Tuesday, June 28

Huawei MateBook reviewed: A Surface clone that puts style first, work second

Another company is getting into the hybrid space. Chinese manufacturer Huawei, known primarily for its smartphones, released the MateBook for people who want tablet features in a device that can also stand in for your regular laptop. There's a bunch of competition in this space: Microsoft has its Surface line of two-in-ones and the Surface Book; Lenovo has its new ThinkPad X1 hybrid along with its Yoga series; HP and Dell each have their own entrants; and you can even lump Apple into this category with its iPad Pro devices, too.

With its first two-in-one, Huawei tried to make the MateBook stand out. The 12-inch tablet is powered by Core M processors, has a side fingerprint sensor, and has keyboard, pen, and docking accessories to suit every type of user. But really, what it comes down to is the twofold experience of using a hybrid: How well does it work as a tablet, and how well does it work as a laptop? If any hybrid is lacking in either respect, it'll be hard to make a case for spending hundreds of dollars on it. Thanks to steep competition, Huawei's $699 MateBook has an uphill battle to set itself apart from the competition.

Look and feel

Huawei's MateBook takes notes from the playbooks of Microsoft's Surface line and Samsung's TabPro S. The tablet itself is a 12-inch rectangle with a 2160 x 1440, IPS touchscreen display surrounded by a 10mm bezel. It has a metal unibody design so there's no hardware interrupting the satin-finished back of the device (there isn't even a rear camera, which is important to note if you have a habit of taking photos with your tablet). The tablet alone weighs just 1.5 pounds (or about 690 grams) and measures 6.9mm thick, so it is heavier than the iPad Air 2 (.95 pounds) and just a hair thicker than that device as well (6.6mm).

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