The Huawei MateBook X Pro still stands as our best laptop of 2018, but you can now get nearly that same level power in a nearly as pretty package, and it comes from Huawei. The firm has announced a new version of its MateBook D laptop, now with Intel and Nvidia hardware inside.
In fact, this new version of the Huawei MateBook D has the very same GPU and CPU to start as the entry-level MateBook X Pro: the Nvidia GeForce MX150 and Intel Core i5-8250U, respectively. The laptop starts at $999 (about £776, AU$1,374), and is available now on Amazon, Newegg and B&H in the US at that price.
Rounding out the configuration are the same specifications as the previously-announced AMD version of the laptop: a 14-inch, FHD (1,920 x 1,080) touchscreen, a 256GB SSD and 8GB of DDR3 memory. The processor and storage can be upgraded to an Intel Core i7 chip and 512GB of space, respectively, and Microsoft is selling that version for $1,099 (about £854, AU$1,509).
Save for the standard FHD display and containing half as much memory as the MateBook X Pro, this MateBook D is essentially just as powerful as Huawei’s flagship laptop, but costs $500 less. It’s missing the pristine shell (though it’s still metal) and super-sharp screen, but this laptop features USB-C connectivity and charging, as well as a fingerprint sensor for biometric login via Windows Hello – just like the MateBook X Pro.
The MateBook D is rated to last for up to 12 hours on a charge of nonstop video playback, which in real-life testing should land somewhere around the MateBook X Pro’s result of eight hours in our own video rundown test. If you want the power of Huawei’s flagship laptop without all of the frills (though it still has plenty of those), the MateBook D looks to be your answer.
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