Huawei has emerged as the world's leading technology hardware manufacturer. But the development of the Chinese company's computer operating system is still lagging behind Microsoft and Apple, two companies that have dominated the global market for decades with Windows and macOS.
However, with the launch of laptops and tablets developed by Huawei, Huawei is making efforts to change the landscape.
The new MateBook Fold and MateBook Pro both run on HarmonyOS 5, the latest version of the operating system that Huawei technologies started developing in 2015 and introduced five years later on the Mate smartphone line.
It is known that Huawei started developing a laptop prototype in 2021.
" Harmony laptop gives the world a new choice," Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's consumer sales team, said at the launch event. He added: "We continue to do the right things but the right things."
The base model of MateBook Fold, which does not have a physical keyboard and has an 18-inch OLED dual screen when fully extended, will be sold for $3,328. The MateBook Pro model uses a regular laptop keyboard that costs from 1,100 USD.
The US government began restricting Huawei's access to technology in 2019 due to national security concerns, forcing the company to build its own capacity to develop and manufacture chips and operating systems.
Huawei said that HarmonyOS for computers currently offers more than 150 applications, including King soft's WPS Office - an alternative to Microsoft's Office - and the Meitu Xiu Xiu photo editing application.
According to Huawei's latest annual report, by the end of 2024, there will be more than 7.2 million individual developers developing apps for HarmonyOS, installed on more than a billion devices, including smartphones and TVs.
Huawei has not revealed which processor chips will be used to power its newly launched laptops. But the company said that the relatively high price of computers is due to the cost of new manufacturing technology for chipsets.
