Blacklisted Huawei unveils new Intel-powered notebooks — MateBook X Pro comes armed with latest Core Ultra inside

Anton Shilov
·2 min read
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Huawei.
Huawei.

Huawei this week announced a new high-end MateBook X Pro laptop that packs Intel's latest Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' processor with built-in AI accelerator, reports Nikkei. This was surprising: The U.S. government has blacklisted Huawei, and the company cannot get the latest processors from AMD and Intel without the approval of American authorities.

The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2024 can be based on the Core Ultra 7 155H or the Core Ultra 9 185H processor with built-in graphics that are programmed to support up to 40W TDP. The laptops will come with options for 16GB or 32GB of RAM and either 1TB or 2TB of NVMe PCIe storage, according to Huawei Central, though details like memory type or speed as well as SSD interface were not touched upon.

The laptop features a 14.2-inch OLED touch-sensitive display with a 3:2 aspect ratio and a resolution of 3120x2080 pixels. It boasts a peak brightness of 1,000 nits in HDR mode, a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and supports the Adobe RGB, P3, and sRGB color gamuts.

One of the standout features of the MateBook X Pro is its lightweight design. Thanks to its magnesium alloy chassis, the machine weighs just around 980 grams (2.16 pounds), which makes it lighter than Apple's MacBook Air. Since it is based on Intel's premium Core Ultra processor that is actively cooled and can run at up to 40W, Huawei suggests its laptop can challenge or even outperform Apple's MacBook Pro 14 (though Huawei does not disclose which MacBook Pro 14 and with which processor it used for comparison).

As for connectivity, the MateBook X Pro 2024 is equipped with a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.3 adapter, one USB-C port, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Also, the laptop has a 70 WHr battery, six speakers, four microphones, a keyboard, a trackpad, and a 1080p webcam.

Huawei's 2024 MateBook X Pro runs Huawei's proprietary Harmony OS and can use Huawei's Pangu AI services for real-time translation, improving image quality, and summarizing texts, among other things. In addition, the machine can use AI models from other companies, such as Baidu's Ernie Bot and iFlytek's Spark. It is unclear whether MateBook X Pro can take advantage of Intel Core Ultra's built-in AI acceleration capabilities, or if it relies on the cloud.

Huawei's MateBook X Pro is set to hit the Chinese market on April 18, priced at up to 14,999 yuan ($2,027) for the version featuring Intel's Core Ultra 9 processor paired with 32 GB of memory and 2 TB of storage.

It is unclear whether an international version of Huawei's MateBook X Pro with Windows 11 is planned and, if so, when it is set to hit the market.