HUAWEI MateBook X Pro (2024) review: Should you buy it?

Despite years of working on a laptop, I’ve somehow managed to eschew thin and lightweight “ultrabooks” for the added bulk of what I believed to be proper power-user laptops. Mainly, as image editing is a massive part of my job, I’ve always struggled with the concept of working on anything less than a 16-inch screen when away from my desktop monitors. However, I’ve changed my mind after spending some time with the new HUAWEI MateBook X Pro 2024.

For starters, the MateBook X Pro (2024) is wonderfully built. It’s eminently portable, weighing just 980g and reaching 13.5mm at its thickest point. The downside of my more familiar bulky, powerful laptops has always been extra weight in the bag, but the MateBook X Pro (2024) won’t weigh you down on the daily commute.

Flip open the lid, and you’re treated to a superb 14.2-inch, 3,120 x 2,080 “flexible” OLED touchscreen display, complete with rounded bezels that complement the outer aesthetics. A sub-1 delta-E for sRGB, Adobe RGB, and P3 color gamuts means you’re well covered for accurate media editing, paired with full-screen brightness that caps out at 600 nits. As I said, I’m used to working on a bigger screen, but the 3:2 aspect ratio easily fits two tall windows side-by-side with ample room for content without constant scrolling.

Housed in the upper bezel, you’ll find a compact 1080p webcam (HUAWEI’s privacy nostril-cams in the keyboard have been mercifully abandoned) and Windows Hello face recognition. Speaking of biometrics, a fingerprint scanner is discretely tucked into the power button, should you prefer to secure your device that way. Check marks on all the core features so far, but what about performance? Can a lightweight laptop duke it out with the best?

Powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H in a 40W TDP configuration, this ultrabook is built for work. With 16 cores totaling 22 threads, the chip flies through classic CPU workload tests; see our GeekBench 6 and Cinebench results below, and hands in pretty decent graphics performance, too. On-chip Intel Arc graphics still don’t compete with a dedicated GPU, but performance makes it passable for light gaming and older titles. There’s also AI acceleration onboard Intel’s Ultra series, which speeds up some workloads in applications like Audacity, DaVinci Resolve, Zoom, and others. Overall, you’re looking at excellent performance here that outstrips even Apple’s highly regarded M3 chip, making this a seriously potent ultrabook. However, the larger M3 Pro and Ultra push ahead, and you can still find extra performance from larger Intel/AMD laptops, but few will need more.

Unfortunately, all that power means this isn’t a fanless design (we’re still waiting for powerful Windows on Arm hardware). The dual HUAWEI Shark Fin fans (now with 22% better airflow) kick out a fair bit of noise (and heat) when running the chip at full tilt. Thankfully, the laptop is whisper quiet in more humdrum tasks.

This ultrabook doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to connectivity. Though the frame is too thin for HDMI and 3.5mm connectors, HUAWEI crams three USB-C ports into the MateBook X Pro (2024) and a discrete privacy camera switch. The two USB-C ports on the left are Thunderbolt 4 compliant, providing 40Gbps bidirectional bandwidth for data, 10 Gigabit ethernet networking, up to 90W charging, and supporting multiple external displays.

If this laptop has a weakness, it is the 70Wh battery. It’s solidly sized for a sub-15-inch ultrabook, and will take you through nearly a full day of mostly office use on a full charge. I averaged around six hours of screen time for lighter tasks, dropping to five hours with photo editing thrown in. Passable, but you’d struggle to spend a full workday away from a plug, even if you can achieve HUAWEI’s 6.5-hour claim. It’s not exactly great when making use of the processor’s extra power for heavier tasks like image editing.

When you eventually run out of juice, charging is speedy with the bundled HUAWEI 90W plug. This plug takes the laptop from empty to full in under two hours, which is pretty nippy. The MateBook X Pro (2024) also supports USB Power Delivery for wider charger compatibility. However, it won’t charge as quickly, capping out at 65W.

HUAWEI imbues the MateBook X Pro (2024) with familiar software enhancements on top of the traditional Windows 11 experience. These include Super Device for mirroring and extending displays, as well as sharing files quickly between other HUAWEI devices. SuperHub acts as temporary clipboard storage to move multiple assets between apps, while AI Search helps find files, apps, and web pages faster than the built-in Windows search. AI noise cancelation and voice enhancement are also included.

I can’t say I found much additional utility from these extras, as they’re all an extra click away from the core OS alternatives, and I don’t use other HUAWEI devices in my daily workflows (the impact of the HUAWEI-US ban is still a major issue). Still, those more embedded into HUAWEI’s ecosystem might find these much more helpful.

Should you buy the HUAWEI MateBook X Pro (2024)?

• HUAWEI MateBook X Pro (16GB/1TB): €1,999
• HUAWEI MateBook X Pro (32GB/2TB): £2,099.99

The MateBook X Pro doesn’t come in an affordable configuration; it’s 16GB/1TB in Europe or 32GB/2TB exclusively in the UK, and that’s your lot. As such, the laptop’s price comes in at the higher end of the market, and given that HUAWEI certainly isn’t reinventing the ultrabook wheel, there are several powerful slimline laptops also worth your time.

For example, the Apple MacBook Air ($1249 at Amazon) is a big name in this space, and for the hefty sum HUAWEI is asking, you can treat yourself to the 16GB/2TB 13-inch model powered by Apple’s potent M3 chipset. Apple’s M3 surpasses the latest Intel chip in single-core CPU workloads, but Intel’s sheer core count gives HUAWEI’s laptop an advantage for heavily threaded workloads that make up the vast majority of modern applications. But Apple’s M3 Air has astonishingly good battery life, unlike the X Pro.

If you want to spend top dollar on a laptop of a similar size but with added gaming performance, the Dell XPS 14 ($1699 at Dell) can be configured into a similar ballpark price. The Intel Ultra 7 155H CPU isn’t far off the 185H, but Dell lets you trade up the graphics to a GeForce RTX 4050 for a fairly capable little gaming GPU. You’ll have to spend extra to grab more than 512GB storage, 16GB RAM, and an FHD+ panel, though, so HUAWEI’s laptop isn’t outright lousy value for money if you’re looking for a work-focused model.

As we’ve said in many previous years, HUAWEI’s MateBook X series hardware is top of the line, but the asking price is probably a few hundred pounds too high to make it a seriously competitive choice.

HUAWEI MateBook X Pro (2024) specs