Huawei MateBook X Pro: Performance And Value In A Sleek Ultraportable
Huawei MateBook X Pro: Final Thoughts
Huawei and its MateBook X Pro enter the US market with arms swinging, ready to do battle with other premium laptops and convertibles that cost several hundred dollars more. The value proposition is really the crux of the MateBook X Pro. Armed with a quad-core Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 16GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics, and a 512GB M.2 NVMe solid state drive, this is a well-configured machine suited for a variety of workloads, as told by our benchmarks. For example, the MateBook X Pro placed near the top of the chart in GeekBench 4 with strong single-core and multi-core performance. And when we turned our attention to graphics and gaming, the MateBook X Pro left systems with integrated graphics in the dust—it averaged nearly 84 frames per second in GRID Autosport.
Inevitably when shopping for a laptop, concessions have to be made in order to balance a budget and price with performance, features, and build quality. What stands out most about the MateBook X Pro, however, is that the concessions are rather small compared to other premium portables. Huawei introduced the MateBook X Pro to the US market at aggressive price points, offering up a Core i5 SKU for $1,199.99 and the Core i7 SKU reviewed here at $1,499.99, both with a year of Microsoft Office 365 Personal thrown into the mix. On top of that, Huawei hooked up with its retail partners to offer up to a $300 in-store gift card to the first wave of buyers.Even without the gift card, the MateBook X Pro offers one of the best values in the premium laptop sector. As we pointed out in the beginning of this article, a similarly configured Surface Book 2 costs $2,499. Sure, it has a burlier GeForce GTX 1050 GPU, but the MateBook X Pro still offers discrete graphics by way of a GeForce MX150 GPU, and costs a grand less. The value proposition here is simply one of the best we've ever seen in a laptop.
That's saying something at this point in the game. Huawei is clearly trying to establish its brand in the US market where the company's mindshare isn't as strong as various competitors like Apple, Dell, and HP. We should note that the US government has concerns about Huawei's ties to China that are specifically related to security. Whether consumers should be concerned or not is something we can't easily answer. However, to this day we are not aware of any security or privacy scandals related to Huawei's consumer products.
From our vantage point, Huawei's MateBook X Pro is easy to recommend. It combines a thin and light premium design with a strong assortment of hardware, ultimately delivering a premium portable experience in a package that undercuts the competition in price. This may just be the high-end laptop you've been waiting for.
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