Huawei has launched a laptop with a folding display that doubles as a tablet and another device with a more conventional form factor, both running on its own HarmonyOS operating system and custom processing chips after the US-sanctioned company lost access to Microsoft Windows and Western-made chips.

Huawei’s Windows licence expired in March, and last year the US revoked licences for Intel and Qualcomm to sell to Huawei after the company launched its first AI-powered laptop running on Intel processors.

The MateBook Fold Ultimate Design comprises a 18-inch OLED tablet that folds down to 13 inches and can be used as a laptop display with a separate keyboard that attaches to the unit with magnets, the company said at an event in Shenzhen.

Folding display

The device is priced at 23,999 yuan ($3,326, £2,492) for the base model with 1 terabyte of storage and 26,999 yuan for 2TB. Presales begin this week with shipments to begin on 6 June.

Huawei also launched a more conventional MateBook Pro with a 14.2-inch screen, weighing 970 grams and priced from 7,999 yuan to 10,999 yuan.

Huawei showed this laptop at a closed-door event at its Shenzhen headquarters earlier this month, without giving specifications or other details.

Both devices run HarmonyOS 5, also known as HarmonyOS Next, the latest version of Huawei’s in-house operating system that removes earlier compatibility with Google’s Android, and which Huawei is positioning as a unified system across PCs, smartphones and various connected devices.

The company was notably silent on the hardware that powers the new laptops, a sensitive topic since it launched a flagship smartphone in 2023 that used its own domestically produced 5G and Kirin processing chips.

But Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, said at the event that the relatively high prices for the new models were due to the cost of new manufacturing technology for the chipset, indicating that Huawei has again developed its own technology to power the laptops, confirming earlier reports.

Domestic tech

“The Harmony laptop gives the world a new choice,” said Yu at the livestreamed launch event.

“We kept on doing the hard things but the right things.”

Until recently Huawei sold Windows-based laptops, along with some with an option to run Linux.

At the same time, Huawei has been developing HarmonyOS for use in smartphones and other devices, gradually shifting away from Android compatibility to create its own ecosystem, as part of China’s broader tech self-sufficiency push.

The new laptops can run a growing array of HarmonyOS smartphone apps, with the operating system expected to run more than 2,000 native apps by the end of this year.

Huawei AI

The laptops prominently feature Huawei AI technology, with an AI assistant called Celia that can carry out generative tasks such as summarising the minutes of a meeting or retrieving information from local documents.

Other supported software includes WPS Office, China’s equivalent to Microsoft Office, as well as Alibaba collaboration platform DingTalk.

Supported mobile apps include social media app RedNote, video-sharing app Bilibili and ByteDance enterprise collaboration tool Feishu.

The laptop’s interface combines elements of desktop and smartphone systems, with a launcher at the bottom similar to the dock in Apple Mac computers and a home screen that can display icons, cards and folders.