“We have faced tough times, but we have not been discouraged”. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei, thus opens the first (unofficial) event of the Mobile World Congress 2022. The reference is to the pandemic, of course, but also to the storm that the Chinese company has recently faced. And in fact Yu adds: “I appreciate your support, thank you for being with us”.
“Let’s remind the world of who we were, and that we could return.” On social media, especially on Twitter, it often happens to read this phrase, associated with a different meme every time. It is a way to remember a moment from the past that you are particularly homesick for, or that you have particularly moved. It’s a saying that Huawei, if you think about it, could build dozens of tweets. One of these, in particular, concerns the Mobile World Congress, the important tech fair canceled for two years by the pandemic.
The last memory of the fair in attendance, at least the most memorable, is that of the CEO Richard Yu, who holds the future in his hands: the Mate X, Huawei’s first foldable and one of the first folding smartphones ready to be put on the market. It was 2019, Huawei filled the Italian Pavilion set up in the center of Barcelona and consolidated its growing global power: the Chinese company had conquered 15% of the smartphone market. In the ranking of manufacturers (for shipped smartphones), Huawei took third place behind Samsung and Apple.
Then came the Trump ban and an inevitable downturn. The latest figures are merciless: Huawei’s market share, as far as the smartphone market is concerned, has collapsed to 3%. Many expected – even after Biden’s decision to extend the ban – that the company could collapse. But in China, in the Shenzen headquarters, no one ever gave the impression of giving up.
So here we are, in Barcelona, listening to Richard Yu introducing new products, as if time hadn’t passed. “Let us remind the world of who we were”, in fact. It seems like yesterday, in short, but some things do not live on nostalgia alone. In the conference room of the Hyatt hotel, today, there is no glittering smartphone to blind the gaze of those present.
There are other products that look very interesting on paper, including the company’s first ereader – the MatePad Paper – which can potentially scare Amazon’s Kindle. But there is not that wow effect that the Chinese company had accustomed us to. Days before the fair, in the uncontrolled territory of indiscretions, what was anticipated by Huawei as a “Super Device” had been misunderstood, not wrongly: the name actually suggested a new, important device. But in Barcelona we discovered that in reality this Super Device is an ecosystem: a software update, in short, which allows Huawei devices to connect and exchange information in a simple and immediate way, to offer the user greater productivity and creativity, especially in movement.
Let’s take some examples, to understand how the Chinese company imagines its Smart Office. By connecting a smartphone to a notebook (or PC), the contents of the latter appear in a dedicated window on the desktop. You can copy and move the files from one device to another, as you would do with any software for drag and drop, but the novelty is that (if desired) the changes made to these files, on the PC, will be immediately effective also on the smartphone. In addition, it will be possible to open up to three applications installed on the phone directly on the PC.
Another example: the connection between a PC and a tablet, a Huawei MatePad. In this case, in addition to managing and editing files in real time, the PC monitor can be replicated on the tablet, for a design work that includes the use of a smart pen, for example, or extends to the MatePad, which can be used as a second monitor for more workspace.
The new features promised by the Super Device are already available, from today, for all those who update the PC Manager software to the new version 12.0.2.
On the other hand, the Super Device technology will already be present on the new products that Huawei has unveiled in Barcelona to enrich what the company defines as a “Seamless AI Life”, that is to say an intelligent and interconnected life experience not only from the point of view. in terms of work but also in terms of entertainment, health, travel and smart home.
A smartphone is missing, we said, but there is the new top-of-the-range notebook, called Huawei MateBook X Pro. If there is one thing in which Huawei has pleasantly surprised in recent years, it is the growth on the notebook front, with elegant products. , with a minimal design, very light, characterized by sturdy and pleasant to the touch materials. And from a display with an excellent screen-to-body ratio. The new MateBook X Pro is no exception, which responds to all these characteristics, improving them compared to previous models: the thickness of the body (closed) is really reduced, it goes from 5.4 mm on the front to 15.5 mm on the part. back where there is the zipper. The weight makes the back and arms happy: only 1.38 kg. The display (touch) is also remarkable, with a screen / body ratio that reaches 92.5%. The MateBook X Pro, with 16GB of Ram, 1T of storage and Intel i7 processor, will go on sale at a price of 1899 euros.
The MateBook series is also enriched with a new 2-in-1, the MateBooK E, also light (709 grams) and thin (7.99 mm). It is the first Huawei laptop with an OLED screen, offering a maximum screen brightness of 600 nits. Like all 2-in-1s, it can be used as a tablet – in combination with the M-Pencil – or as a notebook thanks to its smart magnetic keyboard.
We were previously talking about the aesthetic refinement of Huawei products. It is something evident in the new MateStation X all-in-one PC, with Real Color FullView display, which does not look as slim as the recent iMacs but has a gem on the back, where all the ports are hidden from view, intelligently arranged between the rear body of the display and the bracket that supports it. The 28.2-inch screen has an enviable screen-to-body ratio of 92%. The MateStation X (16Gb + 1T) will go on sale at a price of 2199 euros.
Among the “Super Devices” – intended as a device that can increase its efficiency by connecting to others – presented in Barcelona by Huawei, the most curious and surprising is perhaps the MatePad Paper, the first ereader designed by the Shenzen company. The E Ink display is large, reaching 10.3 inches, and has a body-to-screen ratio of 86.3%. In a slide of the presentation, the MatePad Paper was compared to another ereader, in all likelihood an Amazon Kindle: the area occupied by the display of the Huawei device would be three times greater than that of its competitor. Higher performance, at least on paper, calls for higher prices. And in fact the new MatePad Paper, 4GB of Ram and 64GB of storage, will cost 499 euros. The M-Pencil and the cover for the device will be included in the price.
