5G was, of course, the main topic for Huawei at MWC and the company made a number of announcements.
In products, Huawei focused on a new laptop at MWC, the Matebook X Pro which has a 13.9″ 3000 x 2000 (3:2 aspect ratio and 100% sRGB) touch display and is based on 8th Gen Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. The thin and light machine, which includes up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage, has quad speakers with Dolby Atmos support and four microphones. Graphics are supported by an Nvidia MX150 or Intel 620 graphics.
The Huawei Matebook Pro is a high end notebook. Image:Meko
A surprising design feature is that the camera has been moved from the bezel of the display to a spot behind the keyboard. A dummy key between F6 and F7 can be pressed to pop up the camera. Reviewers have already criticised the placement (as some have on the Dell XPS 13 which moves the camera to the bottom and side of the display).
Last year’s Matebook X was criticised for a short battery life, so the company has boosted it up to 57.4Wh and it can support six hours of use with 30 minutes charging.
Connectivity is via a USB Type-C with Thunderbolt but it also has a USB Type-A. Staff told us that the unit will ship in Q2 priced from a very competitive price, for this level of machine, at €1,399, although the company’s press release said that it would sell from €1,499.
Next, we looked at the new Mediapad M5 Pro which is a tablet with a 10.8″ IPS LCD with QuadHD 2560 x 1600 (16:10 – 280ppi), 2.5D touch and pen support. The pen supports 4096 pressure levels It is based on a HiSilicon Kirin 960 and with 4GB of RAM and 32/64GB of storage. There are 13mp and 8mp cameras and the unit includes a fingerprint sensor. The battery is a lithium polymer unit with a capacity of 7500 mAh and the unit supports Hi-Res audio (although it has no 3.5mm jack). The Pro sells for €499 to €599 depending on storage and LTE options. Connectivity is via USB Type-C.
The non-Pro version (which was released earlier) removes the pen support and costs from €349 to €549.
There is also a version with an 8.4″ display with the same resolution and a 5,100 mAh. Storage is up to 128GB and the price is from €349 to €499.
In smartphones, the main focus was the existing Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, which had already been announced. Staff told us that there would be a new product in about a month.
The Honor sub-brand also had a release of products at CES and there was nothing new in Barcelona. (Smartphone Round Up – CES 2018)
