back to article Huawei MateBook Pro X: PC makers look out, the phone guys are here

I have one very important thing to tell you about Huawei's laptop – and it's so important, everything else about it seems like a bonus. About a decade ago, the 4:3 ratio display rapidly began to disappear from laptops, as manufacturers became obsessed about making our PCs fit for TVs and movies. "You like widescreen movies, so …

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I don't like the aspect ration

          May I introduce you to the concept of the portable DVD player???

          Comes with screen built-in - https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8625229

          Not sure if pink Disney princess theme is your thing, but plenty of others to choose from if you don't like the colour scheme...

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. MrMerrymaker

          Re: I don't like the aspect ration

          I take my chromecast to hotels, usually works in the hdmi port, and stream from my phone!

        3. PM from Hell

          Re: I don't like the aspect ration

          use a google chromecast in hotels, most hotel tv's have an hdmi port these days so if the tv itself doesn't have netflix I'll stream to the chromecast from my tablet or phone.

    1. tsf

      Re: I don't like the aspect ration

      The aspect ratio is exactly why this laptop is a breath of fresh air, if you want 16:9 pretty much every other laptop out there caters for you.

      Thankfully there seems to be a light at the end of the long dark, narrow, tunnel that has been the 16:9 obsession for years, it has stopped me upgrading for lack of choice, sticking with my ancient Lenovo T410.

      You want 16:9 knock yourself out, you want to use a laptop for work, this and the more expensive Microsoft offerings are your only options in the non Mac space. Hallelujah, maybe the IT world is returning to it's senses.

  1. Milton

    Aspect ratio common sense

    Thank goodness for some aspect ratio common sense! Although the tech industry likes to blather on about how "innovative" it is, the truth is it spends almost all its time following like sheep. The pursuit of what is fashionable is epidemic. Sometimes it is possible to believe that "What's fashionable?" is equivalent to "What are the stupid people all doing now?"

    A hi-res 3:2 screen sounds excellent for serious work and let's face it, if you're looking for a latop with a lot of TV/movies/YouTube in mind, you wouldn't buy this anyway. One of the bigger widescreen tablets capable of doing all the entertainment stuff would give you about the same overall width (not diagonal) anyway, and cost a fraction of the laptop's price (unless you're paying the Idiot Tax).

    As well as signs that actual thinking is occurring in laptop world, we have encouraging murmurs from the East that the obsessive, lemming-like adherence to of the Apple phone form factor is finally being broken, as flip-phones return*¹. Plus, thank the heavens, not everyone has decided to copy the inane Hideous Notch of Cretinism. There may be hope ...

    *¹ Where is my Westworld laptabphoneputer?!*²

    *² And does it come with a free Sarafyan ...?

  2. Luke Worm
    Linux

    Beautiful machine! Does it run Linux?

    1. Laughing Gravy

      First thing I looked for and yes it does so on my shopping list

    2. Teiwaz

      Beautiful machine! Does it run Linux?

      You mean does it come with 'Linux as an option (low odds on that one)

      Or can it run 'Linux if you install it yourself

      (depends what distro you intend to use, and if there are any odd hardware component choices by Huawei)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Does it run Linux?

      ... or, "If I install Linux, will there be drivers in the kernel for all the various hardware subsystems?"

      In my experience, the wifi hardware is usually the most annoying.

      1. DanceMan

        Re: the wifi hardware in Linux

        In my recent experience installing Win 7 and Linux Mint in older Thinkpads, Windows is the OS that has a problem with wifi hardware. Not a problem in linux, several problems in Windows. There were issues years or a decade ago, but none for me recently in linux.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: the wifi hardware in older vs newer laptops.

          Running linux (IME) can be tricky if you have new hardware (the context of the article), since the driver may be too new to have a robust open source driver, and/or the driver there is isn't yet in the standard kernel; on the other hand old drivers take a long time to be removed.

          But it doesn't surprise me that Windows has the opposite problem, and doesn't bother to retain support for the 50 bazillion types of old hardware that might (or more probably might not) ever be encountered when installing. But as a business, they - and the hardware manufacturer - make sure that machines shipped with windows have all the drivers, even for the newest and most exotic hardware.

          1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

            Re: the wifi hardware in older vs newer laptops.

            The wifi driver is not in the kernel that ships in the 18.04 LTS images (inc Mint 19) but it is in the live update line. This means that you need to install and then perform updates using a wired connection (USB dongle). Once the kernel is fully updated the wifi works.

            There is also an issue with the 4 speaker system, only 2 work straight off but one user claims a fix. The camera works fine, the fingerprint reader doesn't.

          2. Wayland

            Re: the wifi hardware in older vs newer laptops.

            If Haewei build Android phones then they've probably considered Android and Linux on this. They would not want to be boxed in by Microsoft.

    4. Wayland
      Thumb Up

      It's a PC of course it runs Linux.

  3. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

    Woohoo! And bum.

    The former as this is another nail in the coffin of the 16:9 fixation in the tech industry. The latter because the RAM is soldered on the main board. Battery appears to be replaceable though.

    If it were whiskey lake (which has some hardware spectre & meltdown mitigations) I think I'd be opening my wallet for this despite the RAM. I just might anyway. Time to read up on getting Mint on it.

    1. Laughing Gravy

      Re: Woohoo! And bum.

      Runs Ubuntu so Mint shouldn't be a problem

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Papa can you hear me?

    Is this not slurping our data and sending it back home to the Chinese gov?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Papa can you hear me?

      The CPU is made in Israel and we all know they are a front for the milk marketing board !

      1. Random Handle

        Re: Papa can you hear me?

        >we all know they are a front for the milk marketing board !

        Watch out there's a Humphrey about

      2. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: Papa can you hear me?

        The CPU is made in Israel

        The colony of Kiryat Gat in particular, on the rubble of the Palestinian village of Iraq al-Manshiyya.

        Not only that, it also seems to have vPro/AMT. Enough has been said about that already.

        1. Wayland

          Re: Papa can you hear me? The CPU is made in Israel

          The Israeli's maybe murdering racist lying tyrannical bastards who think they are God's gift to the world but they do know how to make a good CPU so i'll give them a pass.

  5. Buzzword

    8GB of RAM seems to be the UK limit

    The 16GB variant is hard to find. (There's one on Amazon from a third-party seller, but it's very expensive and appears to have a US keyboard, so probably a grey import.) Alas, 8GB of RAM precludes any serious work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 8GB of RAM seems to be the UK limit

      Unless you're doing video editing, or lots of VM's 8gb is fine for most work.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 8GB of RAM seems to be the UK limit

      Another argument for sticking Linux on it then :)

    3. Stork Silver badge

      Re: 8GB of RAM seems to be the UK limit

      Could you please stop that BS about 8GB precluding any serious work? Perhaps _your_ work; my wife and I are using Macs with 8GB, running a business which is the main income for us and 4 employees. That is serious enough to me. /rant

      Sounds like a machine worth checking if we change to Linux.

  6. MiguelC Silver badge

    Please select your country / region to buy HUAWEI MateBook X Pro

    Europe

    Austria

    Denmark

    Finland

    Norway

    Poland

    Sweden

    Hmm... It seems some countries are missing from that list.....

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Please select your country / region to buy HUAWEI MateBook X Pro

      Brexit already? xD

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's the point of 3:2

    When the screen is still so tiny? Based on the dimensions, the keyboard would only be suitable for someone with small hands like Trump.

    Why not give us something as wide as a 16:9 14" laptop but make the screen taller to get to 3:2. Then you get something like 16", and it is wide enough for normal sized keys!

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: What's the point of 3:2

      like Trump

      Are you sure he knows how to use one?

    2. juice

      Re: What's the point of 3:2

      Eh? It's a 13.9" screen; in what world is that considered small? Looking at the specs, the dimensions are pretty much identical to the Macbook Pro, and the keyboard looks to be roughly the same dimensions/layout, too.

      And having just scribbled on the back of a fag packet, if you crop it down to 16:9, the diagonal on a 13.9" 3:2 screen is roughly 13.7 inches. So you're 'losing' barely a third of an inch as compared to an equivalent 14" 16:9 display.

      There's a few situations where 0.3" allegedly makes a significant difference, but the display on a laptop seems unlikely to be one of them ;)

  8. Julian Bradfield

    No mouse buttons, it seems - is there at least a virtual middle mouse button?

    1. John 62

      just tap!

      single finger tap for primary mouse button action (aka left-click), two finger tap for secondary mouse button action (aka right-click). Apple allows three finger tap as well, but I've never used it. If you're stuck I'm assuming Windows provides for keyboard-click combos, like holding down CTRL or ALT and clicking to simulate a middle-mouse-button click.

      See another of my comments for the wonderful-ness of tap-n-drag with drag lock.

      When I discovered tap-to-click on my ancient Compaq Pentium 100 laptop I wondered why a trackpad was ever designed with buttons.

  9. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    Too slim

    Yes, it looks shiny, but for a business laptop make it thicker and at the very least stick in a network port. Make the battery swapable, preferably hot swapable.

    Stick in HDMI or display port.

    Two USB-C is 'good'? Not on this planet it isn't. Why has the world moved from the days of yore where you'd use a PCMCIA NIC with a huge RJ45/coax connector to network your laptop, through sensible days of built in ports, back to a dongle for absolutely everything.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Never mind the quality

        "It's since we all became obsessed with width "

        Never mind the quality, feel the width!

        (I suspect a fair few commentards will be old enough to get the reference)

    2. Stork Silver badge

      Re: Too slim

      Most of my work is done in browsers, spreadsheet and email. I only use rj45 when we have problems with the property's network. Ports sound ok for my use. But as I travel and at times have to do some work waiting for planes or kids, low weight and volume is appreciated.

      Linus had an MacBook Air, right?

    3. Cavehomme_

      Re: Too slim

      Missing an SD card slot too.

      All in all, still not good enough. Sigh.

  10. Gonzo wizard

    So close

    1. Linux support?

    2. 32Gb RAM?

    1. Wayland

      Re: So close

      Linux support? Surely Linux users support ourselves.

      RAM and storage should be removable. I dunno if it is.

      USB 3 would be good.

  11. Chz
    Stop

    Port Pedantry

    " It includes two USB-C ports, one of which supports Thunderbolt, but still remembers to include a legacy USB 3.0 port."

    USB 3.0 is a deprecated standard. There is USB 3.1(Gen 1 - previously known as USB 3.0) and USB3.1(Gen 2). I'd let that slide, except that is not what you meant. Even I think it's being too pedantic to bitch about 3.0 vs 3.1 Gen 1 because everyone knows what you mean. I'm pointing it out because I'm already posting about the bigger mistake in the picture here.

    It has a USB-A port, as well as its two USB-C ports. USB 1, 2, 3, 3.1 are not physical port standards. It is perfectly possible (see most phones) to have a USB-C port that only provides the USB 2.0 protocol over it. No excuse for a publication like The Reg to get that incorrect. And naughty on Huawei, who should know better, for also calling it a USB 3.0 port.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Port Pedantry

      USB-C

      USB Type-C.

      It is perfectly possible (see most phones) to have a USB-C port that only provides the USB 2.0 protocol over it.

      But the most notorious IMO is OnePlus.

      Supposedly an enthusiast's phone brand and USB 2.0?!

  12. Not previously required

    Same price as Dell?

    On Amazon (only for price comparison purposes) seems same price as for equivalent Dell XPS 13 touch version. Dell is 100g lighter. There are multiple options for both so comparison is a bit hit and miss.

    My deliberately non-touchscreen Dell XPS 13 claims a battery life of 22hrs and is probably near that for simple browsing and word processing. It dual boots Windows and Linux. It has a fingerprint plus power button that allows one touch entry, but only in Windows. It's pure USB C, done properly I think. USB-A adaptor in pack.

    As far as I know, Dell kit does not phone home. Not in Linux anyway.

    So not clear what the excitement is yet?

  13. Dave K

    There's a lot to like, but I have two main concerns with it.

    Firstly, although the aspect ratio of the screen is lovely, touch screen = glossy. It's a pity that a none-touch matte version isn't available for people like me that hate glossy screens and have no interest in finger prints all over the LCD.

    The other concern I have is with the trackpad. It's HUGE! I already have issues with my wife's Samsung laptop where it's not possible to type without constantly catching the trackpad. I fear this one may suffer from the same issue.

  14. lvm
    Facepalm

    Very impressive. There is a flaw though, and a big one - the screen may be 4:3, but it is a shiny one.

  15. John 62

    Trackpad

    "The massive trackpad was also welcome. Huawei said it was so you could drag an item across the full display, something professional and business users need."

    TL;DR: tap and drag with drag lock and acceleration for the win.

    The trackpad on the 2018 MBP is too big. Sometimes I wonder why the trackpad isn't responding and it's because the base of my left thumb is resting on the edge of the trackpad. Anyway. Long, long ago, back when I bought a 2nd hand Compaq Pentium 100 laptop, I discovered tap-and-drag and now I can't use a trackpad without it: on the Mac the setting has become hidden in the Accessibility Preferences > Mouse & Trackpad > Trackpad options > Enable dragging with drag lock. With drag lock set you can tap, lift your finger, put it back down, then start dragging things, then this is the genius bit: lift your finger and get relative movement instead of absolute! i.e. you can drag something all the way across the screen, in fact you can drag something as far as the screen compositor will allow, with a few taps and only moving your finger an inch each time. When you're finished dragging, you can single tap to leave drag mode. It's similar to using a mouse and lifting the mouse while your finger is holding down the mouse button.

    Further, I also think trackpads on Windows systems have the same option for acceleration, so fast movements of your finger move the cursor further than slower movements meaning you shouldn't be relying on absolute positioning anyway.

  16. John 62

    key travel

    I have become accustomed to the 2018 MBP's shallow keys and much prefer it to my 2011 MBP's keyboard.

  17. John Sturdy
    FAIL

    Mostly nice, but can't an on/off switch be just that?

    So with the fingerprint reader in the on/off button, if you need to read a fingerprint again once the machine is running, can you do that without it taking it as "off" and switching itself off again? Maybe short touch for fingerprints, long for on/off? Or touch vs push?

    I get annoyed with my work laptop (Dell) putting the power light inside the on/off button, so if you want to see whether you've held it down long enough yet, you have to put your finger only half-way on the button as otherwise it covers the light up.

    And thinking of accessibility for the blind, separate buttons for "on" and "off" so you don't have to be able to see the display or take some other action to find out, to know whether you're switching it on or off, would surely be better anyway.

    That's one of the aspects in which my first ever laptop, an Epson PX-8, was more advanced than most that have come after it: a proper slider switch with a positive action for on/off. You knew where you were with that! Not that in fact I have a problem with switching laptops on or off accidentally, but still putting more functions into that one control seems a bit like expecting your car's ignition key to control the windscreen wipers too. (The other way it beat modern laptops was that it had a carrying handle built in.)

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it cheaper without Windows ?

    Is the first question I was thinking .....

  19. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921
    WTF?

    If it doesn't have a removable battery, I'm not interested.

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