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- If you could make the perfect laptop,
what would it include?
It'd probably have a great display,
great keyboard, great track pad,
It'd be small and portable, have plenty of power
and of course reliable battery life
and then it has all the ports you need
to connect all of your peripherals.
This is Huawei's new Matebook X Pro
and it is not the perfect laptop.
There's definitely a couple of things here
that will be deal breakers for some of you out there.
But, if your looking for a small laptop
that can go anywhere and handle almost any productivity
or entertainment need,
this is the best laptop you'll find.
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It starts with the design and materials,
which to be perfectly frank,
are a complete ripoff of Apple's MacBook Pro.
Even the color is called "Space Gray"
which is like "come on."
But, I really don't have any problem with that,
because the Matebook X Pro is well built,
it's got a smooth metal finish all around,
it's compact and portable,
it does basically everything right when it comes to design.
Even things like opening the screen with a single finger,
work just like they should.
On top of that Huawei's managed to put,
not only two USB-C ports,
one of which supports full Thunderbolt 3,
but it also has a standard USB-A port,
so I don't need a bunch of dongles
or adapters for most accessories.
And if you do need to plug in something else,
like a video cable, Huawei throws in a dongle in the box.
It gives you an HDMI port, a VGA port,
and another USB-A port.
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Now when closed, the Matebook is under 15 millimeters thick
and it weighs less than three pounds,
which makes it just as portable
as any other laptop in this class.
That makes it super easy to carry around everywhere,
whether you're on a really long commute to work,
like I've got,
or maybe you're just moving from class to class at school.
But it's obviously way more interesting when you open it,
because then you see that it has
a 13.9 inch touch-screen display,
the trimmest borders you can get.
Now Huawei says it's screen to body ratio is 91% here.
Which is more than any other laptop
and more than even most smart-phones
with edge to edge screens, like more than the iPhone 10.
It's pretty stunning to look at
and not only that, the screen's bright,
it's vibrant and it's high resolution.
It's also a three by two ratio,
which makes productivity tasks,
like working with documents
or browsing the web or multitasking way easier
than on wide screen displays that many other
Windows laptops have.
Now, this isn't a convertible laptop or tablet.
It's basically a straightforward clamshell design.
The Matebook also hits other basics out of the park.
There's a great back lit keyboard that's low profile
but not as shallow as Apple's.
It's got a giant, smooth track pad that supports
all of Windows 10's gestures
and it's power button has an integrated fingerprint scanner.
Even the four speakers are louder and clearer
than virtually any other laptop in this size range.
The hits don't stop under the hood either
because the Matebook X Pro is loaded with specs.
There's two versions you can buy.
The one has a Core i5 chip, 8 gigs of RAM
and 256 gigs of storage.
But, the model that I've been testing has
a quad Core i7 processor, 16 gigs of RAM
and 512 gigabytes of storage.
It also has an NVIDIA MX150 graphics card,
which can handle some light gaming and graphics work.
Basically the Matebook X Pro is powerful enough to
handle any sort of productivity or office task
I can throw at it.
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Now here are the two things that might be
deal breakers for some of you
but, probably aren't that big of a deal for most people.
Now, as you can see, there's no webcam
in the frame around the display
because basically there's no room for it.
So, Huawei built the webcam into this trick, pop out button
in the middle of the keyboard.
It's a wild feat of engineering.
It's a really clever solution,
because when it's closed it disables the camera,
so you don't need to put some gross tape over your webcam.
But, even as clever as this is,
it kind of sucks to use because the viewing angle's so low
and the quality of the actual camera inside isn't great.
It's the same problem Dell has with its XPS laptops,
it's all up the nose and fingers in the way
when you're on a video call.
Which means that if you have to make a lot of video calls
for work, like I do all the time,
it's going to be a bit of a problem.
Now, the other thing that might be a deal breaker for some
is the Matebook's battery life.
I wouldn't say it's bad.
I'm averaging between seven and eight hours
with my typical work flow, again lots of web browsing
Slack, Twitter, email, video watching, et cetera
and it's actually better than Dells comparable XPS 13
or the touch bar equipped MacBook Pro.
So, aside from those two points,
there really isn't anything else to complain about
with the Matebook X Pro.
Even the version of Windows 10 that's running on this
is Microsoft's Signature Edition.
So, there is no added bloatware, or annoying trial software,
like McAfee to deal with.
And here's the kicker,
I haven't even gotten to the price yet.
In Europe it's priced at 1499 Euros to start,
which converts to roughly 1800 US.
But, if you're here in the US,
the base model starts at 1200 bucks
and the fully kitted out rig that I've been testing,
is just 1500.
There's no other laptop on the market
that offers this much bang for that little buck.
Which means that if you're looking for a new laptop,
the Matebook X Pro is the best one to buy.
Hey, thanks for watching.
What do you think about the Matebook X Pro?
Be sure to let me know in the comments below.
And if you haven't seen it yet,
we have a brand new channel for Verge Science.
Be sure to check it out at youtube.com/vergescience.