The Huawei MateBook X Pro is back for 2022

Another year, another Huawei MateBook X Pro. The long-running series of excellent laptops is back, and while Huawei has so far been light on details of the internals (11th-generation Intel Core processors is all we’ve been told for now), the externals have seen some small but significant improvements: the kind of things that make a flagship laptop’s four-figure price a bit easier to swallow.
 
First of all, it’s a little bigger. The screen is now 14.2in compared to the 13.9in display on previous models, and thanks to its super-thin bezels, that 90Hz 3,120 x 2,080 screen certainly dominates with a 92.5% screen-to-body ratio.
 
Despite that size increase, it’s still nice and portable, tipping the scales at just 1.38kg and 15.5mm thin at its thickest point (5.4mm at its thinnest, thanks to its wedge-shaped design). 
 
While most of the design changes are practical rather than cosmetic (Huawei says it has seen a 60% boost to airflow and 100% increase in heat dissipation thanks to the clever use of fans), there’s one big improvement that should come as a relief to anybody who has used a previous MateBook X Pro. The webcam has finally been moved from its novel position underneath a function key to a more conventional position at the top of the screen.

 
Yes, that does mean that the top bezel is slightly thicker to compensate (although it’s still only 6mm), but we’d rather that than a camera pointed up our nose during meetings. The under-key location was a neat party trick, but not actually that practical in day-to-day use, and it’s a good thing that Huawei has finally ditched it. With hindsight, the writing was on the wall when it didn’t appear in last year’s MateBook 14s laptop.   
 
There are a few other key points Huawei is keen to point out about the 2022 MateBook X Pro. The first is the inclusion of spatial audio, provided by the placement of six speakers within the laptop’s chassis. The second is how flexible it is on the charging front: all four USB-C ports can be used for power and there’s a 90W plug in the box for fast charging.

Finally, there’s an innovation called Huawei Free Touch, which allows what the company calls “Creative Gestures” from the laptop’s touchpad. Think video scrubbing with a swipe from left to right, volume reductions with a swipe down and screenshots via a quick double-tap.
 
How well they work in practice remains to be seen and it could be a forgettable gimmick, but from past Huawei MateBook Pro X models we know that the company makes an excellent laptop in all other respects. If the internals are up to the usual high standards, this should be another winner, assuming the company hasn’t upped the cost considerably from its usual £1,599 price point.