Huawei MateBook X Pro 2020 review

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Introduction

Huawei has a new high-end laptop out, the MateBook X Pro 2020. That said, its newness is all on the inside. The Chinese company has fitted its champ with the latest low-voltage Core processors from Intel, and upgraded the Nvidia graphics, and… that’s it. Everything else has basically stayed the same, so let’s take a deep dive and see what makes the new MateBook X Pro actually new, and what doesn’t. Is it worth the substantial asking price? Let’s find out.


The MateBook X Pro introduces a new colorway, and switches up the internals with two processor options, both of the Intel 10th generation Core variety. These are paired with 16GB of RAM, 512GB or 1TB of PCIe NVMe storage, and an Nvidia GeForce MX250 dedicated GPU. The battery is still 56Wh, and the screen is the same excellent 3000x2000 3:2 IPS panel from before, with 100% sRGB coverage and 450 nits of brightness.

The Core i5 model, with 512GB of storage, is priced at €1,599, while the Core i7 version with 1TB of storage goes for €1,899. The rest of the specs are identical between them, and our review unit is the latter.

Design

If you buy the Space Gray model, you’ll be hard pressed to tell just by looking at it that this is the 2020 incarnation. You can of course opt for the Emerald Green variation, in which case you’re sure to stand out from your fellow office workers. Though with working from home becoming a big thing nowadays because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the show-off factor may be minimized somewhat. That said, we’re happy to see flashier hues for laptops, something that’s been a staple of the smartphone world for many years now. Sure, black, gray, silver are all fine and ‘professional-looking’ but stale too, unfortunately.

MateBook X Pro 2020 in Emerald Green
Anyway, our review unit is Space Gray, and it looks exactly like its predecessor. We don’t mean “mostly”, or “has the same design language”, or “has the same vibes” here - it’s identical. So you get the all-metal design with glass on top of the touchscreen. The laptop feels very good in the hand, it’s sturdy and we’ve had absolutely zero creaks whatsoever.


Top, bottom, front and back while closed

Weight-wise, it’s somewhere in the middle of its class. It’s by no means the lightest, but it’s not so heavy that it becomes unwieldy to carry around with you all day. The all-metal build combined with the 1.33 kg weight does lend it a feel of quality, that heft isn’t so much that you’d call this too much to handle. Build quality is outstanding, we have nothing to complain about there.

Maximum lid opening angle
Opening the hinge with one hand is something that is achievable, but isn’t incredibly easy. Speaking of the hinge, you can’t even open the lid all the way up to 180 degrees, not to mention 360. At this price point, that’s quite unfortunate. The maximum give of the hinge will make for a pretty comfortable position regardless of how you’re using the laptop, but it’s barely there, we would have appreciated more flexibility here.

The 'nosecam'
The pop-up camera is housed in the function keys row, in between F6 and F7, and this is great for privacy freaks but bad for everyone who ever wants to use it. The position obviously means it will be staring up your nose at all times, so you’ll be that weirdo on every conference call. Of course you can alleviate this issue entirely if you use a separate webcam. We give Huawei points for thinking outside of the box here, since it had no space in the tiny display bezels to place the camera. But aside from the clear privacy benefits to this positioning, there are only downsides, and competitors like Dell have somehow figured out how to put cameras in tiny bezels anyway.

Ports, input devices

The MateBook X Pro comes with two USB-C ports on the left, with support for fast charging and DisplayPort), and a 3.5 mm combo mic/headphone hole. On the other side you only get one USB-A 3.0 port and that’s it. Compromises had to be made to make the device this

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