Huawei launched its first MateBook Windows 10 tablet a day before the Mobile World Congress kicks off to pose a challenge to the Chinese PC market dominator Lenovo, Chinese tech media site Huxiu reported on Monday.
The 2-in-1 device features a sixth-generation Intel Core m-series processor and a 12-inch IPS multi-touch screen with a resolution of 2160×1440 and 85% color gamut. Its 33.7Wh high-density lithium battery offers enough power for 10 hours of work, nine consecutive hours of video play and 29 hours of music playback. It has a fingerprint sensor and a fanless design.
The tablet boasts an 84% screen to body ratio, while the iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4 only have 76% and 77%, respectively.
The accompanying MatePen stylus offers 2,048 pressure sensitivity levels, and comes with a laser pointer and presentation clicker. Huawei says the MatePen can last for a month with only one hour of charging.
The model with an Intel Core M3 processor and 4GB of RAM is priced at USD 699, and the price of the model with a Core M7 chip and 8GB of RAM is USD 1,599. Device storage ranges from 128GB to 512GB.
Despite a declining PC market, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said that sales of 2-in-1 devices have been growing from 2013 to 2015.
With the global smartphone market slowing down, it’s necessary for Huawei to enter the PC market to achieve its goal of USD 100 billion revenue in five years, which was set by Huawei’s president Ren Zhengfei in January.
Lenovo currently dominates the PC market in China. Its global notebook shipments grew 6.9% annually, gaining 19.9% of the market share in 2015. Notebook shipments around the world in 2015 totalled around 164.4 million units, down 6.4% year on year, according to market research firm TrendForce. Tong Fu Yao, president of Lenovo China, said last May that Lenovo’s goal was to gain 40% of the market share in China’s PC market in 2015.
Although Huawei is among the largest smartphone makers in the world, it’s questionable whether the company can beat Lenovo, since major notebook makers have controlled the global PC market for years.
According to market research firm TrendForce, the top six global players including HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, ASUS, and Acer hold 83.4% of the global market share. Apart from Apple, the market share of the other five companies changed slightly in 2015 compared with the same period in 2014.
(Photos from Baidu Images)