Since the US ban, Huawei has shifted its focus to other consumer electronics markets like wearables and laptops. The company's big event in China yesterday saw the launch of new smartwatches as well as an all-new convertible laptop, the Huawei MateBook E. If you recall, this isn't the brand's first hybrid laptop.
One of Huawei's first laptops in 2016, simply named the Huawei MateBook was a 2-in-1 laptop. And portability remains one of the biggest selling points of the new MateBook E. Clearly, Huawei is looking to take over the market dominated by devices like Apple's iPad Pro and Microsoft's Surface Pro series.
Huawei's latest 2-in-1 Windows tablet, the MateBook E 2022, features a 12.6-inch OLED display, detachable keyboard and Intel Core i7-1160G7 Tiger Lake processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of PCIe NVMe solid state storage. The Huawei MateBook E 2022 is now available in China from 830 euros. Huawei has been selling a range of high-end Windows tablets under the MateBook E name for a few years, but the new model is a pretty significant upgrade.
Not only does it have a 12.6-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 16:10 aspect ratio and a peak brightness of 600 nits (or standard 400 nits brightness), but with a choice of Intel Core i5-1130G7 or Core i7-1160G7 processors, it should offer a good balance of performance and power efficiency.
These are the same chips Lenovo uses for its sub-1kg ThinkPad X1 Nano laptop, which I think does a good job of delivering strong performance and long battery life, even without a big battery under the hood.
54% charge in 30 minutes
For its part, the new Huawei MateBook E 2022 has a 42 Wh battery (a little smaller than the 48 Wh battery of Lenovo's laptop), a chassis that measures 286.5 x 184, 7 x 8mm, and thin bezels around the screen for a 90% screen-to-body ratio. Also, it weighs only 709 grams, which makes it much lighter and more portable than traditional laptops.
As for charging, it comes with a 65W USB-C charging adapter, which charges the battery to around 54% in 30 minutes. A full charge takes about 90 minutes. The MateBook E should offer a range of between 5 and 8 hours, depending on use.
The tablet supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1, has a fingerprint sensor in the power button, and sports a Thunderbolt 4 port and 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack. The tablet has a 13-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. Finally, the new MateBook E is equipped with four microphones and four speakers.
Stylus support
Huawei offers several keyboard options for the MateBook E, including a "smart magnetic keyboard" and a "sliding keyboard". Both attach to a set of POGO pins on the bottom of the tablet. The MateBook E also supports pen input through a second-generation Huawei M-Pencil accessory that claims to be pressure-sensitive. As with its MatePads, the laptop supports magnetic pen use and can also charge it wirelessly!
It's unclear if or when the Huawei MateBook E 2022 will be available outside of China, but here are the price/configuration options available in that country: