If you’ve ever used an e-ink display, it was probably on something like an Amazon Kindle. They have a few advantages over normal displays, though they’re very specific. They’re capable of wide viewing angles with a really low power draw and exceptional daylight visibility, but the advantages stop right about there. Aside from their intended purpose — reading text — e-ink displays are not really good for anything else. They have low refresh rates, image ghosting, and are typically monochromatic. Huawei recently launched the MatePad Paper, but the interesting thing is that it runs HarmonyOS, meaning that you can sideload Android apps on it, too.

Note that during the course of this review, Huawei contacted me and told me that a software update would be rolled out to fix a number of problems that had been reported, and asked me if I could wait before publishing this review. Most of this review was written on that older software version, but where problems have been fixed, I have said as much.

Should you buy the MatePad Paper? It’s complicated. If what you want is a premium e-reader with more versatility than just a Kindle, then the MatePad Paper is worth a look. If you also want to take notes using the included pen, it’s good for that too, though I’m not sure why you’d want to. It’s a bit of a random feature to have, to be honest.

However, if all you want to do is read books and you don’t care how, then honestly, just get something cheaper. This is far too expensive for just reading books and comes in at over twice the price of the Kindle Oasis. For context, a Kindle Oasis (the highest-end Kindle on the market) costs €229. The Huawei MatePad Paper retails for €499 in Europe, which is significantly more expensive. Huawei’s offering will give you more features and last just as long, but it’s up to you if it’s worth the additional investment.

About this hands-on: Huawei sent us the Huawei MatePad Paper on the 30th of March, 2022. The company did not have any input into the contents of this hands-on.

Huawei MatePad Paper: Specifications

The Huawei MatePad Paper isn’t a normal tablet

The Huawei MatePad Paper is an interesting device for a number of reasons, and there’s a lot to like about it. It’s a neat blend between an Amazon Kindle and an Android tablet, and Huawei is positioning it to be exactly that. It’s significantly more expensive though too, which is why there’s more than just the device itself.

In the box, you get both the Huawei M-Pencil and the Huawei Folio case. If you don’t want to use the tablet with the folio case, the tablet has a larger bezel on the left side for holding it while using your right hand to switch between pages. The M-Pencil can be used for taking notes, and it’s instantaneous when writing on the display. You also get access to AppGallery, meaning there’s a pretty wide selection of apps to choose from, and you can install APK files too online.

To be clear, given that it’s an e-ink display, you’re going to have a very different experience than a typical Android-based device. We tried loading Genshin Impact on it to have some fun, and the results were less than desirable. Some other apps barely work, and the low refresh rate makes any kind of scrolling difficult to achieve. I was able to connect the device to my computer and control it using scrcpy on an older software version, though an update received on the tablet recently broke it.

The tablet itself comes with a pair of speakers that are optimized for spoken word, and not for playback of normal media such as music. Think podcasts and audiobooks.

Other hardware includes the power button doubling up as a fingerprint sensor, a backlight for the display with 32 different levels of brightness, and the screen itself has a paper-like texture. This makes it comfortable for swiping on and writing on, making it feel a little bit more authentic than just a normal tablet. The beauty of e-ink as well is that it’s easier to use in direct lighting, meaning that you can take it outside in the sun and not have any visibility problems in using it.

HarmonyOS modified for e-ink

Huawei’s software is quite heavily modified for this display, and you can take a look at some of the screenshots below. Screenshots come out in full color, though the entire UI is designed to be completely monochrome, anyway. It’s nicely laid out for the display and looks really good.

Using this device as an actual e-reader wasn’t possible for me before the most recent software update. Lots of book browsing options didn’t load, except for the ones that did — but only in Spanish. This was rectified, and while I still get a load of Spanish suggestions when browsing the book store, there are also English-language options too that weren’t there previously.

However, I’ve also found that you can load ePub files and others through the likes of ReadEra to great effect, and it’s just as good of an experience as it would be on a Kindle. You can export books from services such as Kobo for use on your Huawei MatePad Paper if you want to read an ePub file. I installed ReadEra using Aurora Store sideloaded, though the official Huawei Books app will open them just fine. The screen itself is rather annoying and cumbersome to navigate, so I used adb to install the Aurora Store APK file rather than downloading it on the device like I normally would.

ReadEra - book reader pdf, epub, word (Free, Google Play) →

A sophisticated Kindle

The Huawei MatePad Paper is an interesting product that’s essentially just a sophisticated Kindle, and I’m not sure how much of an appeal that really holds. It’s expensive, but it’s also a more premium experience than you’ll find pretty much anywhere else readily available. The hardware is fantastic, the speakers are loud and clear, and even the software is more versatile than you’ll get on other devices. If you’ve ever used a Kindle, you’ll get the MatePad Paper.

Is it all worth it, though? It depends. I found that Huawei’s own bookstore was rather limited, and I’d highly recommend using ePub files or other proprietary formats that you can read on Android through the use of third-party apps. The official Huawei books app can actually open them too, though if you’re going to go out of your way to export books from other services, you may as well use a more customizable — not to mention better — e-reader app. The Huawei Books app integrates with the system and essentially pins books to your launcher, so that’s admittedly going to be a better option if all you want to do is open a book and read it.

Given that it’s Android, you can also install Android apps, and those apps include the likes of Genshin Impact. Given the display’s low refresh rate, no games are playable. In fact, even using apps that scroll are pretty painful. Just because it works doesn’t mean you should do it, is basically the lesson learned here.

Overall, this leaves the Huawei MatePad Paper in a weird place. I like it a lot, but the price is hard to justify except for the most niche use cases. No matter though, it’s a premium hardware experience, and it’s enjoyable for what it sets out to do.

If you’re looking for a more conventional tablet experience, we’d recommend checking out recommended iPads and Android tablets.

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Huawei was one of the first Android OEMs to jump on the foldable bandwagon. The company started off its foldable journey with the Huawei Mate X in 2019 and followed up with a successor in the form of the Huawei Mate X2 last year. Now the Chinese company is gearing up to launch a new foldable, dubbed the Huawei Mate XS 2.

In a recent post on its official Weibo account, Huawei confirmed the launch date of the Huawei Mate XS 2. As per the announcement, the phone will launch on April 28 in China. Huawei didn’t reveal much about the phone itself, including its hardware and design. However, going by the naming convention, the Huawei Mate XS 2 could be an upgraded version of the last year’s Mate X2 — much like how the Mate XS was an improved version of the Mate X.

While Huawei has remained tight-lipped about the Mate XS 2’s specs and other details, a recent leak from known tipster Teme gives us a pretty solid idea as to what to expect from the phone. According to the leaked renders shared by Teme, the Huawei Mate XS 2 will retain the design of the original Mate XS, featuring a wraparound display and a black strip on the back that houses the camera sensors.

One notable change here is that the inner display now has a punch-hole selfie camera. There was no selfie shooter on the original model, and you had to utilize the rear camera for video calling and selfies, which wasn’t very convenient.

The Huawei Mate XS 2 is expected to feature an 8-inch OLED foldable display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a step up from the Mate X2’s 90Hz panel. The phone will reportedly be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 4G chipset and pack a 4,500mAh battery with 66W fast charging support. The phone is also rumored to offer M-Pen stylus support and will be available in Black, Gold, and Pink colors.

We expect to learn more about Huawei’s newest foldable at its official launch event on April 28.

Source: Weibo
Via: Teme (via Twitter)

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Today, Huawei announced its next foldable handset, the Mate Xs 2. The design is similar to its predecessor which was launched in 2020, the Mate Xs. The Mate Xs 2 is powered by a 4G version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, 8GB RAM, 256GB or 512GB of internal storage, and a 4600mAh battery. There will also be a Collector’s Edition of the device with 512GB of storage, 12GB RAM and a larger battery coming in at 4880mAh. All models also have an expansion slot that supports NM cards up to 256GB.

Huawei Mate Xs 2: Specifications

Huawei’s best foldable hardware yet

The best and most interesting part of the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is its OLED display, offering 7.8-inches of screen real estate when expanded and 6.5-inches when folded. Both screens have a resolution of 2480 x 2200 pixels and 2480 x 1176 pixels respectively and they also offer a 120Hz refresh rate for a smooth scrolling experience and a touch sampling rate of up to 240Hz.

As for the size, the complete package comes in at 156.5mm in length, with a width of 139.3mm when expanded, and a little over half that at 75.5mm when folded. Thickness-wise, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is 5.4mm when unfolded and 11.1mm when folded. It folds completely shut too, with no gaps visible in between the display and the body of the phone when folded.

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Earlier today, Huawei announced its latest foldable phone, the Mate Xs 2. Along with a new smartphone, the firm also announced two new wearables, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro and the Huawei Band 7. We will be focusing on the former here as there is a lot to unpack, so let’s get started.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro looks more like your everyday watch thanks to its circular OLED display and classic design that does its best attempt to mimic a traditional wristwatch. The device comes in two different models. A white ceramic version with a case size of 42.9mm, and a titanium variant that comes in at a slightly larger 46.6mm. The Watch GT 3 Pro Ceramic can be purchased with either a bracelet or leather strap. The Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium model also has an option for a leather strap or a can be paired with a sportier rubber band.

Both watches offer roughly the same features with the exception of screen size and battery, which are larger on GT 3 Pro Titanium model.  If you want the full details of both watches, you can take a look at the chart below.

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro: Specifications

Huawei’s best smartwatch hardware yet

Along with being able to track various sports activities and sleep, the Watch GT 3 Pro has the ability to provide real-time data for diving enthusiasts. This data includes details like monitoring your ascent, dive speed, and depth, chiming in with safety reminders, and providing training to maximize breath control. The watch also caters to golfers, with the ability to analyze your swing, and posture, and give feedback for improvement with visual cues. The watch also has built-in maps for over 300 golf courses.

If all of this sounds appealing and you want to get your hands on these devices, they will be available for purchase in China from select retailers starting on May 6. The Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium will start at ¥2488 — or roughly $375 USD, with the Watch GT 3 Pro Ceramic starting at ¥2988 or roughly $450 USD. As for availability outside of China, that is currently unknown, as Huawei has not released those details.

Source: Huawei

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At Huawei’s recent event, the firm announced its latest entry in its foldable phone lineup the Mate Xs 2. During the event, the company also announced two new wearables, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro and the Huawei Band 7. There’s a lot to unpack about the latter, so let’s get started.

The Huawei Band originally made its debut in 2016, offering consumers an affordable fitness tracking solution. Over the years, the Band line has slowly evolved, adding notable features, while still maintaining a reasonable price point. The Band 7 is no exception, offering more than its predecessor, in an even more svelte package.

The Huawei Band 7 features a 1.47-inch AMOLED display and weighs in at just under 16g. The overall package is quite compact, measuring 44.35mm x 26mm, and being only 9.9mm thick. This is 1mm thinner than the previous model. When it comes to aesthetics, there are four different colors and over 8000 watch faces to choose from. As far as battery life goes, you’re looking at about two weeks or around ten days under heavy use. Luckily, if you ever find yourself running out of battery, a quick five-minute charge will yield you two days of battery life.

Huawei Band 7: Specifications

The Band 7 will offer an impressive 96 different sports it can track, making use of the device’s accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. As for heart rate monitoring, Huawei’s own TruSeen 4.0 technology will take the reins, delivering accurate data in real-time.

There are two different versions of the Band 7, a standard model and an NFC variant that will allow you to make payments with compatible services and terminals. At a base price of ¥269 (~$40 USD), this could be an excellent solution for those in the market for fitness tracking with robust options. If you want to get your hands on these devices, it is now available for pre-order in China from select retailers. It is currently unknown whether the Huawei Band 7 will be available outside of China.

Source: Huawei

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Following its China debut last month, the Huawei GT Watch 3 Pro is now making its way to the international markets. Available in two variants, Ceramic and Titanium, Huawei’s new flagship smartwatches go head to head against Apple and Samsung’s offerings with premium designs and a solid set of features. The new watches join the Huawei Watch GT 3 that was launched last year and run the company’s HarmonyOS 2 out of the box.

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro series: Specifications

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium edition and Ceramic edition are identical in most areas, save for the battery, material, and screen size. The former offers a 1.43-inch AMOLED display and up to 14 days of battery life, while the latter gives you a 1.32-inch panel and up to 7 days of endurance.

Huawei says the new lineup is slimmer and more comfortable to wear than the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro. The Titanium variant has a tactile rotating crown, which not only gives the smartwatch a classic look but also makes it easier to navigate the UI.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro offers a plethora of health and fitness tracking features, including ECG, 24/7 heart rate tracking, more than 100 workout modes, sleep tracking, and automatic skin temperature detection. The watch can create a personal running plan for you based on your physical and running history and has built-in maps for over 300 golf courses.

For accurate navigation and positioning, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro comes equipped with a dual-band navigation system with support for GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS. Other notable highlights include IP68 dust and water protection, Bluetooth, NFC, a built-in speaker, and wireless charging support.

Pricing & Availability

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Titanium edition will be available in the UK from May 30 for £300. Meanwhile, the Ceramic variant is priced at £430 and will go on sale on June 8 at Huawei’s website and Amazon.

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When foldables first came into existence in 2019, there were two forms: the book-like inner fold established by Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, or Huawei’s wraparound outer fold as seen in the Mate X. While I’ve always thought the inner fold made more sense because the design protects the main screen when not in use, there were several prominent reviewers who preferred the outer fold design. Their argument was that the inner fold design requires two screens, which significantly increased the weight and thickness of foldables.

By the time Huawei launched its third foldable in 2021 adopting the inner folding design, it seemed like it was a concession that Samsung had the right idea all along. But that’s apparently not the case, because Huawei is back with a new outer wraparound fold device, the Mate Xs 2.

The phone actually launched in China late last month, but it made its international debut at a Huawei event in Milan today that also saw the release of three new smartwatches. I was in attendance and got hands-on with the device for a bit, and after testing a series of inner folding foldables the past two years, I am reminded that, yes, the outer fold design is indeed much lighter and thinner. And Huawei even designed a new case to somewhat address my concern about the screen being too exposed too.

Huawei Mate Xs 2: Specifications

About this hands-on: This first impressions article was written after about 45 minutes of use of a Huawei Mate Xs 2 in a controlled indoor environment ahead of Huawei’s launch event. Huawei flew me to Milan for the launch. The company did not have any input in this article.

Huawei Mate Xs 2: What’s new?

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 will be familiar to most people who have seen or read about the original Huawei Mate X or the 2020 follow-up the Mate Xs. The overall design and form factors looks almost identical, but there are improvements across the board both noticeable and subtle.

The most notable change to me is that the Mate Xs 2 feels noticeably lighter than previous Huawei foldables, not counting the small clamshell Huawei P50 Pocket, of course. A small part of this is because Huawei shrank the Mate Xs 2’s screen sizes a bit compared to its direct predecessor, to 7.8-inches unfolded, and 6.5-inches folded, but the main reason is the use of lighter materials all around, including aviation-grade titanium alloy.

The numbers back up my feeling: the Mate Xs 2 weighs just 255 g to the Huawei Mate Xs’ 300 g, a jarring weight difference given that the size difference isn’t substantial.

The new Mate Xs 2 (left) and the Mate Xs (right) released in 2020.

And since the Huawei Mate Xs was already relatively thin and light compared to the inner folding phones (because the latter needs to use two separate screens), this makes the Mate Xs 2 feel dainty compared to the typical inner foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold 3, for example, weighs 271 g, and the Vivo X Fold I tested was a behemoth, at 311 g. Huawei’s own inner folding Mate X2 weighed 295 g.

When the Mate Xs 2 is in folded form, it feels almost like a traditional slab phone compared to other foldables, thanks to its typical 19.5:9 aspect ratio and rounded sides due. Its 11mm thickness is about equivalent to any modern flagship with a case too.

The screen gets a refresh rate upgrade to 120Hz (it was 60Hz in the original Mate X and 90Hz in the Mate X2), and its 2200 x 2480 looks sharp enough. The other noticeable change: there’s now a 10MP selfie camera located in the typical hole-punch format in the upper right corner of the display. The previous two Mate X and Mate Xs phones did not have a conventional selfie camera, and instead required you to flip the phone over to use the main camera system for selfies — this is made possible because the wraparound screen design essentially gives the phone a screen on front and back side when folded. You can still do this, but it’s nice to have the additional option to just snap a quick selfie with less effort.

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 runs on a Snapdragon 888 without 5G, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and a 4,600 mAh battery. The older SoC without support for 5G networks is a bummer, but this is due to restrictions beyond Huawei’s control.

Cameras

The main camera system consists of a 50MP main camera, 13MP ultra-wide, and 8MP 3.5x telephoto zoom lens, backed by Huawei’s XD Optics software image processing algorithm. I had very limited time with the phone and I wasn’t allowed to share photo samples, so there’s not much more I can report at this time. I will say that I thought the Huawei P50 Pro had an excellent camera system, but the P50 Pocket had a good, but not a great system. This camera system seems to lean more towards the P50 Pro in specs and hardware. Zoom shots up to 10x zoom looked quite good.

Software

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 runs on EMUI (instead of HarmonyOS like in the China version) and it looks and behaves like any Android phone, with the obvious caveat that it does not support Google Mobile Services. This is old news by now that virtually all readers who’ve made it this far already know. At this point, readers should have a fair idea of whether this is a dealbreaker or not. I have gone on record saying that the lack of Google Mobile Services will never be ideal for me, but it doesn’t make the phone unusable for me. There are many legal/authorized workarounds to still access Gmail and Google Calendar, and most apps I use like WhatsApp, Instagram, work fine. I wrote about my experiences using EMUI in my P50 Pocket review for those interested.

The potential fragility problem of outer foldables

Earlier I wrote that I always preferred the inner foldable because that design protects the soft bendy screen when it’s not in use, while Huawei’s outer fold design left the folding screen exposed at all times. In folded form, the back of the phone is still a screen, which made me nervous anytime I put the phone down on a surface. Using a conventional case was a hassle, as it meant I’d need to take off the case every single time I needed to unfold the device.

Huawei attempts to address this by first building what it claims is a stronger, more durable folding screen with four layers of protection. I can’t vouch for this extra durability right now given my limited testing, but the material did feel more glass and less plasticky than before.

The second thing Huawei did is design a clever case that will be included with the phone. The case seems like a typical plasticky case that just slips on over the back and sides of a folded Mate Xs 2 at first, but the case has a hinge that allows one side to easily come off with a push at just the right angle. This allows the Mate Xs 2 to be housed in a case protecting its backside when in folded form, and still stay on even when in unfolded form.

Yes, the case does slow down the unfolding action — it takes an extra half-second of fiddling — and the material doesn’t feel as nice as the naked phone, so it’s still a compromise, but I don’t know of any other solution right for an outward folding phone.

Huawei Mate Xs 2: Early Impressions

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 is the first large-screen folding phone that doesn’t feel noticeably heavier and bulkier than using a typical slab flagship phone, so this is a major plus in my opinion. I am also confident the camera system should be pretty good given Huawei’s XD Optics engine has impressed me before.

But the Mate Xs 2 is going to be a very niche device internationally, catering only to enthusiasts. It’s not just the older SoC or the lack of Google Mobile Services, but also the really high price of €1999 ($2103). This is quite a mark up from the 8999 yuan (roughly $1500) price in Europe. But that tends to be the case for all Chinese phones selling in Europe. It’s hard to see the average joe picking up this phone, but Huawei knows this, and it seems intent on pushing ahead with global releases anyway. I will say that in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Huawei phones are still in high demand.

Whatever the case, I am always a fan of more phone options. And the Huawei Mate Xs 2 adds another foldable device to the international market that is sorely in need of more options.

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Huawei’s best foldable smartphone, the Mate Xs 2, has arrived in Europe. The new foldable is a direct follow-up to the Mate Xs that launched two years ago. The latest model retains the overall design of its predecessor but brings notable upgrades to the hardware, including a high refresh rate display, a more durable design, improved cameras, and more. It was originally launched in China last month and is now finally available in Europe.

Huawei Mate Xs 2: Specifications

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 uses the same wraparound screen design which we have seen on previous Huawei foldables. Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and OPPO Find N, which fold like a book, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 folds outwards, leaving the entire screen exposed all the time. Huawei says the new display is stronger and more durable than previous versions and uses four layers of protection.

The refresh rate also sees an upgrade from 60Hz to 120Hz. The Mate Xs 2 also prides itself as one of the lightest foldable phones on the market, weighing just 255g. The phone uses Huawei’s new Double-rotating Falcon Wing Hinge, which allows the display to stay completely flat when unfolded.

Under the hood, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 is powered by last year’s Snapdragon 888 4G chipset, paired with 8GB/12GB RAM and 256GB/512GB storage. On the back, the phone packs a 50MP main shooter, a 13MP ultra-wide camera, and an 8MP telephoto lens. There’s also a dedicated selfie shooter now. On the original Mate Xs, you had to utilize the rear camera for video calling and selfies.

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 packs a 4,800mAh battery and supports 66W fast charging. On the software front, it runs Huawei’s HarmonyOS 2, based on AOSP. You can read more about the phone in Ben’s hands-on of the Mate Xs 2.

Pricing & Availability

The Huawei Mate Xs 2 will go on sale across Europe at a starting price of €1999. Huawei hasn’t shared complete availability details yet, so we will update with more details as soon as we come to know.

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Huawei Band 7

It’s hard to believe that the Huawei Band is in its seventh generation. The Huawei Band 7 is the culmination of everything that has come before it – packed full of power and wrapped in a slick design. The Huawei Band 7 features a 1.47-inch AMOLED FullView display and is quite compact, measuring in at just under 10mm thin. The Huawei Band 7 can be customized to fit a users needs, featuring three different modes for watch faces. There are also over 4,000 themes to choose from to add a little bit of flair. As far as its tracking capabilities, the Huawei Band 7 will make use of Huawei’s TrueSeen 4.0 tracking system, used to continuously and accurately measure heart rate. The Huawei Band 7 doesn’t have a UK price yet, but in Europe it will retail for €59.

Huawei Watch Fit 2

The Huawei Watch Fit 2 arrives providing the perfect culmination of fashion and function. The Huawei Watch Fit 2 features a 1.47-inch AMOLED FullView display that delivers an excellent viewing experience thanks to 480 x 360 resolution. The Huawei Watch Fit 2 arrives with a speaker and microphone on board, allowing users to take calls from the wrist. The watch will also supports offline music playback, with audio being stored directly on the watch itself. Despite its handsome looks, the Huawei Watch Fit 2 can also be used to better one’s health. The Huawei Watch Fit 2 will feature a health assistant that can track activities, water intake, sleep, and more. The Huawei Watch Fit 2 will be available for £129.99 starting on June 15. Those who pre-order the device through Huawei’s online store starting on May 30 will be able to receive a free pair of Huawei FreeBuds 4i.

Huawei Watch D

The Huawei Watch D isn’t your standard fitness watch and is instead a device that is focused on monitoring blood pressure. Huawei touts that the Huawei Watch D is 1/6 the size and weight of traditional blood pressure monitors. The Huawei Watch D also makes use of innovative technology, featuring a mini pump that can create air pressure up to 40kPA, allowing the device to measure up to 230mmHg. Now, despite its focus on monitoring blood pressure, the Huawei Watch D is capable of measuring heart rate with its ECG sensor, sleep, SpO2, and stress. The Huawei Watch D can track normal everyday activities, along with more strenuous ones like sports. Perhaps the biggest difference from a traditional smartwatch is that the Huawei Watch D can last up to seven days on a single charge.

Huawei S-TAG

The Huawei S-TAG is a small tracking device that features a professional quality 9-axis sensor that is meant to offer superior sensitivity, with the ability to track runners and their forms. The Huawei S-TAG is compact, making it a perfect accessory with a powerful purpose.

Huawei’s wearables will all make it to the UK market, along with the Huawei Mate Xs 2 and Huawei GT Watch 3 Pro.

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I have been reviewing Huawei consumer products for half a decade and there’s a clear leitmotif that runs through all my reviews: impeccable hardware that is usually the best looking and well-built in its product category, but the software experience doesn’t quite keep up if compared to top rivals. And even though Huawei’s new smartwatch series, the Watch GT 3 Pro, makes strides towards improving the software end, it’s still not all the way there. Whether it’s the titanium or ceramic model, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro looks absolutely gorgeous and makes Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 feel cheap by comparison. But there are just things the Galaxy Watch 4 or the Apple Watch 7 can do that Huawei’s smartwatches still cannot, like the ability to access an English voice assistant or respond to notifications in a dynamic manner.

But perhaps that’s just me being a nitpicky reviewer because Huawei’s smartwatches are selling well, moving 42.7 million units globally in 2021, according to research firm IDC. And while this number still trails Samsung and Xiaomi (48.1 and 54.4 million respectively), it marks a 35% year-on-year growth for Huawei compared to the 3.8% and 7.9% growth for Samsung and Xiaomi respectively. The Apple Watch of course still sits far above at the top of the mountain, having sold 161.1 million units in 2021, but the Apple Watch, with its iOS lock-in, is basically a different beast all to its own.

This means Huawei’s smartwatches are the third most popular wearable for Android users and it’s growing faster than everyone in this space. The Watch GT 3 Pro could continue this trend because even by Huawei’s already high hardware standards, this is in my opinion the best looking and most premium smartwatch series.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro titanium model.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro ceramic model.

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro: Pricing and Availability

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro comes in either titanium or ceramic models and is on sale now in mainland China and beginning May 30 in select European and Asia regions, including the UK, Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia. Sale platforms include Amazon UK and Huawei’s online store. Pricing is listed below (in Chinese yuan, Euro, and British Pound).

Titanium model

• Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium Edition (46mm) w/ leather strap: ¥2,688/€369/£299.99
• Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium Edition (46mm) w/ titanium strap: €499/£429.99

Ceramic model

• Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Ceramic Edition (43mm) w/ leather strap: ¥2,988/€499/£429.99
• Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Ceramic Edition (43mm) w/ ceramic strap: ¥4,688/€599/£499.99

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro series: Specifications

About this review: This review was written after two weeks of testing both titanium and ceramic models of the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro provided by Huawei. Huawei also covered my travel to Milan to attend the product launch. The company did not have any input in this review.

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro: Design and Hardware

• Classy design with premium materials
• Bright and vivid OLED screens
• A bit too heavy to wear for workouts
• Bands may not fit every wrist perfectly

Both models of the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro feature sapphire crystal glass covering their 466 x 466 OLED screens (1.4-inches for the 46mm titanium model and 1.3-inches for the 43mm ceramic model) and a ceramic backside. It’s the material between which the front and back sandwich that differs: the titanium model uses an aerospace-grade titanium frame, and the ceramic model uses ceramic. Both models come with either leather straps or bands that match the body material.

The watches, particularly the titanium model I handled, feel hefty and weighty compared to say a Fitbit Sense or Galaxy Watch 4, weighing a bit over 90g with the band (the watch itself is 54g). The ceramic model is smaller and about 10g lighter. The switch to solid lugs instead of the open lug design seen in the Huawei Watch 3  or the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro adds to the feeling of a larger watch.

The all-ceramic model is the star of the show — ceramic watches are considered more luxurious than metallic watches — and it does look visually striking with the gold trim around the frame and the butterfly clasp. But for my wrist and the clothes I wear, I prefer the titanium model.

Both watches have a crown that is both clickable and rotatable, as well as a separate button. I find the latter button to be unnecessary, as the crown plus combination of swipes and taps is more than enough to navigate through the watches’ HarmonyOS-powered UI. The crown features texture ribbings and looks particularly classy on the titanium model.

The titanium band features a deployant buckle clasp that provides a satisfying click whenever it locks around my wrist. The nature of these band designs, however, mean they may not fit every wrist type (there’s more room for adjustment with typical buckle-and-hole type straps). It also takes a bit of time to get them in the right size: the titanium band features small switches inside each band link that sets them loose. The switches are so small it took me over five minutes just to remove a link for a tighter fit. The ceramic model takes even more work, with its band containing micro screws that require a specific tool (a miniature-sized screwdriver that’s included with packaging) to remove or add a link. It took me well over 10 minutes of fiddling to get the ceramic model closer to the ideal fit. Both watches come with extra links for those with thicker wrists. If you need numbers, Huawei says the titanium models can fit wrist sizes from 140mm to 210mm, while the ceramic model covers 130mm to 190mm.

If you want to remove or add links in the ceramic model, you must fiddle with the tiny screwdrivers with the included screwdriver.

Needing to remove or add links to get the right fit is absolutely normal in the luxury watch space, by the way, and enthusiasts may even enjoy this process. But for me, it was a bit of a hassle, and you need to make sure you have ample lighting and a flat clean surface to fiddle with the ceramic band, as the ceramic band’s micro screws are minuscule.

And despite all that fiddling, the ceramic model doesn’t fit my wrist perfectly. It’s either a bit too loose or a bit too tight, as my wrist size fits in between the size of one link. The titanium model, however, fits my wrist just about right. For normal day wear, and particularly when I attended some press events, it added a bit of flair to my otherwise plain style of dress. However, the watch is a bit too heavy to wear for workouts in my opinion. A shame, because the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is quite good at tracking activities. More on this later.

Both watches feature a loudspeaker and microphone, which allowed me to take phone calls through the watch on my wrist. Huawei did not specify the chip powering the watch, nor the memory or battery size, but rest assured, they’re more than powerful enough to handle the watch’s UI. Battery life is particularly impressive, with the titanium model able to last up to two weeks on a single charge and the ceramic model up to seven days.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro fits my girlfriend’s wrist better.

All the sensors one would expect from a pricey smartwatch are here, including optical heart rate, SpO2, gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer, and magnetometer, the latter allows the compass function to work without an internet connection. The heart rate sensor has been upgraded from the non-pro Watch GT 3 or last year’s Watch GT 2 Pro: it now features eight photodiodes for supposedly more accurate detection.

The Watch GT 3 Pro are rated IP68 and 5ATM, meaning you can definitely take these for swimming indoor pools, and even diving in the sea up to 30 meters deep.

Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro: Software and Features

• Runs on Huawei’s proprietary HarmonyOS
• Colorful UI with aesthetically-pleasing animations
• Anemic third-party app support
• Allows canned responses to text message notifications — better than before, but not enough

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro runs on HarmonyOS, and it’s a responsive UI with colorful graphics and smooth animations. The watch works with Android and iOS devices, but you must download the Huawei health app to pair.

Herein lies problem number one: due to the US government imposed sanctions, the Huawei Health app you’d find in the Google Play Store is outdated and won’t connect to the watches. You must instead install a newer version of Huawei Health either via Huawei’s AppGallery or via an official Huawei link which you can access by scanning a QR code on the watch’s setup screen.

Needing to install apps from a third-party source requires a few additional steps like granting permission in Android and a major hassle in iOS, so right off the bat, the setup process for the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is more complicated than smartwatches from brands with a firm presence in the West like Fitbit, Mobvoi, Samsung, etc.

Once you do pair the watch, the Huawei Health app works fine and does a good job of providing me with relevant information. There are dozens of free watch faces to choose from (and a lot more that cost money), and some look quite nice. But only a couple of these watch faces provide interactive complications (meaning you can tap on a part of the watch face to access a feature).

Judging the third-party app situation here depends on point-of-view. If I compare it against a Galaxy Watch 3 or a Fitbit Versa 3, which don’t have great third-party app support anyway, then it’s not that bad. The only app I miss from other Android smartwatches is Google Maps. Huawei’s maps alternative, Petal Maps, is okay in certain cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, but really lacking in Milan and, I assume, California where I grew up. If I compare Huawei’s app situation against the Apple Watch (the gold standard in wearables still), then the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro will feel limited.

It’s the same for the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro’s lack of a digital assistant. This is a huge loss for someone used to an Apple Watch, because you can ask Siri to do a myriad of things, and the Apple Watch is so smart at detecting voice commands that you often don’t even have to touch the watch to begin asking Siri to do things.

But are you really losing out on that much if you’re coming from a Samsung smartwatch? Because even to this day, the Galaxy Watch 4 still doesn’t offer Google Assistant (it’s supposedly about to change soon, but I haven’t received it, nor have most of my peers in the tech reviewing community) so you’re stuck with Bixby, and Bixby isn’t that good.

Responding to text message notifications

A big gripe I had with Huawei smartwatches in the past was that even though it could receive notifications, it doesn’t allow me to respond or interact with them. Between WhatsApp, WeChat, Slack, and Signal, I get over 100 messages a day, and a watch that lets me respond directly on the wrist (instead of needing to pull out the phone) saves me a lot of time.

I’m happy to report that Huawei has improved matters a bit by giving us the ability to choose from a list of canned responses. These responses are customizable too (inside the Huawei Health app), so I have set a few phrases I say often, which helps. But this is still not as good as just letting me respond with whatever I want directly on my wrist, which Apple and Samsung’s smartwatches let me do.

In Huawei’s defense, this is something very, very few Android watches get right. Fitbit and Chinese Android brand smartwatches also don’t let me respond dynamically, and while WearOS does, most WearOS devices on store shelves now run on an underpowered Snapdragon 3100 chip that can’t handle voice dictations properly. The only smartwatch for Android that allows me to consistently respond directly on the watch is the Galaxy Watch 4. So Huawei’s problems are not specific-to-Huawei problems. But it’s still annoying.

Fitness and Health Tracking

I have been wearing the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro for two weeks and I am impressed by how accurately it tracks my data. The step count is accurate from what I can see, and the watch even accurately detected a rise in my skin temperature between days when I traveled from moderately warm Milan to extremely hot Singapore.

One evening, I used the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro to track my bike ride, while leaving my phone in a locker, and the Watch GT 3 Pro’s GPS did an accurate job of tracking the path and distance.

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro also does a very accurate job of tracking steps, as it’s able to identify a real step vs when I’m just moving my wrist or cycling.

Should you buy the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro?

With the titanium model starting at what is equivalent to $400 and the ceramic model at $599, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is pricier than most smartwatches for Android, including the Galaxy Watch 4. However, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is made of much more premium materials than Samsung’s smartwatch. The ceramic model pricing also seemed very high to me at first, until I did some research and realized that ceramic watches are traditionally priced much higher — well into four digits. If we look at it through this lens, then Huawei’s ceramic GT Watch 3 Pro is actually the most affordable ceramic watch yet.

While I like the look and feel of the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro (the titanium model in particular), the inability to respond dynamically to notifications or use a reliable voice assistant holds it back for me. Right now, because the Galaxy Watch 4 also doesn’t have a good digital assistant, I can justify using the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro over it, but when Google Assistant finally arrives on Samsung’s wearable, then it will have too big a software edge for me to not switch back.

If you don’t care about responding to notifications or using a digital assistant, then the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro does a good job everywhere else, and again, I like how it looks more than not just Samsung’s watch, but also other smartwatches I’ve recently tested like the Skagen Falster Gen 6.

Whatever the case, Huawei is going hard on wearables, and the Watch GT 3 Pro is the company’s most polished offering yet.

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Huawei is reportedly gearing up to launch a premium AirPods alternative — the FreeBuds Pro 2. Although the company hasn’t shared any details about its upcoming flagship TWS earbuds so far, a new leak has revealed almost everything you need to know about the FreeBuds Pro 2 ahead of its official launch.

The leak in question comes from noted leaker Roland Quandt (via WinFuture), and it gives us a good look at the FreeBuds Pro 2. In addition, the leak reveals quite a bit about its hardware specifications and all the features you can expect to see on it. As you can see in the attached images, the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 greatly resemble the Apple AirPods Pro. The earbuds have the same overall shape but with a shorter and wider stem. The images also confirm that the FreeBuds Pro 2 will come in three colors — Blue Silver, Ceramic White, and Frost Silver.

Image credits: Roland Quandt

Quandt further reveals that Huawei has designed the FreeBuds Pro 2 in collaboration with French audio company Devialet, and they offer three-stage active noise canceling (ANC) up to 47db. The earbuds reportedly feature two integrated audio drivers with a frequency range of 14 to 48,000Hz. Furthermore, the FreeBuds Pro 2 will come with Hi-Res Audio support and a Triple Adaptive Equalizer that can simultaneously adjust the volume, position, and sound to achieve optimal playback.

Image credits: Roland Quandt

As far as battery life and charging are concerned, the FreeBuds Pro 2 will reportedly offer up to four hours of continuous music playback with ANC enabled and up to six and a half hours without ANC. The charging case will extend the battery life to 30 hours. Lastly, the FreeBuds Pro 2 will feature IP54 dust and water resistance.

What do you think of Huawei’s upcoming AirPods killer? Will it be a hit or a miss? Let us know in the comments section below.

Source: WinFuture

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Huawei has announced a couple of new Windows 11 laptops for the European market, the MateBook 16s and the MateBook D 16. Both of these are 16-inch laptops, and they’re powered by Intel’s 12th-generation Core processors, specifically from the H series.

The new laptops also come with a new Smart Conference solution, which uses AI to reduce audio noise and enhance voice clarity, plus enable camera features like virtual backgrounds. The camera can also keep you in the center of the frame as you move around.

Of course, there’s the usual suite of features that are part of Huawei’s Super Device, letting you control your Huawei phone from your PC, or use a tablet as a second screen. The devices also come with the Huawei AppGallery, so you can install Android apps on your PC. This was announced earlier this year at MWC, and it’s only antural it’d be available on new devices going forward. It’s different from the Windows Subsystem for Android, though.

Huawei MateBook 16s

The Huawei MateBook 16s is the more high-end of the two laptops, being powered by up to an Intel Core i9-12900H, with 14 cores and 20 threads. This is kept cool by Huawei’s Dual Shark Fin fan design.

It also comes with a 16-inch display with touch support, which is in the 3:2 aspect ratio and a sharp 2520 x 1680 resolution. It covers 100% of sRGB and has a 1500:1 contrast ratio, plus it reachus up to 300 nits of brightness. It also has a 90% screen-to-body ratio, meaning the bezels are very small, but it does still ahve a 2MP/1080p webcam.

The MateBook 16s, like many of Huawei’s laptops, is made from solid metal, and it comes in a Space Grey colorway. It measures just 17.8mm and weighs 1.99kg, so it’s not overly heavy for its size. For ports, it has one Thunderbolt 4 port, one standard USB-C port, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, and a headphone jack.

The Huawei MateBook 16s will be available from July 13th on the Huawei Store in the UK, costing £1,299.99 with an Intel Core i7-12700H. Pre-orders start today, and you can get a free Huawei MtaeView monitor if you pre’order. A version with an Intel Core i9 will be available in mid-August for £1,499.99, and that will be at various retailers including Amazon and Argos.

Huawei MateBook D 16

As for the Huawei MateBook D 16, it comes Intel 12th-generation H-series processors, but with the TDP tweaked to 40W, which is slightly below their usual configuration. It comes with up to an intel Core i7-12700H, which should still offer plenty of performance, plus dual-channel RAM and SSD storage.

The display is also 16 inches, but this one comes in a 16:10 aspect ratio, and the resolution is a more tame 1920 x 1200. There’s no touch support on this one, either. It still has a 2MP webcam, though, so it should still do well enough for video calls and meetings.

Design-wise, the Huawei MateBook D 16 is also a mostly metal laptop, but it weighs just 1.7kg, so it’s fairly light for this size. Huawei says it fits a 16-inch screen in the body of a 15-inch laptop, which is no doubt thanks to the taller aspect ratio.

As for ports, it comes with two USB Type-C ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, and a headphone jack. It’s similar to the MateBook 16s, albeit there’s no Thunderbolt support here.

The Huawei MateBook D 16 will go on sale on July 13th, with the Core i5 variant costing £749.99 while the Core i7 model costs £999.99. Pre-orders start today and get a free MateView GT 27 monitor.

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Huawei has been making strides in the wearable space over the last couple of years, with a reinvigorated focus on audio in particular. The company’s FreeBuds Pro launched back in 2020 was an excellent pair of earphones that packed great audio and powerful active noise canceling in one package. Now the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 are here, and they double down on what made the original FreeBuds Pro great.

The first surprise comes in the form of a partnership with French audio company Devialet. Huawei has previously partnered with Devialet in the creation of the Huawei Sound speaker, and it’s said that Devialet’s main contributions are again in sound tuning.

As well, the FreeBuds Pro 2 feature what the company dubs an “Ultra-hearing True Sound Dual Driver”. This combines two drivers; a planar diaphragm for treble and overtones, and a quad-magnet dynamic driver for medium and lower frequencies. They have a wide sound range, from as low as 14Hz to as high as 48kHz. Not only that, but the company’s “True Adaptive EQ” technology can automatically tune the Huwaei FreeBuds Pro 2 to your ear canal structure, wearing posture, and volume level.

Of course, Huawei also packs active noise canceling into the FreeBuds Pro 2, as well. Huawei says that these earphones can cancel out up to 47dB of noise, with a particular aircraft curvature for canceling out noise on planes. What’s more, there’s also a “4-Mic Call Noise Cancellation system” for picking up human voices when taking a phone call, so that your voice stands out against wind and other background noises.

In terms of technical specifications, the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 have LDAC support for high-quality audio, dual device pairing, and an audio connection centre so that you can see your last ten connected devices. The company says that these earphones last four hours with ANC on, which adds up to a total of 18 hours with the case. With ANC off, you can expect to get six and a half hours of playback and a total of 30 hours with the case. They can be wirelessly charged, and they have IP54 water resistance.

There are three colorways at launch; Silver Frost, Ceramic White, and Silver Blue. If you want to pick these earphones up, you can buy them from Huawei’s store and other retailers such as Amazon, AO, and Very on the 6th of July, at a starting price of £169.99.

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Huawei’s FreeBuds Pro were some of the best earphones that I’ve ever reviewed — and for a couple of different reasons. They sounded good, their active noise canceling was powerful, and they even had a somewhat unique design (nearly as unique as earphones can get, anyway). Now the company is back with the second iteration after announcing them at its launch event in Berlin, and they’re every bit as good as their predecessors. These earphones are co-engineered with French audio company Devialet, which you may remember as having co-engineered the Huawei Sound, as well.

On the technical side, there are a couple of unique things that the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 pulls off that you won’t really find anywhere else. The biggest is that this debuts a feature that the company dubs the “Ultra-hearing True Sound Dual Driver”. This combines two drivers; a planar diaphragm for treble and overtones, and a quad-magnet dynamic driver for medium and lower frequencies. They have a wide sound range, from as low as 14Hz to as high as 48kHz. Huawei’s “True Adaptive EQ” technology can automatically tune the Huwaei FreeBuds Pro 2 to your ear canal structure, wearing posture, and volume level.

Of course, there’s also some pretty impressive active noise canceling too, that aims to tune itself based on your surroundings. You can hear the difference too when walking between different settings, and the company says these can cancel out up to 47 dB of noise. In essence, these earphones pack a lot of punch in the specification table, and they manage to keep their word on a lot of the greatness that they promise.

Honor FreeBuds Pro 2: Specifications

About this review: Huawei sent me the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 on the 28th June, 2022 for review. The company also flew me out to Berlin for its launch event, paying for my flights and accommodation as it did for other media persons. However, it did not have any input into the contents of this review.

Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2: Design

The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 feature the same design as their predecessor, with a “typical” earbuds design and squared-off stems. That aside, the design is functional and they’re comfortable to use for long stretches of listening. I will say that while these are called the “Silver Blue” colorway, they look more like lavender or violet. They do not look blue in person whatsoever, so bare that in mind if you want a “blue” pair of earphones.

They have the same squared-off stems too, and they can be controlled with squeezes. Volume can also be controlled with a swipe up or swipe down of the front of the earphone, though it can be a bit finicky to get working and you may find yourself pushing them out of your ears a bit. Squeezes work very well, though!

Touch controls aside, the design is functional and they’re comfortable to use for long stretches of listening. I had to downsize the silicone tips to the smaller ones included in the box, though there is a larger set too if you need them. It may not necessarily be a “one size fits all” solution, but that’s why there are options included in the box for you, too. It’s not a big deal, anyway, just that I found the regular ones would often get pushed out of my ears over time.

Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2: Audio, Battery, and Software

Everything else when it comes to a pair of earphones is irrelevant if they don’t sound good, and  I’ll always forgive a pair of earphones for lacking in features if they have good sound. After all, that’s what people are actually buying them for. Given Huawei’s previous proficiency in audio (between the Huawei Sound and the Huawei FreeBuds Pro), I expected to be impressed by these earphones, and impressed I indeed was.

If you want to check out the playlist I’ve been primarily listening to with these earphones, you can check that out here on Spotify. Songs like Car Seat Headrest‘s Famous Prophets (Stars) sound amazing at the minimal bass guitar-focused bridge, with a clear and distinct difference between the lows and the highs. Modest Mouse‘s Float On is done an excellent service in its recreation of the plucky chorus guitar, and the cacophony of instruments in the second chorus of No Halo by Sorority Noise comes through clearly, something that poorly tuned earphones and headphones may struggle with.

I only have a couple of criticisms of these earphones, and they’re fairly minor. The first is that the mids on these earphones with the default tuning sound a little bit quieter than I would like, and the low-end is tuned a little bit high. Otherwise, I think that Huawei and Devialet did an excellent job in tuning the audio of these earphones. The lows don’t overpower the mix, which is the only time that it would really be a problem. The audio quality is superb too, thanks to LDAC audio support.

One thing that I’ve noticed is interesting is that the AI detection for different settings of applying ANC does actually work. I walked into a shop with the earphones in (and no music playing) and could hear the shift in noise cancelation versus what had been in my ears when outside. It didn’t really change anything in terms of how loud I was perceiving my surroundings to be, but it was doing something.

The company also has been touting its microphone abilities with these earphones, and I must admit that I am impressed. I was on a Discord call with some friends on my earphones, and when I stepped outside they noticed that my audio quality had dropped significantly. They asked me what was wrong with my microphone, and we were having a full conversation about how I was using a pair of Bluetooth earphones and not my normal phone microphone. That’s when we realized it was cutting out frequencies around my voice to make it clearer against all of the background noise around me. It didn’t sound good, but I could be heard and understood while on a busy street surrounded by cars, motorbikes, and people, and that’s all that mattered.

If you want to modify settings on these earphones, you’ll need the Huawei AI Life app. You can update your earphones, change gestures, run a “fit test” (though these don’t tend to be great, either), or change the noise-canceling mode. There’s no iOS app though, so Apple users beware. It’s on Huawei’s AppGallery too, so you’ll need to download the APK externally.

In terms of battery life, these have been pretty good, though I’ve run them dead once already. They last four and a half hours on a single charge, but so long as you’re frequently docking them in the charging case then you should be completely fine. I only need to charge up the case every few days, anyway.

Are the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 worth your money?

As a result, I don’t have any real complaints about these earphones. They sound great out of the box, are comfortable to wear, and the active noise canceling does a wonderful job at blocking out sounds around me. Sure, claims of specific noise cancelation curves for airplanes and the like seem gimmicky, but the point still stands that they do the job excellently. Throw all the marketing terms you want at it — if it works, it works, and most consumers don’t care nor need to know about the technology that powers it.

In short, I love the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 for their sound quality and their comfort, and the pinch gestures are a lot more comfortable to use than touch controls. These are very much a pair of earphones that everyone can find love for, and they’re one of the best pairs of wireless earphones I’ve used in recent years. Sound quality is what matters most, and Huawei nails not only that but all of the additional extras as well. I’m excited to see what the company can pull off with its partnership with Devialet.

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Huawei makes good laptops, and the MateBook 16s is no different. You could buy it for just that, but the real value proposition is the Huawei ecosystem. Indeed, whether you’re using a Huawei phone, smartwatch, earbuds, PC, monitor, and so on, these things are all designed to work seamlessly together. With Huawei’s Super Device feature, the idea is that it doesn’t matter what screen you’re using; it’s all the same device.

My biggest issue with the MateBook 16s is that it doesn’t have dedicated graphics. If that’s going to be the case, I’d rather see this laptop have a P-series processor. There are little things as well, such as only one of the USB Type-C ports supporting Thunderbolt.

But as usual, the MateBook 16s is a win. It’s a great all-around laptop, and if you’re already in the Huawei ecosystem, it’s even better.

Navigate this review:

• Huawei MateBook 16S pricing and availability
• Huawei MateBook 16S: Specs
• Design, display, and keyboard: It has a 1080p webcam!
• Performance: There’s a 45W processor and no dedicated graphics
• Huawei has some unique advantages over competitors
  • Super Device
  • AppGallery
• Should you buy the Huawei MateBook 16S?

Huawei MateBook 16s: Pricing and availability

• The MateBook 16s Core i7 model is available now from the Huawei Store, and the Core i9 model is coming later from Huawei, Amazon, and more
• Huawei is offering a free monitor if you order now

Huawei announced the MateBook 16s in June, and the product was made available on July 13. The Core i7 model is £1,299.99, and it ships now from the Huawei Store. However, if you order prior to August 23, it actually comes with a free MateView GT 27 monitor.

The Core i9 model is £1,499.99, and that comes from Huawei, Amazon, AO, Argos, and Currys, and that will be available on August 10. If you pre-order that before July 26, and from the Huawei Store, you’ll get a free Huawei MateView monitor.

Huawei MateBook 16s: Specs

Design, display, and keyboard: It has a 1080p webcam!

• Huawei is finally using a good webcam
• The screen is good, but not great

Huawei has been pretty consistent with its design choices since it entered the Windows laptop space in 2017 (it entered the Windows space in 2016 with a tablet). The MateBook 16s is made out of aluminum, feels like it has a premium build quality, and comes in Space Gray. Huawei has used other colors over the years, but this one seems to be the one common to almost all of its laptops.

The lid is stamped with Huawei text, unlike earlier years when it used the Petal logo. It feels like a 16-inch laptop should feel, weighing in at 4.38 pounds without dedicated graphics. For something with a nice and large screen, it’s light enough to carry.

Speaking of the 2,520×1,680 display, it supports 97% sRGB, 67% NTSC, 72% Adobe RGB, and 72% P3, which is slightly below average. If you need color accuracy in your work flow, this probably won’t cut it for you. It maxes out at 320.3 nits brightness, exceeding the promised 300 nits, and contrast ratio maxed out at 1,210:1.

While the color gamut leaves a bit to be desired, it feels like a premium display, with a 178-degree viewing angle. That means that there won’t be any visible color distortions if you view it from the side.

The 90% screen-to-body ratio means that it has narrow bezels on all sides, but the webcam is in the top bezel, and it’s a good one. You might recall that in previous MateBook products, Huawei actually put the webcam in the keyboard, billing it as a security feature, forcing the user to pop the webcam up to use it. It was a horrible experience.

But yes, the webcam is Full HD, it’s placed properly, and it’s fantastic.

Going back to the design, you’ll notice two USB Type-C ports on the left side. Unfortunately, only one of them is Thunderbolt, you you’ll have to keep in mind which one if you’re using a Thunderbolt dock or an external GPU. Normally, I speak in hypotheticals when I talk about connecting dual 4K monitors or an external GPU, but this is a laptop with an H-series processor and integrated graphics. You might want that proper graphics power to do some creative work.

The keyboard has the standard 1.5mm key travel that you’ll find on most Huawei laptops, and it feels great to type on.  It’s also got a big old touchpad underneath it, which is always great to see.

Naturally, the fingerprint sensor is a staple of a good Huawei laptop. They’re some of the best you’ll find on any device, both fast and accurate. When you press the button to power on the laptop, it scans your fingerprint, so you don’t have to scan it again after it boots up. It just seamlessly logs you in.

Huawei isn’t the only one that does this. What I will say is that out of all of the laptops I’ve tested that have the fingerprint sensor in the power button, Huawei’s are the least likely to fail. With many fingerprint sensors, it will say that it can’t recognize my fingerprint, and that’s jut not the case with Huawei.

Performance: There’s a 45W processor and no dedicated graphics

• Huawei has finally made the move to Intel 12th-gen, but without dedicated graphics, a 45W CPU offers more power than you need, at a cost to battery life

The model that Huawei sent me includes a Core i7-12700H CPU, a 45W processor with six performance cores (P-cores) and eight efficiency cores (E-cores), for a total of 20 threads. Intel’s new 12th-gen processors have a hybrid architecture for better power management, something that it was able to borrow from the Arm side of things. However, AMD has yet to emulate it.

The Core i7-12700H is a good CPU, and Huawei also offers this laptop with either a Core i5-12500H or a Core i9-12900H. The real problem is that there are no dedicated graphics. This feels like something that’s more common with this generation of laptops, and indeed, Intel has boosted the Iris Xe graphics on the H-series to match what’s on the more efficient SKUs.

Typically, we see U-series processors in productivity laptops, and then in more powerful laptops, we see H-series processors paired with dedicated graphics. Intel also now has the 28W P-series to bridge the gap between the two. I’m really not sure where H-series without dedicated graphics fits in. You wouldn’t use this for gaming or video editing.

You could use it for photo editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, and of course, it’s great for productivity. Still, I can’t help but think that a more efficient chipset with the same graphics would have more sustained performance while still being easier on battery life.

Battery life is actually really good, I’m happy to report. There was not a single instance that I got under five hours, and on average, I got just under six hours. This is while working in the browser and doing my regular thing. The power slider was on balanced and the screen brightness was on medium. There was one instance where I got a little over eight hours, and I was unable to replicate it. Still, when it comes to a Windows laptop, anything over four hours is good. Anything over five hours is really good.

Huawei has some unique advantages over competitors

• Huawei is one of few PC OEMs, along with Apple and Samsung, that’s building an ecosystem around its PCs
• Super Device lets you use all of your devices seamlessly together
• Huawei even built its own Android subsystem to run AppGallery

At Mobile World Congress this year, while all of its competitors in the space had been announcing 12th-gen Intel and AMD Ryzen 6000 PCs since CES the month before, Huawei introduced a range of computers that still had 11th-gen Intel or AMD Ryzen 5000 processors. Moreover, products like the MateStation X all-in-one was set to come without any kind of dedicated graphics.

In a Q&A session with press, the company confirmed that it’s basically last on the list to receive new things. As we all know by now, U.S. companies have to jump through hoops just to do business with Huawei, and that’s also why its phones no longer come with Google services.

Being that it was being handicapped in traditional avenues, Huawei took a different direction. It focused on its own strengths, and things that it could control. It started building out its own ecosystem, rather than depending on Google, or even Microsoft, despite the fact that the Redmond firm doesn’t have the same issues with Huawei.

Because of this strategy and despite still using third-party operating systems, Huawei has put together one of the most seamless ecosystems around. Currently, the only ones even attempting this are Apple and Samsung, although I wouldn’t sleep on Lenovo/Motorola. Apple’s solution is to do everything in-house, while Samsung has opted for tight partnerships with Microsoft, Google, Qualcomm, and more. Huawei’s answer is a bit in-house, while also still using third-party solutions.

Super Device

When I first heard the term Super Device, I was really confused. When something has the word “Device” in it, you expect it to be hardware, but it’s not. Super Device is the term for the experience you get throughout the ecosystem, in a sense. It’s the idea that no matter what interface you’re using, you’re essentially using the same device.

I used it with a Huawei MateView monitor and a Huawei P40 Pro Plus, and everything just kind of works seamlessly. Moreover, they work wirelessly. You just click to connect to the thing you want to, and it works.

The key experience that Huawei is going for is seamlessness. If you’re signed into a Huawei account, it shouldn’t matter what screen you’re looking at. Also, peripherals will work as well, whether they’re from the FreeBuds line or some portable speaker. I don’t have those, but assuming they’re like all other Huawei devices, you should just be able to bring them near the device and they’ll work.

AppGallery

This isn’t the last you’ll hear from me about AppGallery, because I find this really interesting. With Windows 11, Microsoft introduced the Windows Subsystem for Android, where Android apps would be distributed through the Microsoft Store, powered by the Amazon Appstore. Like I said above though, Huawei seems to have learned its lesson in relying on American companies, so it built its own.

I have to admit, part of me didn’t believe the Huawei reps back in February when they told me that this wouldn’t be powered by WSA, but it’s not. Huawei is running Android apps on Windows. Also, you don’t actually need a new MateBook for this to work. It works on MateBooks going back to 2020, even if they have Windows 10 on them.

But enough of me gushing about how Huawei seems to have made its own Android subsystem. You start by installing AppGallery, which comes from Huawei’s website (you might find a link in PC Manager). AppGallery should actually work on any MateBook, but if it’s not qualified, it just won’t give you Android apps. It will let you install an app on your Huawei phone, and the company is also working on building out a selection of PC apps, although I didn’t see many.

When you go to install your first mobile app, you’ll be instructed to install Huawei MobileApp Engine. Once that’s done, you can install all of the Android apps that you want, as long as they come from AppGallery.

Here’s the bad news. You do seem to be limited to what comes from AppGallery. I haven’t figured out how to side-load anything, and even Huawei’s own Petal Search doesn’t work. You can download Petal Search – Huawei’s way to solve its app gap by searching third-party APK providers – and run it, but when you try to install an app, it won’t work.

Seeing AppGallery on PC is pretty neat though, and it’s one more way to bring the ecosystem closer together.

Should you buy the Huawei MateBook 16s?

While the Huawei MateBook 16s is a great laptop with lots of advantages, it’s definitely not for everyone.

You should buy the Huawei MateBook 16s if:

• You’re investing in the Huawei ecosystem
• You want a big laptop with overall great build quality and solid performance

You should not buy the Huawei MateBook 16s if:

• You live in the United States
• You don’t use other Huawei devices
• Your work load includes editing video or something else that would benefit from dedicated graphics

While the Huawei MateBook 16s is a great laptop on its own, the key thing that puts it above and beyond competitors is all of the work that the company has put into software. It’s designed to work seamlessly with the rest of the Huawei ecosystem.

The post Huawei MateBook 16s Review: Huawei is really strengthening its ecosystem appeared first on XDA.

Huawei held its Smart Office event today, where it announced a handful of new devices to grow its ecosystem. Among them is a new iteration of the Huawei MateBook X Pro, now powered by Intel 12th-generation processors, as well as the new MatePad Pro tablet. There are also some new accessories and peripherals in tow.

Huawei MateBook X Pro (12th-gen Intel Core)

One of the bigger announcements is the Huawei MateBook X Pro, which is being refreshed with Intel’s 12th-generation P-series processors. Huawei had actually already introduced a refreshed MateBook X Pro earlier this year at MWC, but it was still packing 11th-generation processors, specifically from the U series, which has a 15W default TDP. Now, this new model comes with an Intel Core i7-1260P, which has a 28W default TDP (Huawei actually claims it has 30W of power in this laptop), and it has 12 cores, 16 threads, and boost speeds up to 4.8GHz, so it’s a significant increase in performance over the previous generation.

Specs-wise, that’s really the biggest change. It still has 16GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD for storage. The display is a 14.2-inch panel and it comes in the 3:2 aspect ratio and 3.1K (3120 x 2080) resolution. In addition to that, it covers 100% of both sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts, and it supports DisplayHDR 400. It also has a 90Hz refresh rate, which is great to see. Huawei also boasts a six-speaker setup, which should deliver very powerful sound for such a small laptop.

Another big change is on the outside of this laptop, however. Huawei is introducing two new colors: Ink Blue and White, in addition to the classic Space Grey variant. This should help the laptop stand out a bit more from the crowd.

Huawei MatePad Pro 11-inch

Also new today is the Huawei MatePad Pro, the company’s latest flagship HarmonyOS tablet. This new iteration comes almost a year after the 12.6-inch variant was introduced last year, and it has some big upgrades. Specifically, the display, which is an 11-inch Huawei FullView OLED panel with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, for an aspect ratio of 16:10. This new iteration comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the previous model only had 60Hz, so that should already make for a much smoother experience. The screen also goes up to 600 nits of brightness and supports the P3 color gamut, in addition to having a Delta E < 1, meaning color accuracy is very good. It’s also packing Huawei Sound with an impressive six-speaker setup that should deliver very immersive media experience.

The Huawei MatePad Pro also comes with a new design language, featuring a circular camera module on the back, and a magnesium construction that makes it the lightest 11-inch laptop on the market, according to Huawei. It weighs just 449 grams and is 5.9mm thin. Huawei has also redesigned the M-Pencil with a new white color that’s also coated with a new silicone polymer resin for extra comfort and durability. The Smart Magnetic Keyboard accessory has also been redesigned with deeper key travel and larger keys in general.

There are also some software improvements to make the tablet experience a bit better. The Gallery app now supports landscape mode, and the multi-window feature has been upgraded to be easier to use with just one hand, plus you can now have up to four apps open on the screen at the same time. There’s also a new Huawei Notes debuting with the MatePad Pro, offering a new way to take notes with the M-Pencil, and it’s also easier to take multiple screenshots with the M-Pencil now.

Internally, the Huawei MatePad Pro is powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or Snapdragon 870, and it promises up to 11.5 hours of use on a charge, with 66W charging support to bring it back up quickly. It also comes with up to 256GB of storage, but Huawei hasn’t shared details about the RAM.

Huawei accessories and peripherals

Aside from these two headliners, Huawei also announced a couple of other devices. There’s the new Huawei MateView SE, a 24-inch monitor with 90% coverage of DCI-P3 and 100% of sRGB, plus color accuracy rated at Delta E < 2. The monitor features Full HD resolution, and it supports tilt, height, and pivot adjustments, in addition to VESA mounting. There’s also a standard edition without these adjustments.

Huawei also introduced two new mesh Wi-Fi routers, the WiFi Mesh 7 and Mesh 3, with support for Wi-Fi 6 Plus connectivity and coverage up to 600 square feet and 250 devices. They also support One-Touch Connect, so you can simply tap your phone on the router to connect to the network. Finally, there’s the new Huawei Wireless Mouse and Stylish Backpack.

Huawei didn’t announce pricing or availability for any of these products yet.

The post Huawei introduces new Matebook X Pro with 12th-gen Intel processors appeared first on XDA.

Huawei launched a series of flashy products at the IFA trade show in Berlin over the weekend, including a new upper mid-range phone with a whopping 60MP selfie camera, a new flagship laptop running Intel’s 12th generation Intel processor, and the Huawei Watch Fit D that can measure blood pressure via a miniature pump inside the band. However, one product that didn’t get any stage or show booth time was the Huawei Eyewear. These are a pair of “smart glasses” with an open acoustic system and microphone built into the arms so the wearer can listen to audio or take phone calls while wearing the glasses, without needing to access their smartphone.

To be clear, this is not Huawei’s first venture into this category. The Chinese tech giant had partnered with South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster for at least two editions of smart sunglasses. These new pair, however, no longer feature the Gentle Monster branding. According to a Huawei rep, “this one is just made by Huawei.” The reason Eyewear didn’t have much of a presence at all at IFA was that Huawei apparently hasn’t decided if these will actually launch globally. We as media persons were not given any press information on them — both Ben Sin and I were simply given a pair to test unannounced. However, a quick online search shows that these are already on sale in Japan and Malaysia, and listed on Huawei’s international English site. The model that both Ben and I received to test is the Rectangle Semi-Frame Glasses, and there are three other styles as seen below.

The Huawei Eyewear comes in four styles: Aviator Full-Frame Sunglasses (upper left); Rectangle Full-Frame glasses (upper right); Rectangle Half-Frame; Circular Full-Frame glasses (bottom left); Rectangular Semi-Frame glasses (bottom right)

About this article: Huawei supplied both myself and Ben Sin with pairs of the Huawei Eyewear for review. The company had no input into the contents of this article. Huawei did sponsor my travel and accommodation to attend the IFA trade show, alongside other media persons. This article was written by both myself and Ben Sin.

Previous Huawei Eyewear products all came with a bulkier case that also doubled as the charging dock for the glasses. Not this time, as the new Eyewear comes in a soft fabric case, and a charging cable.

The charging cable is a bit clunky in practice: it’s a female-to-female cable, with one end accepting USB-C input, and the other end splits into two pogo pin plugs that attach to the end of the arms. A full charge powers the glasses for about five hours of audio playback or four hours of phone calls, and about 16 hours of standby time. I have only tested these glasses for half a day so far, but a full hour of listening to music only drained about 23% of the battery, so the numbers seem to add up. I found that the cable was very easy to disconnect, which made charging these glasses difficult at times, especially if you need to move them after plugging them in.

The eyeglasses weigh 38.8g, and the lens can be swapped for prescription lenses. There are touch panels on both arms, just next to the Huawei logo. You tap or swipe on them to control audio playback, volume, taking calls, and voice assistant.

The glasses sport two speakers and a microphone on each arm, and they work together to produce audio and that sounds surprisingly good for an open ear design. The audio quality is of course not going to beat any reputable pair of wired or wireless earbuds, as the speaker system lacks bass for that extra oomph. However, the highs are crisp and mids are tight — with Ben finding that airy pop songs and Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie play nicely through the glasses. The microphones are used to reduce wind noise during calls. Huawei’s website says it designed an intelligent algorithm to reduce noise leakage so that it’s harder for people next to the wearer to hear the audio.

My colleague Ben Sin says that he only got to test these for half a day, but former XDA contributor TK Bay confirmed he couldn’t hear the audio coming from the glasses despite sitting right next to him. Ben also tried taking a call, and the other party said she heard me loud and clear when he was indoors, but outdoors in a crowd, it was hard for her and Ben to hear each other. That’s just a shortcoming of these open-air acoustics systems that we will have to accept. When I tested this outside with XDA TV host Alex Dobie, he was able to hear the music that I was listening to when I had the audio level above 75%. I also noticed that the Eyewear will vibrate a lot at louder volumes, though it’s not hugely visible.

For the most part, when wearing these in a quiet outdoor environment, like Berlin on a Sunday morning, Ben said that he was able to hear podcasts and music perfectly fine even as he was zipping around at relatively high speed on an electric bicycle. In a noisier city, though, which is Hong Kong at almost all hours of the day, he wouldn’t be able to hear the audio much. Neither of us was able to trigger Google Assistant with the long-press gesture, but this may be a bug that will be fixed later because Ben says he was able to access Google Assistant and Siri with the previous pair of Huawei Eyewear released in 2020.

In terms of features, there’s not a whole lot else these glasses can do. The AI Life app can be paired with them, though the only feature I found interesting was “Greetings”. This feature will enable the glasses to talk to you throughout the day, which can be… odd. It explained why the glasses said “Good afternoon” to me in an American accent when I put them on, but I don’t really understand the reason for the feature to exist. Maybe to help you keep track of time?

The glasses are also equipped with a trio of sensors — accelerometer, gyroscope, capacitance sensor — that allow the glasses to turn on or off automatically, and stop or start music playback when taking them on or off. In my experience, I found that this worked quite well, and I was surprised at how accurate it was when detecting being placed on my head. They’re comfortable to wear for long periods of time too, and I kept them on me for quite a while when listening to music just to try them out. What I especially love is how open they are, as you can hear your surroundings while still listening to your music in a (relatively) private environment.

As mentioned, Huawei did not give media persons any official press information on this product, so we have no idea when or if these are getting released outside of Japan and Malaysia, nor do I have official pricing. In Malaysia, a Google search shows the exact pair I tested retail for around the Malaysian currency equivalent of $240. If these ever get released in other markets, I’d expect the price to be in this range. To be clear, these aren’t necessarily “smart glasses” akin to the likes of the Lenovo Glasses T1. These only play audio, and are more akin to a new form factor for headphones or wireless earphones.

The post Huawei Eyewear Hands-On: Audio glasses that pump out surprisingly good sound appeared first on XDA.

Even with its phone business struggling due to legal restrictions, Huawei’s laptops have kept trucking along, and the 2022 iteration of the Huawei MateBook X Pro is another great laptop from the company. It’s fast, it has a beautiful display, and it’s solidly built. It feels like a premium laptop, and it’s great to use, for the most part.

I have a few issues with it, starting with the fact that the webcam still isn’t amazing (though at least it’s properly placed this time). I also don’t like the placement of the microphones, as it’s very easy to cause distractions if I want to use the laptop while I’m on a call.

I’d say this is probably the best Huawei laptop I’ve used, though I still wish some things were different. It’s far from flawless, but it deserves some attention.

Huawei also sent me a MateView SE monitor, which I tested alongside the MateBook X Pro. I don’t think it warrants its own review, but I can say it’s a solid basic monitor, with pretty good color coverage and some interesting features like an eBook mode for long periods of reading. It’s definitely worth checking out for home and office use.

Navigate this review:

• Huawei MateBook X Pro: Price and availability
• Huawei MateBook X Pro: Specs
• Design: The build quality feels premium
• Display: A beautiful 3.1K screen
• Second screen: The Huawei MateView SE is a great basic monitor
• Keyboard and touchpad: Typing is great, but I don’t love this touchpad
• Performance: It’s fast, but battery life is still an issue for Intel’s P-series
• The Huawei ecosystem and software
• Should you buy the Huawei MateBook X Pro?

Huawei MateBook X Pro: Price and availability

• The Huawei MateBook X Pro is available now, but you can’t get it in the US
• It costs £1,799 in the UK, including an Intel Core i7 and 16GB of RAM

The Huawei MateBook X Pro was first announced during the summer, and if you’re in the UK, you can buy it right now, though only from Huawei’s website. It will likely be available on Amazon as well as other retailers at some point.

The only configuration Huawei is selling right now costs £1,799 in the UK or €2,199 in Germany, but it also includes a free Huawei MateView (the standard model, not the SE mentioned in this review), which makes that cost more reasonable.

Huawei MateBook X Pro: Specs

Design: The build quality feels premium

• The all-aluminum build of the Huawei MateBook X Pro feels as solid as a premium product should
• It only has USB Type-C ports, two of which support Thunderbolt 4

If there’s one thing I’ve never had any complaints with Huawei’s laptops, it’s the build quality. Every laptop I’ve reviewed feels super solid, and this is no exception. it has an all-aluminum chassis that has a reassuring heft to it, and it feels solid as can be. Being made of aluminum means it’s not the lightest laptop around, but 2.77lbs is far from heavy. As far as aluminum laptops go, it’s one of the lightest you’ll find.

One thing I do wish Huawei would change is the color of this laptop. This year’s edition comes in Ink Blue and White colorways, but my review unit is still the classic Space Grey, which I really don’t like. It’s not bad, but almost every Huawei/Honor laptop I’ve reviewed comes in this color, and it’s just kind of boring. I think it doesn’t help that the keyboard is just black and not color-matched to the chassis, that would have made it feel a bit more premium to me. Huawei did do some nice things here, though – I like the shiny trim around the edges of the lid and the base, giving this otherwise plain chassis a bit of flair.

Something else that’s interesting is the touchpad, which I’ll talk about more later on. For now, I’ll say that I like how it looks. The touchpad extends all the way to the edge of the laptop, even around the notch at the bottom, so it looks pretty unique in that sense.

The Huawei MateBook X Pro is fairly thin, measuring 15.6mm, but I’m still somewhat disappointed with the selection of ports here. On the left side of the laptop, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, along with a headphone jack.

On the right, two USB Type-C ports (not Thunderbolt) round out the total selection of ports.

USB Type-C is the future, and indeed, it would be great if every peripheral used it. But many don’t, so if you have a mouse, keyboard, or external monitor, there’s a very good chance you’re going to need adapters. Some people are okay with this because they already have a Thunderbolt dock, but I always find it disappointing when a laptop requires me to buy an extra peripheral for what should be relatively basic functionality. And while 15.6mm is definitely thin, there are thinner laptops out there with more ports. But because Huawei made the edges significantly thinner than the rest of the chassis, there actually isn’t much room for anything else. I would have taken a slightly flatter chassis for USB Type-A and HDMI support, personally.

Display and sound: A beautiful 3.1K screen

• The Huawei MateBook X Pro has a super-sharp 3.1K IPS display with a 3:2 aspect ratio
• It covers 100% of DCI-P3 and it gets very bright if you need it to

The Huawei MateBook X Pro comes with a 14.2-inch display, and it has a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is already a great start. I’ve tried a few laptops with a 16:10 aspect ratio, but 3:2 is more of a rarity, and it’s always great to see. Taller screens make multi-tasking that much easier if you want to read a webpage or document without scrolling as much, so it’s great for work. I wouldn’t say it’s a huge difference from 16:10, but I’ll always appreciate a taller screen.

It’s super sharp, too, at 3120 x 2080 resolution, and it has a 90Hz refresh rate, though it’s set to 60Hz by default. 90Hz displays actually reduce battery life a lot, though, so you may want to stick with 60Hz when you’re on battery power.

You also get touch support, something else I always love to see on a laptop, even if it’s not a convertible. There are many cases where I instinctively want to reach out and touch the screen, and it’s disappointing when I can’t, so I’m glad that’s not the case here.

Huawei touts 100% coverage of DCI-P3 with this display, as well as a Delta E < 1 rating for color accuracy, and indeed, this is a great screen. From just using it, it looks absolutely fantastic, with vibrant colors and great contrast. My tests show that it covers 98% of DCI-P3, 100% of sRGB, and 89% of Adobe RGB, which is great for content creators and creative professionals.

I also measured the brightness and contrast levels, and the MateBook X Pro also excels here. Even though Huawei touts up to 500 nits of brightness, I actually got up to 580, which is fantastic for any laptop, and it reaches a maximum contrast of 1,300:1 – also a great result for an IPS panel.

For sound, Huawei packed a six-speaker setup in the MateBook X Pro, and while I’m far from an audiophile, I can say that it gets very loud, and there’s no discernible distortion to my ears. It sounds fantastic, whether that’s for music and voice calls, which is something Huawei emphasizes for this laptop with what it calls “Huawei Smart Conference”. There are various features to enhance your voice as well as filters and effects for the webcam.

Unfortunately, other parts of this experience make calls less than ideal. There are four microphones placed along the front of the laptop, just below the touchpad and wrist rest. If you can’t see where this is going, this is also where your hands go, which means if you’re trying to use the computer while on a call, you’re going to make some noise directly into the microphone, and it won’t be a great experience for the person on the other side.

One criticism I’ve always had with all the Huawei laptops I’ve reviewed is the webcam placement, since it’s typically been under the keyboard. Thankfully this time, Huawei put the camera above the display, which is long overdue. However, this is still a 720p webcam, and image quality is not fantastic. Like most 720p cameras, it’s serviceable, but it’s very grainy and far from sharp. That might be because the laptop also supports Windows Hello facial recognition, which kind of makes up for the image quality to me. Widows Hello works really well here, and it’s very convenient to have.

Second screen: The Huawei MateView SE is a great basic monitor

• The Huawei MateView SE comes in Full HD resolution and has a 75Hz refresh rate
• It covers 90% of DCI-P3, so it’s still great for creative work

Along with the MateBook X Pro, Huawei also sent me the MateView SE, a relatively basic monitor meant for office work. This is a 24-inch (23.8-inch, technically) monitor, and it comes in Full HD resolution, which is about what you’d expect for something at this price. It also has a 75Hz maximum refresh rate, which is nice if you want things to look a little bit smoother. It’s not really meant to match the MateBook X Pro, it just happened to be announced around the same time.

Still, this is a nice screen. Next to my own personal monitor, it looks brighter and more vibrant, yet it feels like it’s a little easier on the eyes. Huawei claims 90% coverage of DCI-P3 with this monitor, and that seems to hold true based on my tests. It also covers 81% of Adobe RGB and 80% of NTSC, so it’s a great panel all around, even if it’s not as great as the MateBook X Pro.

For brightness, Huawei only claims 250 nits, which isn’t exceptional, though not entirely unexpected for a cheaper monitor. In my testing, it did reach 274 nits, so it’s a little better than advertised.

There are also a few temperature profiles available, including Warm, Standard, Neutral, and Cool, though you can set your custom profile. I found Standard to be the best (and that’s what I tested above), as it was actually a bit more “neutral” than the Neutral profile, which leans more towards a cooler white point, around 7300K.

Of course, the monitor includes a few color profiles, like sRGB, HDR mode, and game mode, but I always left it in P3 mode for the best color coverage. The most notable is eBook mode, which is meant for reading for longer periods.  In this mode, the display turns black and white, and the blu light levels are reduced significantly so as to reduce eye fatigue while reading.

This model of the MateView SE also includes an adjustable stand, so you can adjust the height and tilt angles, as well as pivot the screen to use it vertically, which goes great with the eBook color profile if you want to read on a large screen. There’s no swivel support, which is unfortunate, but the monitor is easy enough to adjust and the slim profile of the base means it shouldn’t be much of a bother for your desk space.

For inputs, you get one HDMI port and one DisplayPort port, though only the HDMI cable comes in the box. This port setup isn’t terrible, but at this price, you can start finding some monitors that also have USB hubs, or at least built-in speakers, which you also don’t get here. Most of those monitors probably won’t have color coverage on the same level, though, so it depends on your priorities.

Keyboard and touchpad: Typing is great, but I don’t love this touchpad

• The keyboard has 1.5mm of travel and it’s fairly comfortable
• Huawei Free Touch adds some really cool features to the touchpad, but there are problems

Back to the laptop itself, it’s time to talk about the keyboard, which is frankly fine. I have typically not been very picky with keyboards, and I’d say this one is pretty good. The keys have a whole 1.5mm of travel, which is very good for a laptop, and they feel comfortable to type on. I don’t really have any problems with it at all, though I don’t think I’d put it on the same level as something like a Lenovo laptop or the Dynabook Portégé X40L-K I recently reviewed. Those have fantastic keyboards, and this one is great too, but not quite as amazing.

There isn’t anything too noteworthy about this keyboard, except that Huawei seems to have used the space where the webcam used to be hidden to add a new key that launches the Windows voice typing feature. It might be a useful feature for some, though it kind of comes across as a rushed decision just to make use of that space. The power button still has a fingerprint sensor built-in, even with facial recognition already available, so you can choose whatever method you prefer.

Below the keyboard is the touchpad, which is simultaneously super cool and somewhat disappointing. Huawei has been touting some unique touchpad features for a while, like knocking on the touchpad to take a screenshot. In the MateBook X Pro, there are a total of eight gestures you can perform with the touchpad, including minimizing or closing the active window by clicking the top corners of the touchpad. My favorite is that you can slide a single finger on the right edge of the touchpad to adjust the volume, or on the left edge to adjust the display brightness. That’s not exactly new, but Huawei has added tactile feedback to this mechanism, so you feel each degree of adjustment. You don’t even have to press hard on it, it just starts clicking when it recognizes the gesture. I can’t overstate how much I love this tactility.

I wish that would extend to the basic functionality of the touchpad, though. Clicking this touchpad doesn’t feel great, especially if you’re trying to click and drag and you move your finger up near the middle of the touchpad. More than once I’ve found myself unsure if I had lifted my finger off the touchpad enough, and I’ve accidentally dragged things or selected more than I should. If you just click the bottom of the touchpad, it feels fine, but while it can still click near the middle, the tactility isn’t there, so it sometimes gets in the flow of my work.

Performance: It’s fast, but battery life is still an issue for Intel’s P series

• An Intel Core i7-1260P and 16GB of RAM give you plenty of performance for daily work
• Battery life still isn’t great with Intel P-series processors

Turning to performance, the Huawei MateBook X Pro comes powered by an Intel Core i7-1260P, part of Intel’s P-series with a 28W default TDP. With 12 cores and 16 threads, this is a very powerful CPU for a relatively lightweight laptop like this one, and it’s backed by 16GB of RAM. In my usage, mostly consisting of working in WordPress while browsing the web with multiple tabs open, I’ve never run into any performance hurdles. I also do some light image editing, and that too, is handled without much of a problem. The laptop also doesn’t tend to get overly loud, though the fans can spin up a lot occasionally.

Looking at benchmarks, the scores are about what you might expect from this processor. It’s on par with other laptops I’ve reviewed with Intel P-series processors, and in some tests, it even beats the Dynabook Portégé X40L-K, which has a Core i7-1270P. If you want maximum performance, you’re going to want to enable performance mode in Huawei PC Manager. In some cases, it seems like it actually performs worse, but for the most part, it’s faster this way. That’s what these benchmarks are based on.

While thermal throttling isn’t the worst on this laptop, these results highlight one of the problems with the Intel Core P-series processors. They have a higher TDP and the potential to be much faster, but companies are putting them in laptops that used to have 15W processors, and it just doesn’t make sense in that context. This is pretty much the same chassis that had a U-series processor earlier this year, and now it has a CPU that’s generating a lot more heat and needs more cooling. While it is faster than the HP Spectre x360 13.5, which still has U-series processors, the difference isn’t that big in a lot of these tests.

The second downside to these processors is battery life. To test the battery life of this laptop, I did two things. First, for a more standardized test, I let a 20-hour YouTube video play (at 720p, fullscreen) with the brightness and volume set to 50%. It lasted roughly 6 hours and 40 minutes, which isn’t terrible. Then, for real-life usage, I just used it for work as I normally would, with brightness set to 50%, 60Hz refresh rate, and the Windows power setting set to Balanced, and with battery saver kicking in at 20% battery life. In general, battery life was hovering around 4 hours and 40 minutes. The worst I got was just over three hours, but this was a clear outlier, and for the most part, I was at least very close to four hours. One time, I got up to 5 hours.

Frankly, that’s not as bad as I expected. Considering other laptops I’ve reviewed with P-series processors and the fact that this has an incredibly sharp display, I was expecting a lot worse, so this was a pleasant surprise. Still, it’s far from amazing battery life, and if you plan to take your laptop with you somewhere, you’re going to want an outlet nearby.

The Huawei ecosystem and software

• You can connect your Huawei phone or tablet to the MateBook X Pro
• Huawei also packs features like Huawei Smart Conference and Free Touch

One of the big selling points of Huawei laptops is how they integrate with the Huawei ecosystem, and that’s also the case here. There’s nothing new here, but it’s worth reiterating if you’re not familiar with it. One of the things you can do is connect your phone to your laptop, which lets you mirror your phone’s screen and even open multiple apps from your phone at the same time. You can also easily transfer files from your phone to your PC.

With a Huawei tablet, you can actually use it as a second screen for your laptop, so it’s a great feature to have if you want to have two screens on the go. You can also use your computer mouse and keyboard to interact with your tablet, and move files between devices more easily. Again, this isn’t new, and since I don’t personally use a Huawei phone or tablet, I don’t find it that useful.

Oddly enough, I can’t seem to enable Huawei Mobile App Engine, which iss supposed to let you run Android apps on Windows, even without Windows 11 or using the Windows Subsystem for Android. There’s no mention of it in the Huawei PC Manager app, so maybe this laptop isn’t supported yet.

Huawei bundles in other software with the laptop, though. First, there’s Huawei Sound and Huawei Camera, which collectively are part of what Huawei also refers to as “Smart Conference”. Huawei Sound offers a few different settings to enhance voice recognition during video calls, so you can be heard more clearly in specific scenarios. You can also tune the audio from your speakers, though these features aren’t all that different from what you’d get with a standard audio driver.

Huawei Camera is a bit more interesting, since it can apply virtual backgrounds to your webcam, add beauty filters, and more. It doesn’t make up for the lackluster webcam we have here, but it’s potentially nice to have, and something many other laptops have started doing due to the broad transition to remote work.

Finally, Huawei Free Touch lets you customize the gestures you can use with this unique touchpad. As I’ve mentioned above, there are eight gestures available, and they help you make the most of a touchpad by giving you quick shortcuts to certain features. These are actually very useful, though it depends on your willingness to get used to them. I already mentioned scrolling on the edges to adjust the volume or brightness, but you can knock on the touchpad with your knuckles to take screenshots or record the screen, press the top corners of the touchpad to close or minimize a window, and more.

Who should buy the Huawei MateBook X Pro?

All in all, I think the Huawei MateBook X Pro has a lot to offer, and while it is a bit pricy, it’s not overly expensive for what you get. Again, the £1,799 price tag includes a fairly expensive monitor in the package, so this isn’t as expensive as it initially appears. For what you pay, you get a phenomenal display, great sound, premium build quality, and a good typing experience. You can’t ask for a lot more. Except, maybe, for it to be available in the United States.

You should buy the Huawei MateBook X Pro if:

• You work as a creative professional and want a color-accurate display
• Consume a lot of media, such as movies, music, or web videos
• You value premium design and build quality
• You spend a lot of time typing

You shouldn’t buy the Huawei MateBook X Pro if:

• You live in the United States
• Long battery life is essential for your use case
• You want to make a lot of calls with the built-in webcam and microphone
• You have a lot of peripherals that require legacy ports and don’t want an adapter

My biggest issues with the Huawei MateBook X Pro have to do with the built-in webcam and microphone setup, plus the lack of legacy ports is unfortunate. I also didn’t love some aspects of the touchpad, but you might be able to get used to how it works.

As for the Huawei MateView SE, I’d say this is a nice monitor for the price. I find the lack of speakers a bit unfortunate because I would also like to hook up my Nintendo Switch to it, but if you’re only using a laptop, it probably already has better speakers than any monitor in this price range. The reasons to get this are the nice color coverage, pivot support, and the eBook mode, which might come in handy if you spend a lot of time reading.

The post Huawei MateBook X Pro (2022) review: Another Huawei great, but still not perfect appeared first on XDA.

The Huawei Nova series is an interesting series from the Chinese company aimed primarily at younger people, coming in at a more affordable price tag. It typically packs some flagship-level features but downgrades on some others, and the Huawei Nova 10 Pro sticks to that philosophy with some added bling.

For what it’s worth, this is the same old Huawei situation as it has been with every other device before it. You don’t get the Play Store, you get AppGallery, and any of the same difficulties you may have had with AppGallery in the past continue to apply here. That’s not to say there aren’t improvements — in fact, AppGallery is starting to become usable for me as a pretty decent alternative. However, for most people, it’s still not at the level that’s worth switching to yet. It works pretty well for most things, but it’s not perfect and I still find myself struggling with certain tasks quite frequently.

I like the Nova 10 Pro as a smartphone, but as usual, the software situation can be difficult to overcome at times, especially with the price.

Huawei Nova 10 Pro: Specifications

About this review: I received the Nova 10 Pro for review from Huawei on my recent trip to IFA in Berlin. While the company sponsored my travel to attend the event alongside other media persons, it did not have any input into the contents of this review.

Design

The Huawei Nova 10 Pro’s design is pretty, though it’s a bit over-the-top. The front of the phone is pretty nice, with a large 6.78-inch 120Hz AMOLED display. There’s a pill-shaped cut-out for the camera on the top left, and it contains two front-facing cameras. However, it’s not for face unlock — one of them is a 60MP front-facing camera for selfies that supports up to a 100-degree field of view, and the other is a 2x telephoto.

On the back, though, is where things get really bling. The camera module is surrounded by a gold ring, and the primary sensor in the center of the camera island is also surrounded by gold. The back of the phone has a slightly-textured metal of some kind, with the company’s nova logo emblazoned at the bottom… also in gold. It looks good for the most part, but I think that the camera module is a little bit tacky.

It’s a “youthful” design I guess, which is obviously what Huawei has been going for here. It feels premium in the hand, and I don’t have a whole lot of criticisms aside from how over-the-top it all is. If it weren’t for the crazy gold rings, I think this would be one of my favorite designs in a budget phone released this year. The included case does cover the gold quite a bit, so you can just use that if you’d like.

There are dual speakers at the top and bottom, pretty decent haptics, and the display is curved. There’s also an optical under-display fingerprint sensor at the bottom. All of these add to the premium feel of the phone, especially as curved displays (practicality aside) are typically only reserved for flagship smartphones. We’ve seen more and more mid-range options arrive with one, but the Huwaei Nova 10 Pro’s entire job is to come across as flagship-like as possible.

Huawei Nova 10 Pro: Camera

To be fair to Huawei, the company hasn’t really lost its touch when it comes to cameras. The Nova 10 Pro has a pretty good camera system in tow. Some of the most powerful camera hardware here goes to the front-facing camera system though, packing a 60MP ultra-wide. It’s a pretty high-quality sensor that looks good, and I think that it makes sense for the target market this device is aimed at.

Another feature that’s pretty cool as well is the front-facing camera’s 2x telephoto. Have you ever seen a video on a social media platform where it shows the user zooming into something behind them? That’s exactly what it’s for. It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but it makes total sense to include it in a phone aimed at younger people. The quality isn’t bad either, and the wideness of the ultra-wide is great for fitting lots of people into a single photo. The selfies below are compressed, but you can find the uncompressed versions in the Flickr album.

Finally, the cameras on the back are pretty good as well. I noticed in particular that they did well in low light, and I got some pretty impressive shots when out on a night-time walk. Oddly, I ran into some weirdness when taking photos during the day of the sky, but I imagine that these can be ironed out over time. You can view uncompressed photos in the Flickr album that’s embedded below.

Huawei Nova 10 Pro: EMUI

The Huawei Nova 10 Pro comes pre-loaded with EMUI 12 based on Android 12. There are no Google Play Services as you already know, so you’ll need to make use of Huawei’s own AppGallery for getting applications. As time goes on, it does improve for sure. There are regional-specific applications that you can find on the store, and more and more apps are being added every day. Some Irish and German banks still aren’t accessible on it, but it’s certainly a better situation than it used to be.

Sadly, though, for most people, it’s still hard to recommend a Huawei phone, despite all the effort and progress on it. It’s getting there, and I finally understand where the company is coming from in its HMS endeavors, but it’s not far enough that simply anyone can use a Huawei phone. There are budget options out there that will do a lot of what Huawei can do, but with Google Play Services in tow that makes it as easy as ever to switch and get all of your favorite apps. I do find that Curve Pay helps bridge some gaps though, as it was a big reason why I couldn’t make the switch previously.

The problem is, switching to a Huawei phone is switching to an entirely new ecosystem. In the same way, a user may switch from Android to iPhone, for the purposes of argument, a user could switch from “Android” (as we know it) to Huawei’s EMUI. It’s all Android, but the jump to EMUI is a lot larger of a leap and requires getting acquainted with an all-new ecosystem with its own quirks. When you switch to iPhone, you won’t have access to all of your apps either, but there are plenty of alternatives on the App Store.

However, that would work if it weren’t the case that not every essential app is on AppGallery. If my banking apps were on AppGallery, if I could consistently use my phone to pay in stores, and if I could easily get my emails on my phone, then I’d be interested. However, none of that is the case, and installing another app for email like Blue Mail (which Huawei recommends) isn’t a perfect replacement for Gmail, either. I’ve also found that sometimes, AppGallery search/Petal Search is awful, and I need to go to my browser to search for an app there instead. A prime example of this that I ran into was 3DMark.

I understand now what Huawei is going for, and it’s the creation of an entirely different ecosystem. It’s not Android (well, it is, but it’s not the same ecosystem), and it’s obviously not Apple, either. Huawei wants to be a third player. It’s getting there, but until the kinks are ironed out, it’s hard to justify a switch to most people thus far. I think a third player in the space is good competition though, and as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Maybe it’s not good yet, but who knows what the future may hold for AppGallery.

One thing I will say though is this: why on earth is there a splash screen advertisement when I open AppGallery?

Huawei Nova 10 Pro: Performance

The Huawei Nova 10 Pro packs a 4G version of the Snapdragon 778G, and it’s a pretty great performer. In normal usage, you won’t notice any problems whatsoever, and it’ll handle pretty much everything you can throw at it. The only lag I’ve faced when using this device has been in the camera viewfinder when taking photos and switching apps, but it’s rare and momentary.

As is the case with this chipset, though, it packs a pretty underpowered GPU. You won’t be gaming on this phone, as the Adreno 642L trails behind much of the competition and won’t survive through a lot of gaming. When I tested this chipset in the Honor 70, it struggled to even achieve stable framerates in Genshin Impact on its lowest settings. If you want a phone for gaming, then this phone should be avoided, unless you’re a casual gamer. You’ll be able to play games like PUBG, Call of Duty, or Temple Run, but you’ll have to dial back on the graphics settings a bit.

Nevertheless, you’ll not have any problems using your phone in normal use cases. Browsing the internet, texting friends, taking photos, it’ll all work pretty much without a hitch. This is a great chipset for people who just use their phones normally without anything super intensive.

Charging and battery life

Another headline feature of the Huawei Nova 10 Pro is its charging speed. Packing a 100W charger in the box, it’ll take 20 minutes to charge this phone from 0% to 100%. For the target market, a fast charging speed like this makes sense as it’s aimed at people who are on the go and who may need to charge their phones in short bursts at a time.

On top of that, Huawei’s own EMUI software is pretty good with battery life, and the chipset is too. This phone’s battery was decent in the couple of days that I used it as a daily driver, capable of getting me through a day. It was far from my normal use case though that I would have on other phones, as I couldn’t use all of my apps. As a result, your mileage will definitely vary.

Should you buy the Huawei Nova 10 Pro?

The Huawei Nova 10 Pro suffers from the same problems as every Huawei device before it over the past two years, and that is that it’s hard to recommend to just about everyone. I reviewed the Huawei P50 Pro earlier this year and absolutely loved it, and I’m really getting a sense of what the company is doing when it comes to AppGallery. Despite all of that, currently, it’s extremely difficult for me to switch over full-time. It doesn’t have everything that I need, and even though it’s getting there, it’s not there now.

In other words, until it gets there, it’s hard to recommend it. The cameras are excellent, but between the pricing of this device (€699 is quite expensive for what’s on offer here) and the difficulty some may have as an average consumer, I don’t really know how to recommend this phone. If Revolut was your main bank and you didn’t care about getting email notifications always on time, then maybe this phone would be an easier sell. Currently, though, it isn’t. As much as I’d love it to be.

For what it’s worth, this phone is a good omen that Huawei is really listening to and that things are moving along. AppGallery is improving day by day, and with localized approaches to each application service (there are Irish versions of apps on AppGallery, which is pretty impressive to me), it’s beginning to reach a point where I think I can recommend it. That day isn’t here yet, but a viable competitor in the space is, at the very least, always good for consumers. This is also a unique-enough phone in the features that it has cobbled together that I think Huawei is starting to figure out that to thrive, it needs to find a niche that works. This may well be the start.

The post Huawei Nova 10 Pro review: A unique hardware combination that’s as cool as it is pricey appeared first on XDA.

So you’ve got an Android device and want to dive deep into the world of modding? Be it rooting or installing a custom ROM like LineageOS, most of the aftermarket modding requires you to connect your Android smartphone to a computer using a USB cable so you can use tools like the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) and Fastboot to interact with the device. For an Android power user, you may also want to reinstall the factory firmware on your phone, which means you have to deal with the OEM-specific flashing utilities.

However, none of these tinkering jobs are possible if your PC can’t see the target device in the first place. As in the case of Windows, the operating system may require an additional piece of software known as the “driver” in order to properly recognize all the different connection modes exposed by the Android device. Below you can find a list of official OEM-provided Android USB driver packages and a generic driver installation guide. If you don’t see the maker of your device listed or you see a misplaced link, send a message to Skanda Hazarika (SkandaH on the forums) with the device details.

Table of contents:

• Purpose of Android USB drivers
• Download Android USB drivers for popular OEMs
• How to install Android USB drivers
  • Manually install the driver for an unsupported device

Purpose of Android USB drivers

The USB interface of an Android device is a pretty complex object. Depending on the configuration, it may expose the standard Android USB debugging interface, the fastboot interface, and various other SoC-specific diagnostic interfaces to the computer. Simultaneously maintaining more than one interface is supported as well, e.g. you can interact with your device with ADB while configuring the internal modem parameters.

Keep in mind the aforementioned scenarios are a bit different from connecting the device through the plain old Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) or Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) mode. MTP enables the end-user to browse the internal memory on the device from a PC as if it’s an external storage drive. Microsoft ships a generic MTP/PTP driver with every edition of Windows since Windows XP, so you don’t need an external driver for that.

Download Android USB drivers for popular OEMs

Most Android OEMs offer official driver packages for their devices. Besides the ADB and Fastboot interfaces, these drivers also support proprietary flashing protocols designed by the corresponding device maker. For example, if you want to flash a Samsung Galaxy device, you must install the Samsung USB driver package beforehand.

Note that Microsoft has been shipping a generic ADB driver with Windows for a while, so installing the OEM driver just for the sake of USB debugging might not sound worthwhile anymore. Windows can also check and install the missing drivers on the fly through Windows Update. However, Microsoft-recommended drivers are not always the best choice for complex USB interfaces, so do check out the official driver pack whenever possible.

The inbox Android USB debugging driver of Windows in action

Get the appropriate driver for your device from the index below:

How to install Android USB drivers

Now that you’ve downloaded the suitable driver package for your device, it’s time for you to install it. Some OEMs offer standard installer executables, which means you can easily install the whole driver suite by double-clicking on the setup file and following the wizard.

However, Google and a few other vendors prefer to stick with the bare INF and associated binary files which are packed inside a ZIP or RAR archive. Such packages need to be installed using Device Manager, but you have to extract the contents of the archive beforehand.

• Right-click on the Start button and select the Device Manager entry. You can also call the Microsoft Management Console snap-in named devmgmt.msc directly from Run to open Device Manager.

Device Manager under Windows 10

• Connect the Android device to your PC. Depending on the selected configuration, you may see one or more unknown devices popping up.

• (Optional) Right-click on the unknown device entry, select Properties, move to the Details tab, and finally select Hardware Ids from the dropdown menu. Now open your favorite search engine, paste the hardware identifier in the search box, and go through the search results. This is a crude way to determine the probable interface your device is currently exposing.

• Right-click on the unknown device entry and select Update drivers. Now select Browse my computer for drivers/driver software and point the wizard to the folder where you extracted the driver package.

• If everything goes right, you should see a confirmation page like the following.

Manually install the driver for an unsupported device

On some occasions, the OEM drivers aren’t enough. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon a no-name generic tablet, or the flash mode interface of your shiny new phone has yet to get an official driver from its maker. In that case, you can forcibly install an existing driver package for a similar USB interface through Device Manager.

• Open Device Manager and locate the unknown device entry.
• Right-click on it and select Update drivers. Select Browse my computer for driver software and then choose the option named Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer.

• Now select Show All Devices and click Next. On the next screen, click on the Have Disk… button.

• At this point, you need to browse to the location where the extracted driver for a similar device is located. Pick the INF file from the list of files and select Open.

• Now carefully choose the driver model. For example, if you’re trying to install the Fastboot mode driver for a device, select the Android Bootloader Interface from Google’s driver set. Windows might show a warning related to compatibility, but you can ignore it and continue the installation process anyway.

• That’s it!

This method lets you force-install a signed driver without breaking its digital signature, so you don’t need to turn off driver signature enforcement on a 64-bit Windows instance.

You’ve now got the correct USB driver installed on your computer and your Android device is ready to receive instructions. Now it’s time to put it all together and run your first ADB command!

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