Last night, while some of you may have been stuck in traffic, working late, or boiling vegetables in a pot, I was lucky enough to attend the Huawei Innovative Product Launch at Hotel Atlantis The Royal in Dubai, on Palm Island.
I hear you scoffing at my boastful tone, but my intentions are to make you jealous. Not because of where we are but because of the stellar buffet of tech and devices that Huawei has announced.
So grab yourself a drink and loosen up your belt because we’re about to dive right into all that delicious, techy goodness.
For starters, Huawei announced new colours for two of its most popular wearables.
The Huawei Watch GT 4 gets a stylish new band in a toned-down green colour that they’re calling Vert Green with a leaf-textured design. The new colour fits remarkably well with beige and brown outfits or even adds a hint of colour to something grey or black.
The fashion-forward Huawei FreeClip also got a similar colour treatment and has received a new Beige colour to add to the existing purple and black range. This new colour fits in perfectly with the colour palette aesthetic that Huawei is pushing this year and would look great in your ear alongside a new, Vert Green watch. While nothing has been changed in terms of hardware, this new colour also brings a software update that adds in a new swipe gesture to the C-bridge on the FreeClip.
While colour updates and refreshes are always exciting, they didn’t satisfy my hunger. I had my sites set on the main course just waiting for me at a table in the back, however I was very quickly distracted by another wearable on the way there.
The new Huawei Watch Fit 3.
Sticking with the strikingly square design that the Watch Fit has had since its inception, the new Huawei Watch Fit 3 goes all in and gets even squarer. What’s even more striking, though, is the addition of the rotatable crown. It comes in six different colours: black, pink, white, white leather, grey nylon and even that new Vert Green. My personal favourite, and what seems to be everyone else’s favourite too, are the white or grey nylon options. These two have a stunning red crown that catches everyone’s eye. On my wrist, the watch felt lightweight and incredibly comfortable. The 1.82-inch AMOLED display was vibrant and bright, even amongst the 367,000 camera flashes in the background. What I found most impressive, though, is the promised seven to ten-day battery life. With a huge push in updates on their health and sleep tracking apps, with Huawei TruSleep 4.0 and HuaweiTruSeen 5.5, being able to actually wear the watch both during the day and at night makes a huge difference.
Finally, there was a gap at the laptop table and I moved so quickly I almost left with the Watch Fit 3 still strapped to my wrist. Not that I would have minded, to be honest.
The new Huawei Matebook X Pro sat before me in all its lightweight glory. Sitting at just under 1kg, or 980g to be exact, Huawei was sure to point out that this new ultrabook was lighter than a “Brand A Macbook Air ”, dubbing it literally lighter than Air. But being able to pick it up with just two fingers was not all this device would be good for. Sporting a stunning 14.2-inch, 120Hz, 1000 nits, flexible OLED display on the outside and an Intel Core 9 Ultra on the inside, this ultrabook would certainly keep up with your daily work routine. With a 70Wh battery to keep it all going and up to 90W of Super Charge power, keeping the Matebook X Pro running would be a breeze. It comes in black, white and a very pleasing slate-blue colour that will likely be the crowd’s favourite.
Of all the products that were shown last night, the Huawei Matebook X Pro is what I’m most excited about, and I will get my hands on it when it launches in South Africa later this year.
Huawei didn’t forget about its enterprise-level market, though. They also launched an updated version of the Matebook 14. Again sporting the new green aesthetic we saw amongst a few of the other products launched last night, the Huawei Matebook 14 has also had some work done under the hood. Available with either an Intel Core 5 Ultra or Intel Core 7 Ultra, a 2.8K flexible OLED screen and now with Huawei M-pencil support. This workhorse of a laptop will still be able to keep up with the best of us. With the same 70Wh battery as the Matebook X Pro and up to 40W from the charger, you shouldn’t be left in the dark too often when the power goes out.
Funnily enough, after having all 980g of the Matebook X Pro in my hand, the superlight 1.3kg of the Matebook 14 felt a little heavy. That just goes to show how light the new Matebook X Pro really is.
Finally satisfied with the main course of the buffet, I thought I might get a little creative for dessert.
I swung past the table displaying the new Huawei FreeBuds 6i, with even better Active Noise Cancelling technology than the FreeBuds 5i, if you can believe it, and putting their best foot forward in a new purple colour. Even amid hundreds of loud eventgoers, I could still listen to the music, catching all the lyrics and feeling a decent amount of bass.
What I was really keen on trying, though, was the new GoPaint app on Huaweis’ latest MatePad 11.5”S. The key selling feature of this new MatePad is the Paper Matte experience that Huawei has developed. To ensure the most glare-free experience possible, Huawei has created a screen that not only reflects light off from the screen but gives it an almost paper-like texture. This means that the use of the M-Pencil feels about as close to a traditional pen and paper experience as possible.
Add to this the new GoPaint app, featuring hundreds of different brushes, a simple yet professional interface and a latency so low you’d believe the ink was literally leaving the M-pencil in hand, and if you’re a creative, you’ll be gushing the first time you try this out. Unfortunately, I am terrible at drawing, painting, or even writing, so I have no masterpieces to show off here, but the experience of using the app on Huawei’s new Matepad 11.5”S is almost good enough to make me believe I actually can draw.
Stuffed to the brim and unable to take another morsel in, it was an impressive showcase of what Huawei plans to bring to market this year, and I’m very excited to get more in-depth time with each product once it launches. It was quite evident to me that, while everyone is comparing Huawei’s products to Apple’s, Huawei is actually not trying to be like Apple at all. In actual fact, they’re showing Apple that they’re better.