Huawei surprises with an ultralight laptop. It weighs under 800 g and is said to have cameras on the lid

Ultralight laptops have hovered around a kilogram for years, and few manage to get below that threshold. The Huawei MateBook Pro S is said to weigh 798 grams, according to the manufacturer, which is more than 430 grams less than a thirteen-inch MacBook Air – and with a larger diagonal. It will be fully revealed on August 5th, but it will hardly make its way to the Czech Republic.

How was the weight reduced to under 800 g?

Huawei relies on a magnesium-lithium alloy, one of the lightest structural materials used in laptops. According to the company, the body is held together without a single screw – the interior is joined by a tenon construction borrowed from carpentry, and the motherboard is divided into three parts. The result is said to be 798 grams with a thickness of 11.9 millimeters, which the brand presents as a world record among fourteen-inch metal laptops.

However, the word “metal” carries a significant amount of weight in that record. An even lighter fourteen-inch laptop has been sold by Fujitsu since 2024: the FMV Zero model weighs in at 634 grams, but its body is made of carbon fiber. Thus, the new product does not aim for an absolute record, only for one in its material category.

The price of slimness is visible in the photos from the event, as there is only a single USB-C connector on each side. Anyone accustomed to plugging in a card reader or HDMI will need an adapter. Active cooling, however, has remained, with grilles visible on the bottom side in the photographs.

Cameras are also located on the lid

The most interesting detail is hidden where no one looks on laptops. In addition to the standard webcam above the display, a lens has also been added to the outer side of the lid, and the manufacturer mentions 1080p resolution and front and rear cameras with artificial intelligence. However, VideoCardz and Notebookcheck servers counted two openings on the lid in photos from the conference, meaning the new product should have three cameras in total – two on the outside and one above the display. What exactly they will be for, the company has not yet said. The lens pointing into the room appears to be physically coverable, according to the photos.

What we know about the specifications so far

Inside, the new Kirin XE90 chip will beat, which Huawei says it has shown publicly for the very first time. Compared to the existing Kirin X90, it promises 23 percent higher single-core performance and a quarter better energy efficiency, and for the artificial intelligence computing unit, it speaks of a forty percent improvement. For the first time, a computer with HarmonyOS is also expected to handle ray tracing, i.e., realistic calculation of light reflections in games. Official materials do not state the exact number of cores or clock speeds – according to data that appeared outside of them, it will be ten cores with a clock speed up to 2.45 GHz.

Huawei surprises with an ultralight laptop. It weighs under 800 g and is said to have cameras on the lid Adam Kurfürst News Adam Kurfürst News

RAM is expected to start at 16 GB and go up to 32 GB, with storage ranging between 512 GB and 1 TB. The battery will feature an anode with a ten percent silicon content, allowing it to store 15 percent more energy while also reducing its weight by a tenth. The manufacturer states up to 18 hours of video playback, but we cannot independently verify such a claim. It will be chargeable at 66 W from both sides, and the new product is said to be the first thin laptop with four antennas for Wi-Fi 7+ – however, this designation is used by Huawei itself; you won’t find it among official standards.

Price and availability

The company has not yet announced the price; it is expected to be revealed on August 5th, when the new product will be fully unveiled in China along with the foldable MateBook Fold. It will be available in five colors – white, yellow, gray, purple, and black.

However, the laptop is highly unlikely to reach the Czech Republic. HarmonyOS computers have so far remained exclusively in China, and the foldable MateBook Fold Ultimate Design has never officially made it to Europe. Anyone who would still opt for the new product must reckon with the fact that instead of Windows, they will get HarmonyOS and will not be able to run any Windows programs on it – the app offering is currently Chinese. We have already written about what it’s like to live with Huawei’s own ecosystem with the MatePad Mini tablet.

Would you take a laptop under 800 grams, even at the cost of it not running Windows?

Sources: Sina, VideoCardz, Notebookcheck, Weibo