go up to 120 frames ensuring smooth display even watching fast packed movies or games, reducing image stutters and image tearing.

I do enjoy alot this portion during the review period, and we are talking about 6 speakers located on the sides of the keyboard which spans sideways creating an immersive surround audio listening experience. This is powered by Huawei Sound (also known as Huawei Histen) that provides 3 different audio profiles and noise cancelling profiles with it’s built four microphones on the laptop. Among all the laptop that I have tested on the audio portion, this is one of the crispiest, punchy good sound stage that is tuned towards the best quality that Huawei has ever done.

Performance & Software : Power is there when you need it

The Huawei Matebook X Pro is powerful inside as well, armed with Intel Core Ultra 7 or Core Ultra 9, this brings new features like the Intel® Deep Learning Boost and of course, Intel Arc integrated graphics that is Intel’s answer of bringing in better gaming performance, higher framerate and supports newer API. Memory wise, you can either 16GB LPDDR5 or 32 GB LPDDR5 RAM running at 6400MT/s and starts at 1TB NVME 4.0 storage. Unfortunately due to the size of the laptop, everything is integrated to the motherboard and it is non upgradable.

Approaching to the experience, using the built in battery along with normal task over the Matebook X Pro will last you easily close to 9 hours with ease, and it could last longer if you turn on battery saver. Recharging back the laptop to 100% took more or less two hours and I think that is fair enough. Performance and gaming wise, most of the editing work, be it video or images can be done and rendered easily while for gaming, Intel Arc does a pretty good job after installing the latest drivers from Intel, it will just steadily getting good frame rates at 60FPS or above on games like Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and most of the eSports titles in general while games like Palworld, setting to a lower resolution on the display will render at a better framerate.

Onwards to the software, the usual includes Huawei PC Manager which allows you to interconnect with other Huawei Smartphone, TWS, Tablet and accessories for file transfer, file sharing, second screen and easy connection of all your Huawei products just by signing in to your Huawei account and it also serve as a one stop app for updating drivers, BIOS, troubleshooting and tips. Unfortunately the NFC function is not present however this is understandable due to the slim form factor.

Benchmarks

The Core Ultra series is known for it’s efficiency in multi core processing and it’s power conservation features that can really keep the laptop running for long, but when turning the laptop to it’s full potential, it can steadily score in benchmarks and some of the game testing, Cyberpunk 2077 can go near 40FPS without issues and setting the resolution lower will just get better in framerates and frame pacing.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

Huawei has definitely crafted a laptop that poses the right challenge towards the ultraportable laptop space combining one of the top tier hardware inside and outside, from a set of flagship class processor to it’s size that is quite impressive that they still can cramp in speakers and display that captures the desires of many thin and light laptop lovers out there, however it does not come cheap, the Huawei Matebook X Pro price starts from RM7999 for the Core Ultra 7 model while the Core Ultra 9 model sells at RM10999. So should you really need something that is combining beauty and performance, and of course the budget, either one of the model is easily can be recommended.

For more information and purchase, Click here to find out