The 2020 Huawei MateBook 14 is a refined piece of engineering taking all that we loved about the outgoing version and what we love about the Huawei MateBook series to the next level. It’s still a beautiful machine, offers a great display, rocking the latest Ryzen 4000 H Series processor for a smooth experience and of course, those Huawei ecosystem features we are not used to like Huawei Share, embedded fingerprint sensor in the power button, a discrete and privacy webcam and more.
Available here: consumer.huawei.com/uk/laptop...
For the design, you’ll notice its sandblasted finish on its metal body, weighing just 1.49kg and is just 15.9mm thick, making it super portable to take anywhere your creativity takes you. With a 14 inch size, it fits easily in my backpack, whether I’m carrying my big camera bag or just my small backpack for lighter travel. Its chamfered edges are also premium and now easily synonymous with Huawei, I asked on Twitter and people guessed what laptop it was based on just the chamfered edges.
The MateBook 14 doesn’t just excel when it comes to its exterior; open it up and you have a 2K Huawei FullView Display at 185PPI that’s very bright at 300nits and accurate in colours with 100% sRGB wide colour gamut. On this version here, touch is also supported so you can interact with your content by touching the display. With a 3:2 aspect ratio, it’s become my favourite aspect ratio for media consumption and a 90% screen-to-body ratio means the entire display is fully utilised with no compromise. The 2020 MateBook 14 also sounds amazing with a dual 2W speaker setup.
Elsewhere we have that recessed webcam that can be hidden by just pressing it down and the trackpad has been updated with an added functionality. Before, you would need to tap your Huawei smartphone on the right side of your device in order to activate Huawei share, but the Huawei ShareTag is now integrated with the trackpad.
For ports, the HUAWEI MateBook 14 features a respectable array of port options, especially for an ultra-portable notebook. With two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, a full-function USB-C, 3.5mm audio jack, and an HDMI port. It’s everything you will need to connect any extra peripherals.
Performance:
When it comes to performance, the 2020 MateBook 14 is no slacker either, it features AMD’s Ryzen 400 H-series processor coupled with up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD Storage space. Throwing PC Mark 10 and Cinebench benchmarking tools produced some excellent results, meaning on the real world, you can game comfortably to the level of Forza Horizon 4, edit your photos in Lightroom like I’ve been doing, and all while staying cool under pressure, thanks to Huawei’s Shark Fin fans that produce better airflow and a set of six sensors spread throughout to monitor the thermals, allowing the system to dynamically scale fan speed for optimal cooling and to ensure silent operations. There are two pre-set power profiles, so you can press the function key and P at the same time to switch between standard and performance mode to handle the task at hand.
Performance is not just about the processor speeds, there’s also a 56Wh battery inside that lasts all day on a single charge. You can expect 10 hours of continuous 1080p video playback and when you need to charge it back up, you have an ultra-portable 65W USB C charger in the box, giving you 2.5 hours of use with just 15 minutes of charge. It also supports Huawei SuperCharge, so a compatible Huawei smartphone can also take advantage of the 65W USB C charger.
Huawei Share and Ecosystem:
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Huawei MateBook laptop if it didn’t come with Huawei Share I mentioned briefly at the start. With Huawei Share which features a suite of tools to integrate your Huawei Smartphone so you can focus on one device and share files.
You can now seamlessly edit files saved on your phone directly on the notebook screen providing you have PC Manager 10.1 and a Huawei smartphone running EMUI 10.1 or later. Multi-screen Collaboration also now lets you pick up audio and video calls to your smartphone directly through the PC putting its 4 microphones to good use.
Who is it for?
The 2020 MateBook 14 is an excellent laptop, a show of technology craftsmanship from Huawei when it comes to the design, functionality and performance. If you’re a student or a creative professional looking for a powerful but affordable tool for coding, editing photos efficiently then this is perfect for you. It’s perfect for increasing your productivity and if you’re already using a Huawei Smartphone with NFC and EMUI 10.1 or later, it’s also a perfect companion for boosting productivity on the move.
The 2020 Huawei MateBook 14 starts from £749.99 for the Ryzen 5 8GB + 256GB version and £949.99 for the Ryzen 7, 16GB + 512GB edition both in Space Grey available here: consumer.huawei.com/uk/laptop...