[Answer] How good are Huawei MateBook laptops?

[Answer] How good are Huawei MateBook laptops?

In terms of positioning, Huawei’s MateBook line mainly targets the mid-to-high-end market. In product style, market positioning, specifications, and even pricing, it is highly similar to Microsoft’s Surface Book, making it a strong competitor to the Surface lineup both in China and globally. Both Huawei and Microsoft entered the laptop industry relatively late, especially at a time when the notebook market as a whole was already in gradual decline, while traditional manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP were seeing continued weakness in their businesses. Under such circumstances, and particularly when hardware configurations and software systems are not fundamentally different, the only way to secure a place in the market is through sufficient innovation and distinctive features.

The modern attempt at redefining laptops began with Microsoft’s Surface. When the Nokia phone business that Microsoft had acquired lost hope, Microsoft tried to open up the market through the larger-screen Surface line. Conceptually, Surface borrowed from the strengths of both Apple’s iPad and Mac. Although the first two generations of Surface could not really be called major sales successes, they laid the foundation for a new concept of Windows devices that combined office work and entertainment in one machine. At the same time, Microsoft’s Surface products that competed directly with the iPad—running embedded hardware and tablet versions of Windows—failed completely, and Microsoft also abandoned some of its earlier software-and-hardware ambitions. By contrast, Surface’s competitive advantages over Mac laptops became more apparent. Lighter, thinner, more powerful, and more flexible, Surface gained popularity with each generation of improvements. In addition to the Surface Pro, the new Surface Book was gradually launched as well, and with the natural advantage of the widely accepted Windows system, plus an Apple-like pursuit of refined design and craftsmanship, it began to carve out market share.

What differs about Huawei is that it has also achieved success in the smartphone business. Although its laptop business can be seen as learning from and imitating Microsoft, Huawei’s success in smartphones undoubtedly provides strong endorsement for its laptops. This helps make up for Huawei’s lack of its own operating system compared with Microsoft, while its somewhat lower pricing strategy gives it a better cost-performance image. Of course, while the mantis stalks the cicada, the oriole waits behind: behind Huawei stands Xiaomi, watching closely. Xiaomi named its laptop series Air and Pro, much like Apple, and their appearance is also more similar to Apple’s, making its ambitions quite obvious—and that is not meant in a negative sense.

In terms of performance, Huawei MateBook laptops are fairly standard and unexceptional. Technically, in addition to learning from pioneers such as Microsoft and Apple, Huawei also draws on experience accumulated in the smartphone sector. But overall, considering that Huawei’s laptop business is in fact making use of the brand premium established by its phone business, although its pricing is lower than Microsoft’s full product line, its value for money is not especially high. By comparison, MagicBook under Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has become more popular because of its lower pricing strategy.

In terms of target positioning, both Surface and MateBook belong to the category of business laptops, featuring long battery life and solid performance, but they are relatively weak—very weak—in gaming and heat dissipation. They are better suited to office work, programming, and other business or technical applications, and are not ideal for graphic design or for players of large-scale games.