With its new MacBooks, Apple has shaken up the market and created real box office hits. It is no wonder that Huawei also copies the secret to success and offers a notebook with an energy-saving ARM chip. The Huawei Qingyun L410 with Kirin 990 processor is already available in China. But Huawei fails at an essential point: the software.
Difficult times could be ahead for Intel and AMD: The two chipmakers, who have dominated the notebook market for decades with their x86 processors, are increasingly competing with energy-efficient chips based on the ARM architecture. After Apple has already said goodbye to Intel and relies on self-developed ARM chips, Huawei is now also following.
Huawei Qingyun L410: A 14-inch notebook with Kirin 990
In the Chinese home market, the Huawei Qingyun L410 is available through a local online retailer, as reported by Huawei Central. Outwardly a Huawei notebook like any other, the unique feature lies inside: Instead of installing an Intel or AMD processor, Huawei has opted for the in-house Kirin 990. We already know the chip from well-known Huawei smartphones such as the Huawei P40 Pro or the Honor V30 from the former subsidiary brand Honor.
The Kirin 990 made its debut in late 2019. Huawei uses an SoC, which is almost two years old, which is likely to be related to the tougher US sanctions. The manufacturer is cut off from the global supplier market. The Huawei Qingyun L410 also features 8GB of memory, a 256GB SSD, and a 14-inch display. The Huawei notebook is not pre-installed but UOS 2.0. Huawei will update the Qingyun L410 to HarmonyOS in the future.
