Just like that, the United States of America has successfully pushed Huawei into innovation overdrive. The sanctions that started six years ago have apparently done the unthinkable: birthed a new processor platform, a mobile OS, and now—drumroll, please—a desktop operating system. Yep, Huawei’s HarmonyOS just graduated from phones and tablets to full-blown laptops.
On May 19, the Chinese tech giant unveiled the Huawei MateBook Pro [CH], its first-ever laptop running HarmonyOS. Bravo, Uncle Sam. You played yourself into giving the world a third major OS. No shade to Linux, but let’s be real—it’s the tofu of operating systems. And Chrome OS? That’s the rice cake of laptops. Tasty to some, but you’re not ordering it at the main table.
Anyhoo, back to the MateBook Pro…
This thing is so thin it could moonlight as a bookmark. At just 13.5 mm thick and tipping the scales at 970 grams (2.14 lbs), it’s even lighter than a MacBook Air. The 14.2-inch OLED display is basically a window into another dimension—3.1K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 1,000 nits peak brightness, with anti-glare coatings so you can actually see what you’re doing in broad daylight.
Under the hood? Huawei’s being coy, but word on the street is it’s rocking a Kirin X90 SoC, with up to 32 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD. It’s passively aggressive in performance, helped by a foam copper vapor chamber that sounds like something from a high-end espresso machine.
The 70 Wh battery offers up to 10.2 hours of juice, and when you need a refill, the 140W fast charging has your back. You can even reverse-charge your phone like some sort of power-generous laptop deity.
With HarmonyOS 5 running the show, you get Xiaoyi the AI assistant, 150+ native apps, and seamless syncing across Huawei’s ecosystem. Pricing starts at 7,999 yuan [CH] (around US$1,100), but don’t get too excited—it’s only available in China, for now.
Still, one thing’s for sure: the MateBook Pro isn’t just Huawei’s “we’re still here” moment—it’s their mic drop. It really is. Every move US made has only accelerate the China’s tech sector’s growth and pushing US in alienating herself from the rest of world. Remember the chariot scence from Ben Hur? Well, it is playing out in real life.
Images: Huawei [CH].
