Huawei enters the ACPC market with Snapdragon-powered PC

Huawei has just announced its new Matebook E 2019, a new 2-in-1 laptop that joins Qualcomm's growing Always Connected PC family of devices.

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Inside, the new Matebook E 2019 packs Qualcomm's own Snapdragon 850 SoC, options for 4GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and a 128GB or 256GB SSD. You'll get a 12-inch 2560x1440 display that has a kickstand that turns it into a Surface-style device, with an attachable keyboard that will turn it into a laptop for those on-the-go. The big seller here is the up to 20 hours of battery life, something the ACPC is a game changer for, with Huawei using a 36.3 WHr battery.

The big difference with the ACPC (Always Connected PC) part of this is that the Snapdragon 850 chip packs a Snapdragon X20 Category 18 LTE modem that has up to 1.2Gbps down, and up to 150Mbps up. Because it's using a Snapdragon 850 SoC you won't be running normal x86-based software, but a helluva lot of software works on the ARM-based laptop. Firefox has a Snapdragon on Windows specific beta that is much better on the ARM-based processor than the likes of Chrome and Opera, for now.

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On the side, Huawei provides some decent connectivity with a USB-C port, fingerprint sensor, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. We have NFC support, stereo speakers, and Dolby Atmos support to fill out other features.

Huawei will sell its new Matebook E 2019 in China for now, with no ETA or any announcement on whether it will be available stateside, or anywhere else in the world just yet. The 4GB RAM with 128GB model will start from $595.