Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020) review
Our Verdict
Huawei'southward 2020 MateBook 10 Pro updates its sophisticated and high-specced laptop, while keeping around a couple of potential dealbreakers.
For
- Well specced and well priced compared to rivals
- Dandy integration with other Huawei devices
- Brilliant and colorful iii:2 display
Against
- No US availability
- Patchy performance
- Popular-upwardly webcam
Tom's Guide Verdict
Huawei'due south 2020 MateBook X Pro updates its sophisticated and high-specced laptop, while keeping around a couple of potential dealbreakers.
Pros
- +
Well specced and well priced compared to rivals
- +
Great integration with other Huawei devices
- +
Bright and colorful 3:two display
Cons
- -
No U.s.a. availability
- -
Patchy operation
- -
Pop-up webcam
The third-generation Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020) is hither, and once again it is hoping to steal sales away from Dell's XPS serial and perhaps the odd MacBook Pro user as well. Huawei's laptop offers decent specs, with a stunning display, potent audio abilities and excellent integration features for Huawei phones combined in a handsome, elementary design.
However, it falls downward on its uneven operation on benchmarks and stress tests, and the fact that it isn't available in usa due to ongoing disputes with the U.Due south. government.
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As this MateBook X Pro (2020) review volition show, this laptop is primarily a business device, merely i you tin can also use for the odd fleck of amusement. Simply information technology thrives when you pair information technology with a Huawei phone. Still, even merely taken by itself, this is a fine laptop that offers a lot of potential past default, and is definitely worth the asking price if you're able to go your hands on ane.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020) price and release date
The basic MateBook Ten Pro, which features an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM and 512GB storage, costs £1,199 ($1,517 converted). The i7 version, which ups the storage to 1TB, costs £1,699 ($2,150 converted) instead.
Yous can buy it off Amazon UK and other pop retailers like Very, John Lewis or Argos. Huawei's own website offers either a free Huawei Scout GT2e with the bones version or a Huawei MediaPad M5 Low-cal with the more expensive edition if yous buy the MateBook X Pro from there.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020) specs
Base cost: £one,399
CPU: tenth-gen Intel Core i5 or i7
RAM: 16GB LPDDR3
Storage: 512GB/1TB SSD
GPU: Nvidia GeForce MX250
Display: 13.9-inch 3000 x 2000
Bombardment: 56Wh, 65W charging
Size: 11.9 10 8.5 x 0.57 inches (304 x 217 x 14.6 mm)
Weight: 2.nine pounds (i.33kg)
Colors: Mystic Silverish, Infinite Greyness, Emerald Green
Compared to the main contest, the starting toll is a niggling steep. Even accounting for regional price differences, the starting prices of major rivals — $1,299 for a MacBook Pro (13-inch) , $1,249 for a Dell XPS 13, or $999 for a MacBook Air — make the MateBook X Pro look similar a bad deal. However go along in mind you get much meliorate starting specs with the MateBook Ten Pro. Some of the features that the Huawei laptop comes with aren't available on the Apple or Dell devices, and if they are, they will toll you extra.
The MateBook 10 Pro came out on May 21 in the U.G. and Europe, with the Emerald Green version coming out more recently on July 28. Sadly, we've got no reason to expect a U.South. release date.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020): Pattern
From the outside, Huawei's gone for its usual minimalist blueprint, with a few clean lines joined by rounded corners. It's more similar to a MacBook in that respect, since the narrowing bottom one-half and squared-off corners of the XPS 13 expect quite different.
Inside, yous have a standard chiclet keyboard, a pocket-size trackpad that mirrors the shape of the exterior, a round power button at the peak right of the base of operations, and stereo speakers flanking the keyboard.
As a mid-size xiv-inch laptop, the Huawei offers the all-time of both size and portability. Information technology does hateful information technology's slightly larger than the competition in width and height, but you wouldn't be able to spot a big difference if you put information technology next to a thirteen-inch MacBook Air/Pro or an XPS 13.
At 2.9 pounds, it'southward heavier than whatever version of the XPS 13, a bear on heavier than the MacBook Air and a affect lighter than the MacBook Pro. But the difference is once more so small it shouldn't be a dealbreaker even for people concerned about getting the lightest laptop possible.
The three color options Huawei offers are the standard Mystic Silver and Space Grey, and the very interesting Emerald Green version, new for 2020. You don't see a lot of dark-green laptops around, only Huawei's made what may sound tacky look very classy.
If that unique verdant hue doesn't appeal, and so you substantially have the aforementioned color options as a MacBook Pro, with one of the options being literally a letter away from existence identical. At that place'due south nothing incorrect with that, only it doesn't aid the MateBook 10 Pro stand out amongst the crowd, particularly when you've got the options of a aureate MacBook Air or a black-and-white XPS 13.
MateBook X Pro (2020): Ports
To the left side of the MateBook X Pro, you have 2 USB-C ports, one of which is a Thunderbolt three connection for charging the laptop, and a 3.5mm audio jack for your headphones.
On the right, you have a unmarried USB three.0 port.
Excluding the headphone port, that'south one more total port than on the XPS 13 (which has two Thunderbolt three USB-C ports), and one fewer port than a MacBook (which uses four Thunderbolt 3 ports). And different the Apple or Dell machines, you don't get the freedom of Thunderbolts on both sides for flexible charging. However equally a consolation prize you go the older USB-A format that will be helpful for connecting a broad range of peripherals without needing a USB-C hub.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020): Keyboard and touchpad
As I started typing my review on the MateBook X Pro, I quite enjoyed using its keyboard. The island-style keyboard has dainty large keys and a decent amount of travel. Equally someone who tends to mash the keys as far as they will go, this is good for me, every bit I avoided bottoming out.
Its space bar, though, could exist improved. It has a scrap of requite towards its left and correct edges that means you sometimes hit it but don't get a infinite. I managed a score of 76 word per infinitesimal on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is shut to my average of 80 wpm. My accuracy of 94% was lower than I expected, but corking plenty to condemn the keyboard.
The touchpad feels a little pocket-sized, particularly compared to the enormous ones yous find on MacBooks. It however feels squeamish to use though, with a pleasant smooth texture that still has plenty grip to give you some feedback. Swiping left and right to utilize the various Windows 10 gestures for navigation, it responded swiftly, but the moments when I swiped too far in one direction and hit the edge of the pad were when I really wished it was larger. One of the big external changes that Dell made to the XPS xiii this twelvemonth was increasing the size of its trackpad, and I promise Huawei considers doing the same for the next generation of MateBook X Pro.
Huawei MateBook Ten Pro (2020): Security
Carrying over from last year, and just like the XPS thirteen, the MateBook X Pro's power button is also a fingerprint scanner that volition let y'all in via Windows Hello. Information technology'southward not got the same versatility as the MacBooks' Touch ID sensor, which you can as well utilise to verify purchases online etc., but it fulfills its main office of securing your laptop fairly.
Huawei claims y'all tin go from switched-off to back to piece of work in just seven seconds with this sensor, and I can attest that this is the truth, at to the lowest degree most of the fourth dimension. The scanner sometimes required a couple of attempts to unlock the laptop, which I was unimpressed with given how reliable my MacBook'southward Touch on ID has proven over the years. When it does work the first time though, y'all are definitely through the security bank check and back to work within the seven second window.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020): Webcam
The image quality from the MateBook X Pro's 1MP webcam is roughly the same resolution equally the camera used on the MacBook range. While that's proven acceptable, it'southward not platonic for anything more than than video calls.
As seen in previous MateBook X Pro models, the webcam lives betwixt the F6 and F7 keys in a fake fundamental that pops up like a periscope. That means that your video feed comes in at an uncomfortable-looking angle. When the fourth dimension came for a Netflix watch party with friends over Zoom, I elected to use my iPhone 11 Pro on a fold-out stand for the video telephone call instead of the MateBook Ten Pro due to the peculiar angle.
Possibly it'south society'south error that we expect to have video calls with people's faces looking at us square-on. Perhaps if we all decided that staring up your parents' or line manager's nostrils and having them gaze into yours in render is a perfectly acceptable thing, the so-chosen "nosecam" would go much more prevalent, and bezels on laptop displays could become a matter of the past.
Just there's a good reason why Apple has nevertheless to make its ain nosecam, and Dell just abased its own example on the XPS 13 to place the webcam back in the top bezel. Until the world undergoes a dramatic shift and decides low-angle shots of the human face look OK, this webcam is a depression annotation for the MateBook Ten Pro, no matter how prissy its brandish looks because of the sacrifice.
MateBook Ten Pro (2020): Display
The MateBook Ten Pro is unique in offering a 3K, 3:two (iii,000 x 2,000) display. That sits right in between the FHD and 4K displays you can select on the XPS 13 in terms of resolution, while information technology is a like quality to the 16:x Retina displays used on the MacBooks.
The unusually square display helps the make the laptop particularly well suited for work tasks. I'k always surprised only how much of a text document I can read and type in at once when I open up up files, and I'm sure the extra height compared to other laptops would be an fifty-fifty bigger benefit to other tasks that could meaningfully fill all the actress display space, like photo editing or CAD work.
I was very pleased with how the colors looked also. Information technology was great looking through some photos I'd taken for another review and seeing them rendered so colorfully and accurately. The trailer for Amazon Prime's The Boys season 2 also looked great, with the flashes of gunfire and the effects of superpowers showing upwards well on screen, equally well every bit the dark hallways and cellars the characters lurk around in.
It's a touch on-sensitive display too, which aside from letting you navigate with taps and swipes, also gives you admission to like shooting fish in a barrel screenshots by swiping three fingers downwards. Every bit clever as this is though, the touch display doesn't do good the way I piece of work much, and therefore feels like a mostly useless improver that'southward adding unnecessarily onto the cost. Merely again, this could exist very handy if y'all're working with more complicated apps than Google Docs, Chrome and Spotify.
MateBook X Pro (2020): Graphics and gaming
On both editions of the MateBook X Pro, you get the same Nvidia GeForce MX250 GPU. Information technology's a adequately decent chip, but has its limitations. This definitely isn't a gaming laptop.
Trying our usual gaming benchmarks of Civilisation VI: Gathering Tempest and Dirt 3, the MateBook 10 Pro struggled valiantly with the former, getting 13.5 fps on the Gathering Tempest criterion, but stunned with an crawly 78 fps on the Dirt three test. The XPS 13 manages scores of eighteen.7 fps and 58 fps respectively, which shows that the MateBook may not run newer titles all that well, but can hold its ain under some circumstances.
Information technology's worth noting that the MateBook X Pro's unusual resolution may have had an upshot on these results. Since games are primarily designed to run at either 1080p or 4K, a 3K laptop doesn't really play well with either.
The keyboard surface got very hot during these benchmarks though, so you had ameliorate be using peripherals if you want to game on the MateBook X Pro. You can attempt older or less graphically intensive games on this laptop with niggling trouble, simply don't buy this laptop assuming it can handle everything y'all tin can throw at it.
MateBook Ten Pro (2020): Audio
Bearing a quartet of speakers, the MateBook 10 Pro offers exceptional volume and audio quality when information technology's fourth dimension to close Slack and open up up Spotify or Netflix. Listening to Run the Jewels' "Panther Like a Panther" demonstrated the MateBook tin project vocals, percussion and high-pitch instruments with great book, sometimes too much. On the other paw, you terminate up losing the mid-range and bass notes that gives the track much of its background involvement when playing the track on the MateBook.
Swapping over to some musical theatre classics showed a similar result. The song lines of the 1962 original Broadway cast recording of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum benefited from the laptop'southward treble-forward audio. However Sondheim'due south playful score did not sound its all-time with the brass and lower strings subdued. Finally, watching Netflix's reboot of She-Ra, I enjoyed how the snappy dialogue, orchestral score and explosive audio effects sounded on the MateBook X Pro, but knew that this wasn't the clearest I'd e'er heard the sounds of Adora'southward adventures rendered.
Equally a comparison, I tried these samples out once more on my MacBook Pro. This isn't the all-time machine to utilise for the exam, since my Macbook is a 15-inch model from 2018 rather than the 13-inch 2020 version you lot'd ideally compare to the MateBook X Pro. However I definitely adopt the audio from its speakers compared to the Huawei's, the bass being more than pronounced while the vocals and percussion are kept in much better check. Assuming Apple has equally good speakers on its newer and smaller laptops, the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air are probably the amend picks for sound quality.
The MateBook Ten Pro isn't a laptop for sound enthusiasts, but the speakers will still make for a fine accompaniment to the brandish when you're watching video.
MateBook X Pro (2020): Operation
The main change to the 2020 MateBook X Pro from the 2019 version is a CPU swap. The 8th generation Core i7 CPU from older models has been replaced by the 10th generation version, backed upwards with 16GB RAM in my review unit. There'due south no Core i9 chip to take your ability to the maximum that Intel offers, just the more modern fleck gives it an advantage of Apple's products, which offer older chipsets by default, with the 10th-gen silicon costing you extra.
During normal activities, the laptop is almost silent. Even kick-upwards simply encourages a cursory and soft whirr from the fan. With a couple of Chrome windows open, pretty much the standard you lot become the fan on a little, but it'due south not unpleasantly loud, plus the keys didn't get too hot.
Yet after an hour-long Zoom telephone call, the fan was at its maximum speed, producing a petty whine every bit it did, and the keyboard, particularly around the fundamental betoken, was very hot to bear on. Clearly the MateBook Ten Pro is capable of intensive tasks, but if I was doing anything particularly taxing on its systems, I'd piece of work on a USB keyboard to avoid the heat.
If you're curious about the benchmark results, the MateBook X Pro scored 3542 on Geekbench five.1's multi-core exam. That'southward non swell compared to the 4,399 that the 13-inch MacBook Pro scored, or the 4,847 managed by the XPS 13.
A more than realistic test of a laptop'southward abilities is our Handbrake test, which tasks laptops with converting a 4K video to a 1080p one. Information technology took 22 minutes and 37 seconds for the MateBook X Pro to catechumen the total video, which is far slower than the MBP (12:43) or the XPS xiii (15:40). Although it may be using the newest Intel chip, Huawei doesn't seem to exist using it to its fullest extent in all areas.
MateBook X Pro (2020): Battery Life
I wasn't able to run Tom'southward Guide's custom laptop bombardment examination on the MateBook X Pro, merely anecdotally I tin can tell you there's non much danger of it suddenly dying on you mid-study. With 56Wh of chapters, Huawei estimates its laptop volition last between eleven and 15 hours on a unmarried accuse depending on what tasks you're doing. Having spent a working calendar week's worth of afternoons writing stories on the MateBook, I can attest that these figures are at to the lowest degree close to the truth.
A hidden do good of USB-C laptop chargers is that most of them are capable of charging smartphones at decent speeds, even if they can't fully fast-accuse them due to not supplying a specific wattage. Only this is a Huawei laptop, therefore you tin can employ its charging block to provide the necessary 45W SuperCharge to power up ane of Huawei'due south newer flagship phones such as the Mate 30 Pro or P40 Pro. It'due south a nice touch, if y'all happen to exist a Huawei phone user, although that's not very common given Huawei's trouble with accessing Google'due south software.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020): Software
Unsurprisingly, the MateBook X Pro runs on Windows 10, which unlike the Android 10 on its smartphones actually comes fully featured. I'm not sure why Microsoft gets treated differently to Google in terms of supplying software to the visitor, but I'm very glad of having Windows 10 on here, warts and all.
Huawei's added some of its own apps, nonetheless. One of the new software features that it's especially proud of is the EMUI Desktop app. If you're using a Huawei phone (or a few Honor devices) that run the latest version of Huawei's mobile OS, then you can go your phone'due south display to announced on the MateBook Pro 10's display, by borer the phone on the large Huawei Share sticker in the laptop's lesser correct corner.
This will allow y'all to navigate through your telephone's apps with a mouse and keyboard, type out text letters with your keyboard, and easily motility files and copied items betwixt the two devices when your phone is unlocked. Information technology's unfortunate that y'all can't practice this with any Android telephone, equally information technology looks to be supremely useful if you lot're already integrated into Huawei's ecosystem. No incertitude everyone will be delighted when Windows 10's Your Phone app offers similar integration in the time to come.
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020): Verdict
The MateBook Ten Pro 2020 isn't massively unlike than its predecessors, but it'southward got a welcome batch of changes to a great laptop, and ane you may want to consider if y'all're on the lookout for a different kind of premium notebook for work.
This MateBook 10 Pro (2020) review has revealed a laptop better suited for piece of work rather than play, even if the graphics are adequately decent and the brandish makes movies enjoyable to lookout. The large, squarer display compared to other laptops gives you lots of room to work with every bit you write or edit, and might be just the thing you're looking for if y'all want something that's got the dimensions of a 13-inch laptop simply with a display that approaches the size of a 15-inch model.
The MacBook Air is probably still your best bet if you desire a bones only premium laptop, and don't mind which Os you use. The Dell XPS 13 is a adept option if you desire Windows 10 or more customization options, while the MacBook Pro is the one to pick if you're looking to get the best multimedia and creative piece of work experience possible.
That leaves a pretty narrow niche of people who desire a piece of work-first laptop simply don't need it for annihilation too intensive, but who too want to pay a premium for niche and luxury features like the hi-res touch-screen display or the Huawei telephone integration. Information technology'southward simply these people who will observe the MateBook X Pro to be their ideal laptop. For everyone else, information technology's worth at least comparing the MateBook X Pro'southward specs to your preferred device as a dark horse competitor on your shortlist. It may non be perfect, merely it certainly won't disappoint you lot.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/huawei-matebook-x-pro
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