Huawei MateBook Pro leaves Intel and Microsoft behind thanks to Kirin X90 and HarmonyOS 5
Huawei has already revealed its alternative to Windows and macOS on Thursday by announcing HarmonyOS 5. This operating system was demonstrated at a launch event in China, which revolved around a new laptop that Huawei simply calls the MateBook Pro.
Its design clearly resembles the MateBook X Pro from 2024, even though the keyboard does show some differences. Instead of the typical Windows button, there's a key with the HarmonyOS logo to the left of the Alt key. On the right side of the right Alt key, there's a dedicated button to launch the AI assistant that's integrated into HarmonyOS, which is reminiscent of Microsoft Copilot+.
While Huawei hasn't specified the hardware of its upcoming laptop just yet, the well-informed leaker Digital Chat Station indicates that the notebook is based on the HiSilicon Kirin X90, which is a powerful ARM chipset that's technically similar to the Kirin 9010. However, its purported 4+4+2 configuration exclusively features performance cores. Since all ten cores support multi-threading, the processor offers a total of 20 threads.
While Huawei can currently still sell laptops with Intel processors and Windows as the operating system despite US sanctions, the Chinese tech behemoth is preparing for a potential escalation in the trade war between the US and China. Apart from Apple’s MacBooks, the MateBook Pro is one of the few notebooks that doesn't rely on processors and operating systems from third parties. That said, it remains to be seen how well the Kirin X90 will actually perform. Huawei has yet to reveal a price or release date of the new MateBook Pro.
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