Huawei takes on the MacBook Air with their MateBook 13

The Huawei MateBook 13 could be the PC users answer to the new MacBook Air

For a company that hasn’t been making laptops for all that long, Huawei has been doing a great job. Case in point – the powerful Huawei MateBook X Pro is one of 2018’s best PC laptops. This week at CES, Huawei has announced their new MateBook 13. The MateBook 13 from Huawei is more directly poised to take on the new MacBook Air.

Huawei says that this new MateBook series is positioned somewhere been their high-performance MateBook X series and their more affordable MateBook D series. It’s designed to offer a balance between performance and portability.

Huawei takes on the MacBook Air with their MateBook 13 2

Weighing in at around 2.8lbs, the MateBook 13 is housed in an all aluminum design that is 6% smaller than the latest MacBook Air. Specifically, it measures just 14.9mm thin compared to the 15.6mm MacBook Air. It also offers a better screen-to-body ratio. Specifically, it offers an 88% screen-to-body ratio while the 2018 MacBook Air offers an 82% screen-to-body ratio.

The display itself is a FullView touchscreen display with a 2160×1440 resolution, a 100% sRGB Wide Color Gamut and 300 nits brightness. But what is especially interesting about this display is that it’s touting a 3:2 screen ratio as opposed to a more common 16:9. Huawei calls this the “productivity” ratio.

The laptop’s design also features a One Touch fingerprint power button. It’s essentially a two-in-one power button with a fingerprint reader. Its full-size keyboard is edge-to-edge, backlit, spill-proof and offers 1.2mm travel. They keyboard is complemented by a large trackpad.

Huawei MateBook 13
Huawei MateBook 13

With the MateBook 13, Huawei is introducing their first multifunctional charger. This multifunctional charger is essentially a 65W USB-C charger that can also be used as a safe charger for your smartphone. It’s also a fast charger. To that effect, it will provide 2.5 hours of power from only 15 minutes of charging.

In the box, you also get a slim Huawei dock. The dock provides you with additional ports including a USB-C port, a single USB Type A port, and HDMI.

The Huawei MateBook 13 will be available in two configurations:

  1. 8th gen i7 8565U / NVIDIA GeForce MX150 Graphics / 8GB RAM / 512GB SSD / Color: Space Gray = $1299
  2. 8th gen Core i5 / Integrated graphics/ 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD/ Color: Mystic Silver = $999

The Huawei MateBook 13 will be available to purchase in late January.