Huawei MateBook X Pro (2021) Review: A Sleek and Vibrant Notebook
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 28, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Notebooks
- Intel
- Huawei
- Laptops
- Matebook X Pro
- Tiger Lake
Power and Storage Performance
The Intel Core i7-1165G7 inside the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2021 is a quad-core 11th Generation Tiger Lake processor, and is part of Intel’s top Core i7 family for notebooks. It is technically the lowest member of that family, being around 100-200 MHz lower on the CPU and 100 MHz lower on the GPU. Those integrated graphics though are technically Intel’s best, offering 96 Execution Units of the latest Xe-LP generation. The CPU is paired with 16 GB of LPDDR4X-4266, which is the best memory for any mobile processor in this generation.
The main competition for a processor like this is anything under AMD’s Ryzen 7 lineup, either the R7 4700U (a Zen 2 processor) or the R7 5800U (a Zen 3 processor). However, as is often the case with laptops, it comes down to what exactly the processor is tuned for. Intel lists the TDP range for its 11th Generation Tiger Lake U-series processors as anywhere from a 15 W TDP up to a 50 W all-core turbo.
In our power testing, we took a number of tests during our regular benchmark suite, using the operating system default power modes while plugged in, and here are some insights.
If we just look at a high performance environment, we get a 38 W peak power consumption for the processor, which over the course of 20 seconds decreases to around 18 W, then over the course of 40 seconds moves down to a steady state of 15 W. This is Intel’s Adaptix technology in action, where the peak power of the CPU is adjusted on the fly through a weighted moving average. We saw 4.7 GHz as a peak single core frequency, and then at sustained 15 W load, the processor was running at 1900-2000 MHz.
By contrast, our 3DPM test is also a good computational load, however it does 10 seconds of high performance followed by 10 seconds of idle.
In this test we only see a peak at 29 W, with the CPU moving to a more steady state power consumption over the 10 seconds of each test. It never gets there before the idle time comes in, which restores some of the power budget, ready to turbo up a big higher for the next cycle. This is also an all-core test, and we saw all-core frequencies around 2400-2500 MHz for this.
The software we use unfortunately was not able to record a temperature reading (our results files say 28ºC for everything), but during regular use on a lap, the unibody metallic chassis did get warm to the touch, but not uncomfortably so. For anyone doing extended video editing on this, it is probably worth putting it on the table, and not trapped inside the duvet.
Storage Performance
Inside the Huawei MateBook X Pro 2021 is a mainstream high-end PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe drive: the 1 TB Samsung PM981a, which we reviewed back in 2017, and at the time it set the bar for how TLC-based drives should behave for well-rounded performance.
Compared to a good number of similar devices we have tested recently, the Huawei MateBook X Pro comes out near the top on storage performance. It loses losing mostly to the MSI Presige 14 Evo, but that has a slightly faster processor and a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, but also because that device was one of Intel’s flagship design wins for this generation.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
84 Comments
View All Comments
star-affinity - Saturday, October 2, 2021 - link
What? The MacBook's with their all-aluminum enclosure are more fragile than X1C?gund8912 - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
I am still using my 2015 MBP with 5 hours battery life, any windows laptop from 2015 would have 10 mins battery life with fan running at full speed like a jet engine.MobiusPizza - Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - link
Mac OS is a different ecosystem altogether. An average consumer who is looking for Windows laptop will not naturally go and look at Mac Books, just like an average consumer looking at Mac Books will not naturally go and compare with Windows laptops.So any detailed comparison between the two is moot. It's much better to compare in the same ecosystem.
lmcd - Thursday, September 30, 2021 - link
Not much of a bite, you failed to refute the core problem with the prior post. No one is working on a single monitor in a corporate environment and also being specced out a brand-new $1000+ laptop.Where on earth have you been?
sibuna - Thursday, September 30, 2021 - link
This clearly isn't true. New deployments for us are a single 22" monitor. and an HP zbook CAD/standard depending on role.sibuna - Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - link
laptops being used 95% at a desk is prob an understatement, its prob closer to 99%. All we issue is laptops unless its going into a lab. they are almost always docked and if they are not actually docked someone is using one someplace else plugged into the wall. About the only time they are not is in meetings for an hour or so doing a presentation.the other great point is ya a MPA is not powering 2-3 displays when docked like basically every windows laptop does
markiz - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
Any particular reason you don't deploy desktops then? Give laptops only to those that travel and work from home?star-affinity - Saturday, October 2, 2021 - link
” Macs are *horrible* to use in a corporate environment.”Are they?
It's not early 21st century anymore. :)
Yet I've been dealing with Macs in a corporate environment during this time, and it has been that bad despite many web based business tools requiring the use of Internet Explorer. Citrix and Microsoft Remote Desktop has helped. Well, those days are gone. Heck, even Internet Explorer isn't much of a thing anymore. :)
At least it depends on what software tools the corporate environment you're using – you definitely can have a corporate environment where Macs work well. You can have a corporate environment without relying on Microsoft products at all just as well has you can have a corporate environment that use a lot of Microsoft products.
dandar - Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - link
Hardly anyone cross-shops windows laptops with macbooks. Direct competitor is Dell XPS or HP Envy. I'd pick either of those over this XPS13 knock-off anyday.Operandi - Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - link
Our team works in enterprise and actually does have a mix of Macbooks and Windows (HP mostly) machines but I agree thats probably not very common. And to really be able to do anything most of us need access to Windows tools so that usually means a VDI.I really like the look of this Huawei. Seems to hit on most of the things I really look for, build quality, keyboard, and display.