Huawei and Honor aren't learning from their outdated webcam mistakes

Back in 2018, Huawei introduced the 13.9-inch MateBook X Pro with a unique webcam that pops up from the keyboard. Though it was neat from a conceptual point of view, the camera angle was not optimal. We suspect that Huawei didn't want to put the webcam above the screen in order to minimize the bezels around the display as much as possible.

Now that it's 2020, webcams below the display have been falling out of flavor for everyone except Huawei and Honor. The latest MateBook X Pro and upcoming MagicBook Pro, for example, employ the same keyboard pop-up cameras that we loathed two years ago. There's no reason why the manufacturers couldn't address this problem in the two years since the original MateBook X Pro reveal.

The Chinese OEM could have followed on the footsteps of Dell in regards to the webcam. Older XPS laptops would employ webcams that were below the display which were subsequently ridiculed by users as the "nosecam". Dell fixed this issue a couple of years later by working with webcam developers for an ultra-narrow webcam module that can fit along the top edge of the screen again without increasing the thickness of the bezel.

Maybe the pop-up keyboard camera made sense back in 2018, but competing OEMs like Dell and HP are proving that laptops don't need to compromise webcam positioning anymore for super-narrow bezels. The MateBook X Pro and upcoming MagicBook Pro already look outdated from this point of view.