When choosing a premium laptop, you’ve generally got a choice between a Windows machine, and
a MacBook, with Windows laptops usually offering more performance and features at a lower price
point, and that’s the case for Huawei’s MateBook X Pro.
With a quad-core processor, 16GB of RAM, a 3K touchscreen display, 512GB of NVMe SSD
storage, full-speed Thunderbolt 3 and a dedicated graphics chip, you truly get a lot for your
$1500.
And it’s constantly on sale for just $1300, and that’s why we’re comparing it to Apple’s
$1300 2017 13” MacBook Pro, which is constantly on sale for around $1200.
We’ve got links to those sales in the description below.
We’re gonna be comparing everything we can between these two laptops, but we’ll focus
on things that affect your day-to-day experience, like the display, keyboard, trackpad, speakers
and overall usability.
By far, the biggest thing that affects your experience is the operating system, and if
you like using Windows 10, the MateBook X Pro is the obvious choice for what you get
for the money.
But there’s a big market of people who prefer macOS, for reasons like better reliability
and higher resale value, and they’re okay paying extra cash to get it.
Now for those who could really go either way, let’s compare both laptops and see which
laptop is better in each category, starting with exterior design.
The MateBook is slightly thicker near the rear, but longer and thinner near the front.
They both share a premium aluminum design which was introduced by Apple many years ago,
and the undersides look extremely similar, with cooling vents located away from the bottom,
so you can use it on your lap without worrying about overheating.
It’s already easy to see how many aspects of the MacBooks design Huawei borrowed for
the MateBook, but since they’re a Chinese company, it’s so difficult for Apple to
sue them that it’s just not worth it, at least not yet.
Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
Upon opening both laptops, you can easily see what I mean.
The MateBook almost looks like an exact copy of the MacBook.
The truth is that it sucks for Apple, but it’s great for us consumers because the
design is admittedly great.
With both laptops looking so similar in design, it’s gonna have to come down to the fine
details for the MacBook to have a chance of getting ahead.
Let’s start with the displays.
From first glance, the MateBook’s display looks many times better than the MacBooks.
The bezels are much thinner, especially at the top, thanks to the relocation of the webcam,
literally built into a popup key on the keyboard.
The resolution is higher, at 3K instead of 2.5K and what I really like about it is the
very tall 3:2 aspect ratio, which is even taller than the Macbooks 16:10 ratio, which
gives you a lot more vertical screen space compared to standard 16:9, which matters a
lot for browsing the web.
Not only that, but it’s very color accurate as well, with 100% sRGB coverage, but the
MacBook Pro takes it further with DCI-P3 wide-color gamut, which covers 25% more color space than
sRGB.
The MateBook also seems to lack contrast, with blacks looking a little bit grey compared
to deep blacks on the MacBook.
Both displays are almost identical in terms of maximum brightness, but the MateBook’s
display is also a touchscreen, which can be nice to have, but we noticed that it’s a
bit more reflective than the MacBook Pro, which can get a bit annoying in bright conditions.
However, I still think the MateBook wins out in the display category for the near-bezelless
design, and I think it was really clever to hide the webcam to be able to achieve it,
even though it makes for an unattractive up-the-nose camera angle.
I personally never use my MacBooks webcam anyway.
Now let’s get to the keyboards.
What you’ve heard about the new MacBook keys is true.
They don’t have very much key travel at all.
The MateBook’s keys remind me of how MacBooks used to be, with substantially more key travel.
It honestly just feels better to type on the MateBook, and you don’t have to worry about
the dead key problem that MacBook’s have been having, which I personally haven’t
experienced yet on any of the new MacBooks I’ve used, so I think it’s a pretty rare
problem.
The MateBook’s power button doubles as a fingerprint reader, which this model of the
MacBook Pro lacks.
To get Touch ID, you’ll need to opt for the more expensive Touch Bar model or a 2018
MacBook Air.
Before we test the speakers, let’s compare the trackpads.
They look really similar, with the Macbook’s being slightly bigger, but Apple uses Force
Touch technology, which basically utilizes a motor beneath the trackpad to simulate a
click, just like the solid state home button works on iPhone 7 and 8.
Click pressure is fully customizable, and you can basically press firmly after clicking
once to perform additional options, just like 3D Touch on recent iPhones.
The beauty of using this technology is that you get an even-clicking feel all around the
trackpad, unlike the MateBook’s trackpad, which is easy to click near the bottom and
almost unclickable near the top.
The MateBook’s trackpad is still better than most Windows laptops out there, but the
MacBook easily wins in this category.
Now let’s compare the speakers, starting with
a sound comparison.
The few things I notIced was that the highs were a lot brighter on the MacBook, making
it louder overall compared to the MateBook.
There wasn’t much of a difference in mids or bass, but the MacBook sounded more clear
compared to the MateBook, which sounds a bit flat like the various sound frequencies are
clashing together.
So in almost every scenario, the MacBook speakers sounded better, but not by too much, like
other windows laptops.
Now let’s quickly mention the ports.
Both get two USB-C ports, with both of them supporting Thunderbolt 3 on the MacBook, and
just one on the MateBook, which also gets a USB-A port, which is really convenient for
using flash drives, and that port is missing on the MacBook.
With that said, all that’s left is specs and performance.
You simply get so much more for your money with the MateBook.
A 4-core processor instead of a 2-core.
16GB of RAM compared to 8.
512GB of SSD storage compared to only 128GB of the base MacBook Pro, which is actually
a really huge deal.
We recommend MacBook users to get at least 256GB, which brings the price up to $1500,
and if you’re paying that much, you might as well pay $300 more for the 2018 Touch Bar
model instead.
Now the biggest difference is that the MateBook actually gets dedicated graphics, which you
can’t get on the MacBook Pro unless you opt for the 15” model which starts at $2400.
This was really surprising to us and it puts the MateBook a step ahead.
Comparing Geekbench 4 graphics scores, the difference in graphics performance is significant.
The quad-core processor also destroys the dual-core on the MacBook Pro, especially in
the real-world Cinebench R15 CPU test.
So what’s the rundown?
Which laptop is the better choice?
Well, if you don’t mind using Windows, the 2019 MateBook X Pro is by far the better machine
to buy for your money.
There are ways the MacBook Pro is definitely better, but it’s not nearly enough to top
the value of the MateBook.
And the best part is that it looks and feels pretty similar to the MacBook, with a much
better keyboard and display.
Now if you own an iPhone, Apple Watch, maybe an iPad or a set of AirPods, you’re going
to have a much better experience with the MacBook Pro with all of the features you get
with the Apple ecosystem.
And MacBooks generally tend to be more reliable and age better compared to Windows laptops,
so that’s another factor to consider if you plan on keeping your laptop for many years.
But for the sake of comparing the value of these two laptops, the MateBook wins, hands
down.
No doubt at all.
No competition.
If you enjoyed this comparison, make sure to hit that subscribe button, because we’re
getting our hands on the 2019 iMac really soon and we’ll be doing comparison videos
on that as well.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next video.