Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 laptop review: MacBook Air competitor scores with top IPS display

The MateBook X Pro is traditionally Huawei’s flagship ultrabook and the new 2022 model holds true to this claim. For 2,199 Euros (~US$ 2199) you get a new chassis with a large 14. 2-inch IPS display in 3:2 format, an Intel Alder Lake P processor, plenty of USB-C ports together with Thunderbolt 4 support, and a modern Wi-Fi 6E module.

Users can also expect an improved keyboard and a large touchpad with additional features. Is this enough to contend for the top position among Windows ultrabooks? Does the MateBook X Pro even pose a threat to the new Apple MacBook Air M2? Or should you rather opt for the MateBook X Pro 2021 with its Core i7-1165G7 , which is currently on offer at Huawei for a very affordable 1,099 Euros (~US$ 1100)? There are two versions of the MateBook X Pro 2022. According to the spec sheet, our review sample is the premium version that uses the new “soft” surface in combination with a magnesium chassis.

In addition to the dark blue color variant ( Ink Blue ), a white model is also advertised, but this is currently unavailable. The regular Space Gray version offers normal, smooth surfaces in an aluminum case and also weighs a little more. The case is completely new; there is no longer the polished edge on the top of the base unit, for example, as was the case with the old MateBook X Pro , but the device still looks very high-quality and is also directly recognizable as a MateBook.

Thanks to the narrow screen edges, the notebook also looks very modern. The dark blue color is of course reminiscent of the new color variant of the Apple MacBook Air M2 , which is a little darker. In contrast to the MacBook Air, we can report that the surfaces, which have a velvety soft feel, are fortunately much less sensitive to fingerprints and we hardly see any traces even after several days.

The entire case also makes a very high-quality and stable impression. The base unit yields only minimally in the upper center of the keyboard area, but this does not prove bothersome in everyday use. The display lid is also stable and produces no creaking noises.

We were able to induce image artifacts only with a lot of selective pressure from behind. The screen hinge is fundamentally well adjusted and the lid can also be opened with one hand without problems. However, screen teetering cannot be completely prevented.

The new case has grown slightly compared to the predecessor , but the display is larger and is also one of the largest in our comparison group. The new MateBook X Pro 2022 also has a slightly larger surface area than the new MacBook Air M2 , but the difference is hardly significant. Lenovos Yoga 9i 14 convertible is even slightly larger.

The 90-watt power adapter, including the USB-C cable, weighs 240 grams. Thunderbolt was always a missing feature in the old MateBook X Pro . Now, the new 2022 model now offers two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support on the left side.

On the right side, there are two additional USB-C ports that can also be used for charging. The scope of delivery also includes a short adapter cable to USB-A. Those who also use other Huawei devices (e.

g. tablets, smartphones, monitors) will benefit from the so-called Super Device function. Similarly to Apple, this enables users to easily share or transfer content among synchronized devices or expand the screen to the tablet, for example.

Using up to three smartphone apps on the laptop is also possible. The new MateBook X Pro offers an up-to-date WLAN module from Intel (AX211E), which supports 6 GHz networks (Wi-Fi 6E) as well as Bluetooth 5. 2.

We were able to connect to the 6 GHz network of our Asus reference router without any problems and the transfer rates were consistently very high at around 1. 7 GBit/s. The webcam has been moved from the keyboard to the upper screen frame, but only a 720p sensor is used, which does not offer good image quality even in good lighting conditions.

There is also no mechanical shutter or IR camera. As in the MateBook 16s, Huawei offers some additional AI features for the webcam. These include practical things such as virtual backgrounds (independent of the software), but also rather unnecessary gimmicks such as the beauty mode.

The auto-centering also worked a little better on the 1080p webcam of the MateBook 16s. There are six Torx screws (T5) on the bottom and these can be unscrewed easily, but we still could not remove the baseplate. We suspected that there were more hidden screws under the rear rubber feet, which was confirmed in a promotional video from Huawei.

However, the rubber feet are extremely tight and Huawei also requested us not to remove them and not to open the case for fear of damage. Users therefore have no possibility to carry out maintenance work, which we view as an unnecessary limitation. Compared to the old model , Huawei has improved the keyboard and increased the key drop to 1.

5 mm. The typing feel is very precise and pleasant, especially for such a compact device. The typing noise is average, but apart from the space bar, nothing rattles.

Overall, it is a good keyboard that can be used to write long texts without any problems. A two-stage white backlight helps in dark environments, but this has to be manually activated. In the PC Manager, users can manually set the backlight to be automatically deactivated during inactivity; 15 seconds is the default setting.

The power button is located above the keyboard and does not interfere with typing. It also contains the fingerprint scanner, which works reliably. The touchpad is definitely one of the highlights of the new MateBook X Pro 2022.

Not only is it very large, extending all the way to the front edge of the case (including the recess), but it also offers a lot of additional functions. Huawei groups these under the term FreeTouch , which involves additional gestures. For example, you can scroll along the two vertical edges to change the screen brightness or volume, which is also supported by a haptic grid effect.

You can also scroll through videos or music by scrolling along the upper edge. Other gestures are also available, which are shown in the screenshots below. The basic pointer control also works flawlessly.

Gliding properties are very good and the entire pad allows for clear downward clicking. Like Apple, this is confirmed by haptic feedback that results in a very even and pleasantly quiet clicking noise. At the same time, the component itself is completely solid.

Huawei continues to use a 3:2 IPS display as in the predecessor , but has increased the screen diagonal from 13. 9 to 14. 2 inches.

The resolution is also minimal at 3120×2080 pixels, resulting in a high pixel density of 264 DPI. The subjective picture impression of the capacitive touchscreen is excellent, as colors appear very rich and the content is extremely sharp. In addition, the monitor offers a higher refresh rate of 90 Hz, which enables a much smoother picture impression during visual media playback.

However, this has to be activated manually first, either in the display settings or via the Fn+R key combination. The brightness can be controlled automatically via sensor and the color temperature can also be adjusted to the lighting conditions. Huawei specifies a brightness of 500 cd/m², which our review sample easily surpasses with an average brightness of almost 590 cd/m².

This gives the panel an advantage over many OLED screens, which usually only reach 400 cd/m² in normal SDR mode. The black value (0. 39) and contrast (>1,500:1) of the IPS panel are of course inferior to OLEDs, but the performance is still very good.

You can only really see halos at maximum brightness on a dark background, which shouldn’t happen too often in practice. The response times are very good for an IPS panel and no PWM flickering was detected. The panel also supports HDR content, but this also has to be activated in the Windows settings first.

The playback of corresponding HDR content works fine, but subjectively, HDR images look better on OLED or mini-LED panels, which is mainly due to the higher contrast ratio. We measured the display with the professional CalMAN software and the X-Rite i1 Pro 2 spectrophotometer. Readers should note that Huawei provides three different profiles ex-factory: Native (P3), sRGB, and P3.

We measured all three profiles before deciding on the P3 profile. Although the native profile also has P3 as the target color space, it shows higher deviations and subjectively produces somewhat richer colors. With the P3 profile, on the other hand, colors are extremely accurate right out of the box and, together with the almost complete P3 coverage, users are able carry out pictures/video editing, since all values are already below the important DeltaE-2000 deviation of 3.

There is also no color cast in grayscale and the color temperature is very close to the ideal value of 6,500K. sRGB mode is also very accurate and really limits the color space to the sRGB spectrum. This is a clear advantage over almost all other consumer notebooks on the market.

Since our own calibration efforts only resulted in a degradation of display values, we do not provide a corresponding profile here. The glossy touchscreen naturally struggles with reflections outdoors, but the panel is not quite as reflective as, for example, the recently reviewed Honor MagicBook 14 . In addition, the high screen brightness also helps to compensate for possible reflections.

Even on bright days, you should still be able to find positions where you can view the content reasonably. Cloudy days, on the other hand, do not cause any problems. As usual, the pre-installed PC Manager offers two performance modes, with Balanced mode activated by default.

Performance mode is available as the optional alternative, but only in mains operation. We have listed the TDP values of the processor in the table below. Benchmarks and measurements were performed in Performance mode, but you can certainly use Balanced mode for peace of mind and to benefit from the much quieter fans, especially in everyday use.

The Core i7-1260P is the second fastest processor in Intel’s Alder Lake P range after the Core i7-1280P and offers a hybrid architecture consisting of 4 fast performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. As previously described, the maximum short-term consumption is 64 watts, which is also the maximum limit of Intel’s Alder-Lake-P chips. However, this is still not enough for the maximum clock on all cores.

After a few seconds, the consumption levels off at 30 or 25 watts, depending on the selected power mode, and then remains stable at this level. The MateBook X Pro is therefore not one of the fastest devices under constant load, but it naturally benefits from the high power limits and the high single-core performance of the new performance cores in everyday use and also in the short benchmarks. The predecessor, with its Tiger Lake Core i7-1165G7 , quickly throttles to 18 watts and offers significantly less multi-core performance.

In battery mode, the processor is able to consume a maximum of 40 watts before stabilizing at 25 watts, which corresponds to the level of Balanced mode in mains operation. Further CPU benchmarks are available in our tech section . The subjective performance impression of the new MateBook X Pro is excellent and is confirmed by the good benchmark results.

However, it should also be noted here that in practice, there are virtually no differences between the latest devices. In our standardized latency test (web browsing, 4K YouTube playback, CPU load), our review device displayed slight limitations with the present BIOS version and is thus only conditionally suitable for the use of real-time audio applications. Huawei uses a PCIe 3.

0 x4 SSD with a storage capacity of 1 TB, of which around 885 GB is still available after the first startup. However, as in all other Huawei laptops, the SSD is partitioned ex-factory and the system drive is very small at ~120 GB. After subtracting the space occupied by Windows, just under 70 GB remains, which can quickly lead to capacity problems.

The remaining 814 GB is available on the D drive. There are also limitations on speed. Basically, the transfer rates of around 3 GB/s are completely sufficient (even if one should reasonable expect a PCIe 4.

0 drive with higher transfer rates for the price), but the drive has temperature problems under sustained load (74 °C according to HWiNFO) and so performance periodically breaks down. A look at the cooling reveals that the drive is located directly on the CPU heat sink. On the other hand, the effects are negligible in everyday use and we did not register any restrictions in our normal test procedure.

More SSD benchmarks are available here . We can be quite brief about the graphics card, since the well-known Iris Xe Graphics G7 iGPU from Intel is used here in the faster version with 96 EUs. This offers sufficient performance for normal everyday use and can also handle high-resolution videos without any problems.

In the synthetic benchmarks, it benefits from the dual-channel configuration of the working memory and is on the expected level, although this is significantly below the Radeon 680M iGPU and Apple M2 GPUs (with 8 or 10 cores ). Compared to the predecessor (with the same iGPU), graphics performance has improved only marginally. The MateBook X Pro is thus only partially suitable for gaming and users are often limited to low or medium details even in simple titles.

At least performance remains stable during longer gaming sessions, as demonstrated by our Witcher 3 loop. On battery power, performance is somewhat limited and you should expect a deficit of ~13%. More GPU benchmarks are available here .

Fundamentally, the cooling system with its two fans and a vapor chamber provide good passive cooling, for it takes at least 20 seconds under load before the fans even kick in. There is a clear difference between the two performance profiles in relation to fan noise, even though the consumption difference here is only 5 watts. The maximum level of 40.

6 dB(A) measured in the stress test quickly levels off at 38. 2 dB(A) as soon as power consumption stabilizes at 30 watts. The fan noise is by no means unpleasant or high-pitched, only reaching a maximum of 33.

4 dB(A) in Balanced mode, which is considerably quieter. We thus recommend using Balanced mode in everyday use. No other electronic noises such as coil whine were detected.

Huawei has the surface temperatures well under control. The case does get a few degrees warmer than usual when idle and during light tasks, but this is not problematic. Under load, you can clearly see the position of the cooling system and the fans in the infrared images, since these areas (the center in particular) become hot.

The upper side of the keyboard even gets a bit warmer than the underside and this is also noticeable when typing, but this does not prove to be limiting. The palm rest, on the other hand, remains pleasantly cool, even in the stress test. At a maximum of 42 °C on the underside, you can place the MateBook X Pro on your lap without hesitation, even under load.

In the stress test, we observe the same behavior as in pure CPU load. After a brief consumption peak at 64 watts, the consumption quickly stabilizes at 30 watts. There are slight shifts in the CPU/iGPU clocks over the course of the test, but everything remains fairly stable overall.

The MateBook X Pro offers a sound system with 6 speakers and the performance is excellent. The sound is very expansive, powerful and very loud. Moreover, the Huawei sound software offers some improvements, both for the speakers, connected headphones and the microphones.

Alongside our subjective impression, the test result is very good and the MateBook X Pro is also just ahead of the current MacBook Air M2 and only very slightly behind the MacBook Pro 14 , which offers a little more bass. External speakers are not necessary in most cases. The new MateBook X Pro is not a particularly economical notebook, which is primarily due to the very bright and also large display.

We measured up to 14 watts in idle mode. Under load, power consumption jumps up to 91 watts due to the high power limits of the processor, but then levels off at just under 56 watts. We also checked with a stronger power supply whether the 90 watt power supply was limiting the laptop’s maximum power consumption, but this was not the case.

Overall, the 90 watt power supply is sufficient. The combination of the 60 Wh battery and the high consumption rates does not allow for particularly long battery runtimes. The display is simply a power guzzler and even at a brightness of 150 cd/m² (corresponding to 56% of the maximum brightness in our review device), we only managed ~7.

5 hours in both our video and WLAN tests. The WLAN test even stops after less than 5 hours at full display brightness. The competition simply offers more stamina; a whole working day without a power outlet is very unlikely with the MateBook X Pro.

At least the device is recharged relatively quickly because a full charge (with the laptop turned on) takes around 80 minutes, whereby 50% is available after 34 minutes and 80% after 52 minutes. Huawei is aiming to be the top dog in ultrabooks with its new MateBook X Pro of 2022, which is also reflected in the confident price of 2,199 Euros. Upon concluding the review process, our impression was a very positive one: For a high price, users get a very fine-tuned package overall that has only a few weak points.

The 720p camera is certainly one of them, but at least it has been enhanced by several new software features. The lack of maintenance options and difficult access to the components are also points of criticism. Lastly, we weren’t too pleased with the fluctuating SSD performance and the comparatively short battery runtimes.

In return, you get a compact and high-quality 14. 2-inch device with an extremely good IPS display that offers a brightness level of almost 600 cd/m². Furthermore, color accuracy is very good and you can switch between the P3 and sRGB color spaces via software, which not many workstations can do.

No PWM is present and the 3:2 form factor is well suited for working. The Alder Lake Core i7-1260P and reasonable power levels allow for excellent system performance, but there are faster competitors in terms of pure CPU performance. In practice, balanced mode is completely sufficient, especially since you benefit from much quieter fans; at a maximum of ~33 dB(A) in balanced mode, the MateBook X Pro is one of the quietest models.

Only the passively cooled MacBook Air M2 has the edge here. Huawei wastes some potential in the SSD, since there is no PCIe 4. 0 drive and the positioning on the heat sink causes performance drops after some time.

Nonetheless, this should not be an issue for the vast majority of users in everyday life. A high-quality case, very good system performance, great speakers and a top display: The new Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 is an extremely good package overall. If you can live with the lack of maintenance options and mediocre battery runtimes, you’ll have the best Windows ultrabook on your hands as well as the best alternative to Apple’s MacBook Air currently.

Huawei has upgraded the equipment and now offers two full-fledged Thunderbolt 4 ports for the first time. There is also a modern Wi-Fi 6E module from Intel and owners of other Huawei devices (such as smartphones or tablets) can be pleased that cooperation is extending beyond individual devices. Huawei has also upgraded the input devices.

The keyboard now offers more key travel and is thus more comfortable to type on, but the large touchpad also offers real added value with the additional gestures. The speakers were not spared either: our review sample can easily compete with the current MacBook Air M2. Speaking of the MacBook Air M2, it is undoubtedly one of the biggest rivals to the MateBook X Pro.

It is far more efficient with its M2 chip and always silent thanks to passive cooling. However, the MacBook Air M2 does have its disadvantages, especially in terms of features, since you have to do without fast Wi-Fi 6E (or Wi-Fi 6 with 160 MHz) as well as Thunderbolt 4. The Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 is also an extremely good device and an interesting choice if you can make use of the convertible format.

The Asus ZenBook S 13 , on the other hand, is a little more compact with its 13. 3-inch display, but offers even more performance with the AMD processor, especially thanks to the fast iGPU. The Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 also impresses with its compact case, but does not offer such a good package overall.

The newly released MateBook X Pro 2022 is yet to arrive in all regions worldwide, so availability may be sparse. Users are advised to check directly via Huawei’s online shop here . First select your location, then type in MateBook X Pro 2022 in the search bar.

We found, for example, that the device is already available in France (2199. 99€), the UK (£1799. 99), Romania (9.

999,00 Lei), Singapore ($2,798. 00), South Africa (R 35,999. 00), Saudi Arabia and UAE .

This list is not exhaustive. Prices are as of 09. 09.

2022 and subject to change. .