A super-premium machine with an OLED display, and a 980g body! Huawei’s MateBook X Pro lineup is back again with a model for 2024, but it breaks the naming.
Huawei’s MateBook X Pro lineup is back again with a model for 2024, but it breaks the naming mold – it’s not the MateBook X Pro 2024, strictly speaking, it’s the MateBook X Pro Core Ultra Premium Edition. But if you don’t mind, we’ll refer to it by its logical name – the MateBook X Pro 2024.
The name Huawei insists on, signifies that it comes with Intel Core Ultra chipset – the only two processor options on this machine are the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and the Core Ultra 7 155H. There are no other chip options – nothing from AMD, and indeed no new ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite or X Plus.
The new MateBook X Pro stays true to the series’s roots – it’s thin, light, and beautifully crafted. And it’s also a leap forward in terms of processing power, cooling, and display technology.
We have the Morandi Blue model with a 2TB SSD and 32GB of RAM – the fully-specced out model that costs around €2,200/£2,100. It ships with a full retail box – a 90W charger, a separate USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A dongle, and. USB-C headphones, something we haven’t seen in earlier generations of the MateBook X Pro.Design and build quality
We’re fans of the Huawei MateBook X Pro line and have reviewed most models since 2018. We can see how the overall design and feeling can be traced back to that machine. Those who don’t know assume it’s a MacBook Air lookalike, those who know will tell you it made the Air look like a utilitarian big-bezelled Dell or HP from the mid-naughties back in 2018, and it still looks better than Apple’s laptop today.
The latest 2004 model of the MateBook X Pro is a technological masterpiece. Huawei really has a knack for perfecting these thin-and-light performance laptops.
The deck of the MateBook X Pro 2024 has the now-classic full-sized backlit chiclet keyboard with 1.5mm travel and no Numpad. It’s flanked by thin speaker grilles. Below it sits a huge trackpad that spills over the edge like an infinity pool. Huawei calls it the Free Touch, and it has vibrating motors to produce press feedback – and they work lovely.
Huawei managed to tuck the MateBook X Pro 2024 just below 1 kilogram at 980g – that’s a nearly 30% decrease in weight compared to the previous generation, despite a move to a 15% bigger 70Wh battery. To achieve this, Huawei tinkered with the chassis.
They’ve also given the laptop a soft-touch finish. It’s similar to the “skin-smoothing metallic body” of the previous generation but is softer.
The lid has the usual Huawei logo and nothing else. The MateBook X Pro 2024 is a truly compact laptop when closed. And thanks to its remarkable weight, you can easily forget it’s in your bag.Keyboard, trackpad, display, audio
The deck of the MateBook X Pro 2024 is perfectly symmetrical. The keyboard and trackpad take up most of the space, as they should. The keyboard stretches almost to the very edge, save for the thin grilles for the speakers underneath.
This is the usual superb MateBook X Pro keyboard. It has a firm, pleasant feel to keystrokes and an excellent layout. Most Huawei laptops in the store have a similar-looking keyboard, but once you compare the MateBook X Pro to the cheaper MateBook 14, for instance, you’ll immediately notice a better, more positive keyboard clicking on the Pro.
The 2024 MateBook X Pro has three USB-C ports – two Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps, DisplayPort, Power Delivery) on the left, and another plain USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps, DisplayPort, Power Delivery) on the right. The older model had two USB-C’s on each side – this new model swaps one USB-C for a switch to disable the camera drivers as the camera is not hidden under a keyboard key but sits above the display.
The 1080p camera sits in the top bezel above the display, flanked by IR sensors for Windows Hello.
