‘This is the new Matebook X Pro 2024, you can get a feel how light it is.’
It is just 980g. Yes, a beast-like 16-core 14-inch laptop only weights 980g. I know a lot of people would question the performance or cooling of a slim laptop, but this Matebook is different. Let’s see how this computer performs in real life.
Unbox
The Matebook X Pro 2024 comes in a black premium box that contains a Type-C charger, a USB-C OTG Cable and a pair of headphones.
It’s not hard to guess that Huawei is going all Type-C with this one. I was a bit grumpy about this at first, but when I took a closer look at the design, I think it makes sense that there really isn’t enough room here for USB-A ports. But the good news is that you will get two full-featured ThunderBolt-4 ports. That’s probably the compensation offered by the design team. You can do almost anything with them, provided you have the right TYPE-C docking Hubs.
Design
So at first glance, you can see a lot of soft lines and elegant curves on the body of the new MateBook. Especially on the sides and bottom, it incorporates a wedge-shape design, which effectively reduces the visual thickness. Looking at the laptop from the side, you can clearly see how outstanding this design is.
In order to achieve a weight of 980g, the Matebook X Pro has a radical magnesium alloy body, which significantly reduces the weight. And on top of the magnesium alloy, there is also a layer of special coating, which is very good at avoiding staining fingerprints and water.
The first thing I noticed when I opened this laptop, was that it supports one-handed opening and closing, which surprised me a lot. The overall weight is only 980g, which means that a lot of effort has been put into making the screen and the hinge lighter and more precise.
Coming to the keyboard, it is a standard layout, except for the arrow keys being a bit different.
The keyboard has a longer key travel and more pronounced feedback. So for my daily officing work, it did provide a decent and responsive typing experience. The only complaint I have is that, unlike the magnesium alloy body, these keys are more prone to fingerprints.
Let’s talk about the Eddy current sensing trackpad, which is undoubtedly one of the best Windows trackpads I’ve ever used, not only for the ultra smoothness, but it also supports a variety of gestures, such as swiping on the side to quickly adjust the volume, and double-knocking to take a screenshot, and so on.
Like the Macbook, the trackpad also has an X-axis linear motor and press sensors, which provide excellent press feedback. It’s almost the same as mechanical feedback that actually happens at your fingertips
The Matebook X Pro is a 3:2 14.2-inch flexible OLED screen, and it’s worth noting that the four corners of the screen are rounded, to match the design of Windows 11, making the overall visual experience very nice.
The Matebook X Pro has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a 5Gbps Type-C port. All 3 ports are full-featured and support data transfer, charging, and DP1.4 video output. Notably, it also has a separate camera privacy switch on the right side, which is pretty thoughtful.
Performance
The MateBook X Pro 2024 we have is a premium variant with the highest configuration, which uses the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor. It is the latest 16-core, 22-thread processor that is perfect for ultra-portable PCs.
This processor not only has a new NPU and Arc GPU, but also a new LPE core. In the CPU-Z test, the single-core score was close to the Intel Core i5-12600k (125W),
while the multi-core score even surpassed the 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X.
In the more stressful Cinebench 2024, this Ultra 9 still performed well, with a single-core score of 110 and a multi-core score of 773, which is more than enough to handle most tasks and productivities.
What surprised me the most was its cooling performance – In the stress test, it could run at full power of 80W for the first 15 seconds before dropping to a stable output of 40W. The whole test was completed in a smooth way.
And please note that the CPU temperature at the finish point is only 85°C, which is insane for such a slim design!
There was a noticeable noise during the stress test but it wasn’t much for normal use. When we put a recorder that close (see the picture below), the collected noise level is around 52 dB.
The new Arc GPU also performed well, getting a score of 3700 in the 3DMark Time Spy test, which is a double improvement over the Matebook X Pro 2023 version.
The Matebook X Pro is powered by a 2TB SN740, an SSD with a read/write speed of 5000MB/s – excellent for a PCIE 4.0 SSD.
Its temperature performance is also commendable, with only 71°C in the 330GB large file test.
Gaming
Although the Matebook X Pro has decent GPU performance and a 120hz screen, I would still say that this computer is not suitable for most heavy games. And if I chose to game at 3120×2080, the Arc GPU would struggle to drive those 6.5 million pixel dots, gotta lower the image quality and rendering resolution to run it smoothly.
Also the 3:2 screen ratio loses a significant portion of the field of view. Of course if you play some casual games on it you can still get a good experience. I also tested the frame rate of some popular games, you can pause and take a closer look.
Of course you have another option here, you can utilize the Thunderbolt 4 interface to connect to an eGPU and a monitor, it will multiply the graphics performance and solve the screen ratio problem, which is a good solution for heavy gamers.
Flexible OLED Screen
The Matebook X Pro features a 3:2 flexible OLED screen, this is the world’s first flexible OLED laptop. In real time use, the screen is really clear and detailed. At the same time, the ultra-high brightness can also meet the needs of outdoor use.
In terms of dimming, this screen uses DC dimming in medium and high brightness, PWM dimming in low brightness .
As I said earlier, the 3:2 screen really isn’t suitable for most games, but the ratio allows for more vertical content when browsing the web or charts.
Another substantial feature here, the Matebook X Pro supports color gamut switching, and it’s very easy to switch between sRGB, P3, Adobe RGB, and other color spaces within the right-click menu.
This is definitely a very useful feature if you have specialized needs for video editing, and graphics processing. Overall, this screen definitely is one of the best screens for a laptop, not only for those beautiful figures on paper, but also for its excellent software support.
Huawei Ecosystem
With Huawei phones and tablets, not only can you quickly access files, and synchronize clipboards, and backup photos and videos across devices, but you can also Open Multiple APPs at Once on. It’s nothing new for HUAWEI devices, but here I would like to emphasize again anyway: This is the ultimate solution to improve efficiency.
The HUAWEI Tablets/MatePads can also be used as an expansion screen, the software provides a variety of options, and it works with very low latency.
Battery & Charging
The Matebook X Pro has a 70Wh battery and scored 8 hours 17 minutes in Procyon’s Office Productivity battery life test, a benchmark that automates common tasks in Excel, PowerPoint Word and Outlook, so the results are more in line with the Matebook’s use scenarios.
In terms of charging, depending on the country and configuration, the Matebook X Pro International Edition may offer two different chargers, 65W and 90W. To test its optimal charging performance, I used a PD3.1 140W charger from CUKTECH, which could offer a maximum input power of 94W for the new MateBook X Pro, and it only took 65 minutes to get fully charged.
It did impress us a lot as now we truly need a single charging brick with multi-ports for pwering up multiple devices on business trips. The Ultra-slim MateBook X Pro just fits perfectly into our list.
Camera & Microphones
The Matebook X Pro’s camera supports features such as beautying and keying, and one of my favorite things about it is that it supports custom backgrounds, which you can easily set up in Huawei PC Manager.
The Matebook X Pro’s microphone supports Noise canceling and has a variety of parameters to choose from, making it a good choice if you have video conferencing needs.
Conclusion
So, that’s the Matebook X Pro review, and I think this laptop shows Huawei’s strong industrial strength and excellent ecology. If you need a high-end silm laptop, the Matebook won’t disappoint you.
Speaker Test (VS MacBook Pro)
Please check out the review video
