In an effort to compete with established Western Big Tech rivals, Huawei unveiled two new laptop models on Monday, the first of which came with its proprietary Harmony operating system. This comes as the US aims to restrict its access to vital components.
China has become the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic hardware, but its advancements in computer operating systems have fallen behind those of Apple (AAPL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), whose Windows and macOS have dominated the worldwide market for decades.
The newest operating system, HarmonyOS 5, which Huawei Technologies started creating in 2015 and released five years later on its Mate line smartphones, powers the new MateBook Fold and MateBook Pro.
In 2021, it started working on the laptop prototypes.
“The Harmony laptop gives the world a new choice,” Yu Chengdong, who leads Huawei’s consumer business group, stated at the introduction ceremony, which was streamed live. “We kept on doing the hard things but the right things.”
The MateBook Fold’s standard model, which features an 18-inch OLED double screen when completely extended and without a conventional keyboard, will retail for 23,999 yuan ($3,328).
The MateBook Pro variant costs 7,999 yuan and comes with a standard laptop keyboard.
Due of national security concerns, Washington started limiting Huawei’s access to American technology in 2019, forcing the company to develop and manufacture its own operating systems and chips.
According to Huawei, the computer operating system HarmonyOS presently has more than 150 apps, such as the photo editing program Meitu (1357.HK), opens new tab, and WPS Office from Kingsoft (3888.HK), opens new tab, which is an alternative to Microsoft Office. Xiu Xiu.
According to Huawei’s most recent annual report, more than 7.2 million independent developers were creating apps for HarmonyOS by the end of 2024, and the operating system was installed on more than a billion devices, including TVs and smartphones.
The processing chip that Huawei used to power the recently released laptops was not made public. However, it claimed that the cost of new chipset manufacturing technology was the reason for the comparatively high prices of the laptops.
A request for comment on the chip was not immediately answered by Huawei.
According to a Reuters article from last year, the United States suspended licenses that had permitted Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and Intel (INTC.O) to export chips for laptops and phones to Huawei.
The introduction of Huawei’s first AI-enabled laptop, which was powered by an Intel chip, had infuriated Republican lawmakers.
