Huawei has officially unveiled its first Windows PC during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

While Huawei has had a lot of success in the global smartphone market, the smartphone market is maturing and slowing. The move into the personal computing market provides Huawei with new growth potential, but the company is still adjusting to the subtle and not so subtle variances between smartphone and PC markets.

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The new tablet from Huawei is called MateBook and it runs under Microsoft’s Windows 10. The design may be compared to Microsoft's Surface Pro. For comparison MateBook has a sleek, aluminium body, curved edges and a petite build, while Surface Pro features sharp edges and a chunky build.

The MateBook is lighter compared to its contemporaries. It measures just 6.9mm deep and weighs 640 grams, making it considerably lighter than both the iPad and Surface, CNet reported. The design gives a premium feel because of its chamfered power/volume buttons. 

Huawei’s 12-inch Windows PC has 2160 x 1440 IPS LCD display. It is powered by Intel Core M3 and up to Core M7, paired with 4GB/8GB RAM and 128GB/ 512GB internal storage. In addition, there is also a 5MP front-facing camera and 33.4-watt hour battery, which has approximately 10 hours of battery life. It is available in gold and grey, and the case colors are orange, brown and black.

The MateBook also goes from empty to fully charge in 2.5 hours, and it reaches 60 percent in just one hour. There is no fan but Huawei uses Intel’s latest chips and what it calls a stacked hardware process that does not require air cooling.

At 400 nits brightness, it is bright enough to do double duty as a tanning clinic. Huawei said it also covers 85 per cent NTSC colour gamut, which makes it pretty vivid. Its bezel comes in at just 10mm. In this way, it reduces the MateBook's overall size, keeping it from being too unwieldy for use with one hand.

MateBook has includes folding keyboard case and a pressure-sensitive digital pen for writing or drawing on the screen. Its MatePen stylus has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. The silicon/rubber tip also lends resistance and friction when used with the MateBook, helping writing/drawing feel more natural. The stylus pen also works as a presentation remote and laser pointer. The device has a MateDoc as well, which provides HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, and two USB ports, in an ultra-compact form.

The case, dock and pen are sold separately. The keyboard dock costs $129, MatePen is priced $59 while the MateDock retails for $89. MateBook with 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage costs $700, while the device with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is priced at $1600, according to Gizmodo.