{"id":341694,"date":"2017-05-23T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1494130"},"modified":"2017-05-23T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T12:30:00","slug":"with-the-matebook-x-huawei-finally-has-a-macbook-to-call-its-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/with-the-matebook-x-huawei-finally-has-a-macbook-to-call-its-own\/","title":{"rendered":"With the MateBook X, Huawei finally has a MacBook to call its own"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When the MateBook launched last year<\/a>, plenty of sites were quick to position it against Apple\u2019s offerings. There were caveats, of course. Namely, the fact that the device was a touchscreen two-in-one. Now the company\u2019s done messing around. Alongside the updated version of last year\u2019s model, the company just said screw it and launched a device designed the compete with the MacBook straight on.<\/p>\n

The MateBook X drops the touchscreen and convertibility. It looks like the MacBook, it sounds like the MacBook and if laptops quacked, it would most likely do that a lot like the MacBook, too. The only surprise, really, is that it took this long. After all, the company hasn\u2019t had too many bones about borrowing liberally from the iPhone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And these days in the tech world, it seems, there\u2019s no shame in the game of taking some clear inspiration from a successful line. Facebook\u2019s certainly made no bones<\/a> about the whole \u201cgood artists copy, great artists steal\u201d bit that Jobs took from Picasso, or maybe Eliot or Stravinsky. Design language, for better or worse, seems to tend toward a central point in consumer electronics as a category matures.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s that certain choices simply make the most sense. Or maybe it\u2019s just that it\u2019s hard to borrow from the bits that work. Probably it\u2019s some combination thereof. Certainly there\u2019s a reason the MacBook line\u2019s design has been so enduring in its relative simplicity. Whatever the case, Huawei is in a good position to deliver on a product that brings some of those lessons over to the Windows side of the fence \u2014 and in some cases, improve upon them.<\/p>\n

That the company is offering a standalone laptop alongside the next-gen of its 2-in-1 isn\u2019t a surprise. I was, however, taken a bit aback by the fact that it just went ahead and dropped touch altogether. After all, that\u2019s been one of Windows 10\u2019s big cross-device selling points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When asked, the company explained the decision was made because the company wanted to \u201cput its best foot forward\u201d and \u201ca big amount of the [laptop] business in the US\u00a0is not touch,\u201d which I take to mean that Huawei didn\u2019t want to confuse the market with what\u2019s supposed to be a straightforward laptop play.<\/p>\n

What the company does offer, however, is a nice, if not entirely distinct laptop. It\u2019s thin and light with a fanless design and has a 2K display. The real standout feature, however, is the Huawei\u2019s work with Dolby. The audio company\u2019s input on devices is usually limited to tweaking settings. This time out, however, Dolby wasn\u2019t apparently involved directly in the creation of the on-board speaker hardware.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And it has a good-sounding speaker \u2014 something far too often overlooked when creating a laptop. I can say that confidentially as someone who, for better or worse, does much of his movie and TV watching on his laptop. I have a MacBook Pro, and I generally sync up Bluetooth headphones or speakers. It\u2019s nice to see a company focused on that side of things. Audio is kind of the last stone left unturned when it comes to upgrading devices. So Apple can certainly learn a thing or two on that front.<\/p>\n

Oh, and it will be available in rose gold<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" When the MateBook launched last year, plenty of sites were quick to position it against Apple’s offerings. There were caveats, of course. Namely, the fact that the device was a touchscreen two-in-one. Now the company’s done messing around. Alongside the updated version of last year’s model, the company has launched a device designed the compete with the MacBook straight on. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-341694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}