Huawei MateBook 14s
Look out for special offers on this high-quality laptop, but it isn’t worth the list price of £1,300
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PRICE £1,086 (£1,300 inc VAT) from consumer.huawei.com/uk
The Huawei MateBook 14s is so nearly the perfect laptop. For a start, it’s fast: a Core i7-11370H matched with 16GB of RAM is always a powerful combination, and so it proved here with results of 164 in the PC Pro benchmarks and 5,327 in PCMark 10. This isn’t merely due to the core components but also the highly effective cooling mechanism.
Huawei also squeezes more out of Intel’s Iris Xe graphics chip than any of its rivals, with a whopping 112fps in Dirt: Showdown at 1080p. That’s not too far behind the HP Envy 14 with its GTX 1650 Ti graphics. When you switch to more graphically intensive games – even Metro: Last Light, where the MateBook’s MateBook’ 56fps 6f was f far behind the Envy’s 9 99fps – the Iris Xe chip will struggle, b but this shows the Huawei i is a fine all-rounder.
It’s also an attractive laptop, with an all-metal chassis finished in what Huawei describes as “space grey”. Think blue-grey and you won’t be too far wrong. To our eyes, eyes the “spruce green” version is even nicer, but for reasons best known to Huawei this is only available with a 512GB SSD rather than the 1TB unit of our test machine. We advise sticking with the larger drive for speed reasons too: it topped our sequential write tests by some distance. Should you wish to replace it, removing the ten Torx screws that secure the bottom of the chassis grants you access to the slot; the RAM is soldered onto the board.
This isn’t the lightest laptop on test at 1.4kg, but Huawei keeps it relatively trim at 16.7mm thick. It’s deeper than usual, measuring 230mm from front to back, but that’s to accommodate the 3:2 aspect ratio screen with its generous 2,520 x 1,680 resolution. And there’s more: press Fn+R and and the screen switches from 60Hz to 90Hz. You can then play spot the difference when you drag windows around or play games, but in truth we struggled to see the effect.
The screen is one of the best here, covering 96% of the sRGB gamut with an average Delta E of 0.56, so the colours l you see will ill be b accurate. ccurate. In fact, it put in a near-faultless ltless performance throughout roughout our tests: a peak brightness of 440cd/m2 , measured contrast t ratio of 1,761:1 and 6559K colour r temperature are a match for any laptop p display. It’s a touchscreen, ouchscreen, too, o, which is literally rally a handy feature. Our only potential criticism is its glossy finish, but we didn’t find this problematic in use. More good news comes via the 59Wh battery, which kept the MateBook 14s going for a tabletopping 12hrs 41mins in our lightusage office tests. What’s h ’ more, you don’t need to carr carry a big power supply with you: the t compact 243g USB USB-C adapter Huawei supplies folds down neatly, and if you’re in a hurry can provide three hours of charge cha in one 15-minute burst. bu
There are two U USB-C ports on the left-hand s side, with one supporting Thunderbolt Thund 4 (for the Space Grey version versio only), along with an HDMI output a and 3.5mm jack. Over on the right a solitary USB-A port sits all alone, and business buyers should note the lack of a Kensington lock slot.
Huawei does at least provide security via a fingerprint reader (built into the power button) and a
Windows Hello-compatible webcam, because – at last! – Huawei has shifted the camera position from the keyboard to above the bezel. Sadly, it also provides one of the fuzziest webcams here, with almost cartoonish compression. Audio capture is much better, and we must also praise the fine set of speakers. Music is more than listenable on this laptop.
The gentle keyboard with its large keys is easy to reach high speeds on, even if it doesn’t have much travel, and we like the big Enter key, too. The touchpad is equally inoffensive.
So, there is much to like about the MateBook 14s. It’s a real shame about the webcam, though, and we question the price: at one point during our testing, Huawei dropped this by
£200, which makes far more sense. And Ad although lh h Huawei wei sweetens the deal with bundled gifts (these included a 10.4in tablet and Bluetooth tooth mouse as we went to press), most buyers would surely prefer a more up-front, honest est price.
With th a lower price, this laptop p op would be walking away ay with an award – possibly even n top honours. It misses out at £1,300, 300, but it’s well worth checking Huawei’s uawei’s website as it remains a high-quality quality laptop that should last for years rs to come.