introduction
The MateBook X Pro has always been Huawei’s flagship laptop: more capable than the fanless MateBook X, far more stylish than the most powerful 16-inch in the Huawei range, and better than most other laptops on the market.
It started out as Huawei’s MacBook Air competitor, but evolved into a class of its own and was almost unmatched, pound for pound.
Let’s start with unboxing and comparing to 2021. The MateBook X Pro 2022 Core-i7 comes with a 90W charger, a USB cable, and a USB-C to HDMI dongle. The brick is adaptable, offering different outputs ranging from 10W, to 27W, 36W, 75W and 90W.
The Core-i5 model comes with a 65W charger. Both are Huawei Super Charge certified, but will provide most PD fast charging devices with the correct combination of amps and volts.
The MateBook X Pro 2022 is the biggest upgrade in the range since its inception in 2017. This year’s model keeps the display in 3: 2 aspect ratio, but at 14.2 inches, making it the first in the series to cross the diagonal of 13.9 inches and the panel refreshes faster at 90 Hz. Additionally, the display is rated brighter at 500 nits.
There are two USB-C ports on each side – one more port than the previous model, and the touchpad has grown to over the edge of the keyboard. There is also a webcam in the right place, above the display, not hidden under a secret button on the keyboard.
The new laptop boasts a six-speaker configuration, two more than its predecessor. There is also a slightly larger battery with faster charging.
The last big leap over the MateBook X 2021 is due to the 12th generation Intel processors. The Core i7-1260P is a generational leap over the Core i7-1165G7 we had in last year’s model.
Now that we’ve explained how the MateBook X Pro 2022 improves over its predecessor, let’s take a deeper look at its design and build quality.
Body, display, sound, keyboard and touchpad
The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 comes in white, ink blue and this decidedly purple Space Gray shade we have for review. Sadly, the lovely Emerald Green isn’t on the shelves this year.
The laptop weighs 1.38kg and is 310mm wide, 221mm deep and 15.6mm thick.
It has, for the most part, kept the full-size keyboard of its predecessor. As before, the arrow keys are grouped together.
Key travel is good at 1.5mm, and typing is nice with this combination of chicklet style and good size, as it was last year.
The keyboard is still flanked by the speaker grilles, and in the top right corner is a fingerprint reader with a round power button.
There is a small Huawei nameplate under the keyboard which is new on this year’s model. Also new is the larger touchpad. Huawei calls it a Free Touch touchpad and it’s solid-state, which means any clicks you hear are vibrations from an engine under the glass.
You can adjust the vibration strength and sensitivity of the touchpad. There are also intuitive gestures you can do: take a screenshot by tapping the touchpad twice with your knuckles, adjust the brightness and volume with swipes on both sides of the touchpad, and close an app by pressing in the top right corner. Learn these and you will speed up your workflow immensely.
The touchpad extends all the way to the edge of the MateBook X Pro 2022’s frame, creating a delightful infinity pool effect. It does not hinder opening and closing, which can be done with just one finger. The four microphones are facing you, under the touchpad.
The MateBook X Pro 2022’s six-speaker array sounds sublime. These are by far the best laptop speakers we’ve had at HQ, outside of the MacBook Pro 14. And it’s closer than you think.
We measured around 88dB at arm’s length, but the sound quality is impressive. The mids are pronounced and crisp, but there’s also solid, quality sound coming from the music, which we were unprepared for from a laptop.
Huawei Sound allows you to optimize quality through three settings: Smart Optimization which balances detail and bass, the self-explanatory Ultra-bass and Sound Turbo, which simulates spatial audio.
The MateBook X Pro 2022 doesn’t compromise on biometric options – you get a fingerprint scanner inside the power button and an infrared facial scan above the display. Both are excellent for several reasons: the fingerprint scanner supports caching so you can wake the laptop and log in with a single tap, while the Windows Hello camera is one of the fastest we’ve used.
The camera itself has a resolution of 720p and supports Huawei’s virtual wallpaper suite. You can choose from Office, Caffe, Meeting room among others and you can also apply a Beauty filter. There is self-centering, which uses the wide field of view to keep you in the center.
Windows Hello options
There are a total of five ports on the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022: on the left, a 3.5mm audio jack and two USB-C; and two more USB-Cs on the right. The two USBs on the left are 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4, while those on the right aren’t Thunderbolt compatible, but all four ports support charging, data transfer, and display connectivity.
The upside is that you can charge your laptop from any of the four USB-C ports at full Super Charge speed.
All USB-C on both sides, no USB-A
The display is the centerpiece and best feature of the MateBook X Pro 2022. It is slightly larger (14.2-inch vs 13.9-inch) and a higher resolution (3,120×2,080px, 264ppi vs 3,000×2,000px, 260ppi) than its predecessor, and updates faster at 90Hz (but runs at 60Hz by default).
The panel is rated at 1.07 billion colors with a contrast of 1500: 1. It supports DCI-P3 and sRGB color gamuts and is VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified to deliver HDR content up to 400 nits. It is also a 10-point touchscreen.
This year’s display is rated at 500 nits, compared to the previous model’s 450 nits. But while last year’s model surpassed its 30 nits rating at 480, the MateBook X Pro 2022 scored a whopping 580 nits in the middle. It dropped to a minimum of 500 nits in the corners, which isn’t perfect uniformity but you’re unlikely to notice. Suffice it to say that this is a very bright display.
The only thing that disappoints this screen is its above average reflectivity. You can see any kind of light source reflected off the glass to the point where it can become an obstacle. It reduces the performance of the light panel on the outside, but it is also a problem indoors.
Huawei enables panel settings for its more advanced displays, and you can choose whether the screen is in the livelier DCI-P3 or sRGB. Selecting sRGB dims the 8-bit display and reduces contrast and saturation, compared to the 10-bit DCI-P3. DCI-P3 has a 26% wider color gamut in comparison.
We love this feature because it makes it so much easier to choose the right setting for your needs. You can choose sRGB for photo editing and DCI-P3 for video editing or watching a movie.
Performance and battery life
Huawei’s PC Manager app is a perfect companion. It includes all the special settings and features like Huawei Sound, camera settings and Huawei’s Free Touch touchpad, but also automatically updates the drivers and makes the machine run smoothly.
This is also where you choose a performance profile, with a choice of Balanced and Performance.
This year’s Intel processors have adopted the big.LITTLE architecture of most smartphone chips and Apple’s ARM-based M1 and M2 processors. You have two core clusters: high performance cores and efficient cores.
The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 comes with a choice of Intel Core i5-1240P and Core i7-1260P. The Core i7-1260P has 4 high performance cores, 8 efficiency cores and 16 threads. This is a big leap from last year’s Core i7-1165G7, which had 4 cores and 8 threads. The i7-1260P also has a much larger L3 cache: 18MP versus the 11th generation model’s 12MP.
The GPU is the same Intel Iris Xe G7, capable of handling light gaming and photo editing. There is no discrete GPU option on the MateBook X Pro 2022.
Compared to its predecessor, the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 scored 18% better in single-core and 49% better in multi-core in Geekbench. It’s a great example of the potential of the new architecture and its leap in performance over the 11th generation.
In Cinebench R23, the single-core score is 10% better than the 11th-generation Core i7 and 30% better in multi-core. The increase in multi-core and multi-threaded performance will be felt most in apps like Photoshop and the DaVinci Resolve video editing suite, where computing is more important than graphics hardware.
Banco Cine R23
One disappointment of the MateBook X Pro 2022 is the SSD. It’s a 512GB SK Hynix PCIe 3.0 SSD that has achieved respectable numbers but is a generation old for the MateBook X Pro 2022 motherboard. You could enjoy nearly double the speeds if you replace the preloaded SSD with a classy drive. PCIe 4.0, like the one we had in our Honor MagicBook 14 2022 unit.
The thermal performance of the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 is on par with that of its predecessor – at peak load, we measured 42 ° C in the center of the keyboard – not something you will notice during normal use.
When plugged in and in the Balanced setting, the MateBook X Pro 2022 will briefly boost to around 3.0Ghz and then reduce to 1.7GHz where it stays for as long as needed. The laptop was hot in the center and below the display, but the touchpad and keyboard were great. Fans were hardly noticeable in an office setting.
When it’s plugged in and in Performance mode, things are a little different. After the same spike, the laptop maintained the faster speeds of 1.9GHz-2.0GHz with a slight increase in fan noise and heat. This is the mode you should enable if you need maximum performance.
The i7-1260P cannot sustain the same level of performance when the laptop has been unplugged. It dropped to 1.4 GHz with occasional spikes up to 1.7 GHz. The upside is that in this scenario the fans are much quieter and the laptop never hit 40 ° C.
Huawei has tweaked the MateBook X Pro 2022 to be a refined office laptop, a significant detriment to the potential of its 12th generation Intel processor. However, you can still unlock some reasonable performance when you connect and enable Performance mode (Fn + P or via the PC Manager app).
The Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 is equipped with a 60 Wh battery, which is slightly larger than the 56 Wh of its predecessor. However, it scored lower in our continuous browsing test: 6:00 hours of continuous browsing with 100% screen brightness and 8:30 hours with 50% screen brightness. Compared to the 2021 model’s 8 hours at 100% brightness and 12:30 at 50% brightness. The older laptop could score better due to the combination of the darker display and less powerful processor.
The MateBook X Pro 2022 achieved 5:30 hours of continuous YouTube streaming at 50% brightness and 50% volume – good, but not the best in this class.
Wrap
Huawei MateBook X Pro 2022 16GB / 1TB costs € 2,199, CNY 10,999, which is roughly the same as an Apple MacBook Air M2 16GB / 1TB (€ 2,189), Dell XPS 13 Plus 16GB / 1TB ( € 2,200), cheaper than the 16 GB / 1 TB Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 (€ 2,600) and more expensive than the 16 GB / 1 TB Asus Zenbook 14X OLED (2022) (€ 1,799) – all prices are valid at the time of writing.
These are among the best laptops in this category, but there are others based on AMD as well. You can find a cheaper device if you are willing to look at previous models with 11th generation Intel or AMD 5000 series processors. Huawei’s MateBook X Pro 2021 is currently priced at $ 1,099.
Last year’s MateBook X Pro 2021 was taller than the competition thanks to its excellent screen and unmatched design and build quality. It was almost impossible to match it for the price. This year the competition has taken hold – more and more laptops are sporting the MateBook X Pro’s slim design type and stunning screen brightness.
All of which leads to the question: Is the MateBook X Pro 2022 a worthy successor to the great range? And our answer is yes, absolutely. It’s a special laptop from every angle. It has a very bright, crisp and seamless display, a great keyboard, an excellent touchpad, excellent specs and ports, and good battery life. You will be absolutely delighted to own one.
But then comes the more difficult question: Is the MateBook X Pro 2022 a great deal? We would say no. It certainly isn’t € 1,100 better than its predecessor. That’s often how things work with the latest cutting-edge technology, isn’t it? But while stocks last, we’d take the superb 1-year model and go on vacation with the rest of the money. Yolo!
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