Gong Zhe is a senior sci-tech editor at CGTN Digital. This article reflects his views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The PC variant of Huawei's self-developed HarmonyOS offers a new choice for users who refuse to rely on U.S. tech. However, the relatively lame chip performance could limit users' experience with the new MateBook Pro.

Huawei's plan for a self-made operating system (OS) has been going on for some years, especially after the U.S. unfairly blocked the firm from accessing advanced tech. From Internet of Things (IoT) devices to smartphones and now personal computers (PCs), the Shenzhen-based tech giant is slowly expanding the OS's coverage.

On Monday, the company announced a new version of MateBook Pro, featuring HarmonyOS for PC. We at CGTN Digital went to a Huawei store to get firsthand experience with the machine.

The new laptop looks amazing, as its form factor is almost identical to Huawei's flagship MateBook X Pro, retaining the less-than-a-kilogram metal body, the eye-catching OLED screen and the giant touchpad. With a base price of 7,999 yuan ($1,100), the machine's appearance could easily beat many rivals.

Booting the machine, the welcome message of HarmonyOS could mean a lot to Huawei fans. But the machine was set to store mode, and the developer options were disabled so we couldn't see the backend details of the system.

The user part of the machine looks fast and responsive. With more than 10 plugins installed onto a browser, the machine can easily open over 20 complicated web apps with no noticeable lag.

With that said, extreme scenarios like playing a Bilibili.com video covered with hundreds of danmakus (comments that are displayed directly onto the video) are so laggy that the machine no longer responded to clicks for a few seconds.

Fortunately, the official Bilibili app for HarmonyOS can play that fluently, signaling the importance of platform-specific optimizations.

We also ran Speedometer 3.1 in the included browser, and the score was only 7.87. For comparison, a flagship smartphone from 2023 can get 8.34, a flagship desktop CPU can get over 35, and Apple's M3 Pro can easily get as high as 42.

So, at least when running web apps, Huawei's new HarmonyOS machine is not a performer. But the score is still enough for an average user to browse the web, process some documents and watch 4K videos.

Stay tuned as we work on a more detailed test with developer options enabled.