Huawei launched two new laptop models powered by its own Harmony operating system, in a bid to take on well-established Western Big Tech rivals. Despite its emergence as the world's leading producer of tech hardware, China's development of computer operating systems has lagged behind Microsoft and Apple, whose Windows and macOS have cornered the global market for decades.
Both the new MateBook Fold and MateBook Pro run on HarmonyOS 5, the latest version of an operating system Huawei Technologies began developing in 2015 and introduced five years later on its Mate series smartphones.
Huawei began developing the laptop prototypes in 2021.
"The Harmony laptop gives the world a new choice," Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's consumer business group, said during a livestreamed launch event. "We kept on doing the hard things but the right things."
The base model of the MateBook Fold, which does not have a physical keyboard and offers an 18-inch OLED double screen when fully extended, will sell for 23,999 yuan ($3,328). The MateBook Pro model, which uses a conventional laptop keyboard, is priced from 7,999 yuan.
When Washington began restricting Huawei's access to U.S. technology in 2019 over national security concerns, the company started building its own capacity to develop and produce chips and operating systems.
Huawei said the HarmonyOS for computers currently offers over 150 applications, including WPS Office from Kingsoft, an alternative to Microsoft's Office - and photo editing app Meitu Xiu Xiu.
By the end of 2024, over 7.2 million individual developers were developing apps for HarmonyOS, which was installed on over a billion devices, including smartphones and TVs, according to Huawei's latest annual report.
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