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Huawei has unveiled a laptop with a folding display that serves as a tablet and another device with a more conventional form factor, both running on its own HarmonyOS operating system and bespoke processing chips, since the US-sanctioned business lost access to Microsoft Windows and Western-made processors.
Huawei’s Windows license expired in March, and the United States cancelled Intel and Qualcomm’s licenses to sell to Huawei last year when the company debuted its first AI-powered laptop with Intel processors.
By Gamuchirai Mapako
The MateBook Fold Ultimate Design includes an 18-inch OLED tablet that folds down to 13 inches and can be used as a laptop display with a separate keyboard attached to the unit via magnets, according to the firm during an event in Shenzhen.
The device is priced at 23,999 yuan ($3,326, £2,492) for the base model with 1 terabyte of storage and 26,999 yuan for 2TB. Presales begin this week, with shipments scheduled to begin on June 6.
Huawei also released a more typical MateBook Pro with a 14.2-inch screen, weighing 970 grammes, and priced between 7,999 and 10,999 yuan.
Huawei unveiled this laptop at a closed-door event at its Shenzhen headquarters earlier this month, but did not provide specifications or other details.
Both devices run HarmonyOS 5, also known as HarmonyOS Next, the most recent version of Huawei’s in-house operating system, which eliminates previous compatibility with Google’s Android and positions Huawei as a unified system across PCs, smartphones, and other connected devices.
The business was noticeably silent on the hardware that drives the new laptops, a sensitive subject after launching a flagship smartphone in 2023 with its own locally built 5G and Kirin processor cores.
However, Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, stated at the event that the relatively high prices for the new models were due to the cost of new manufacturing technology for the chipset, implying that Huawei has developed its own technology to power the laptops, confirming previous reports.
The laptops prominently use Huawei AI technology, including an AI assistant named Celia, which can do generative tasks like as summarising meeting minutes or collecting information from local documents.
Other supported applications includes WPS Office, China’s version of Microsoft Office, and Alibaba’s collaboration tool DingTalk.
Mobile apps supported include the social media app RedNote, the video-sharing app Bilibili, and the workplace collaboration tool Feishu from ByteDance.
The laptop’s interface blends desktop and smartphone aspects, with a launcher at the bottom that resembles Apple Mac computers’ dock and a home screen that may display icons, cards, and folders.
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