Huawei is introducing new Matebooks
Huawei’s smartphones are going through hard times. Now they’re hoping to remedy the situation with the latest Matebooks. The Matebook 16 is designed for heavy workloads, and travellers will certainly enjoy the Matebook 14s.
Huawei unveiled its latest flagship notebooks today. And in doing so, they’re also headed in a new direction. This comment, uttered on the sidelines of the press conference, was more telling than any technical data for the new laptops: «We’re promoting Matebooks more strongly than ever before.»
Far removed from the political turmoil that Huawei’s smartphone division has to deal with, there are two new notebooks on the market. The Matebook 14s and the Matebook 16.
Let me get one thing straight: all new Matebooks will ship with Windows 10, 64 bit, but are ready for Windows 11. An automatic update is expected to roll out later this year or in spring 2022.
Matebook 16: a big laptop for even bigger projects
The Matebook 16 is large and relatively heavy at 1990 grams. It’s 351 mm long, 254.9 mm wide and 17.8 mm thick. Thanks to this, or rather its strong specs, it’s intended for anyone requiring high performance, and who doesn’t necessarily need to be mobile. Such as graphic designers working from home, for example, where the laptop will be connected to a docking station and won’t move much.
I’m mentioning graphic designers as the display doesn’t only come with 10-bit colour depth, but also with TÜV Rheinland certified colour accuracy. The 16-inch, 2.5 K display with a resolution of 2520 × 1680 pixels has a ΔE of 1. A ΔE value measures how accurately the human eye detects colour and how much it deviates from reality. A ΔE of 1 denotes «no difference». The scale goes up to ΔE = 100, meaning that «colours are the exact opposite».
Underneath a supposedly silent keyboard, an AMD Ryzen 7 5800 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is installed with integrated AMD Radeon graphics. A revised system with 78-millimetre Sharkfin fans takes care of cooling.
You’ll find the following ports on the sides of the Matebook 16:
- 1x 3.5 mm headphone jack.
- 2x USB-C.
- 2x USB 3.2.
- 1x HDMI.
The other specifications:
- WiFi 6
- 720p webcam
- Bluetooth 5.1
- Huawei Share 2
- 135 Watt power supply included
- 84 Wh battery
Matebook 14s: smaller, more mobile and greener than ever
A smaller sibling of sorts to the Matebook 16, the Matebook 14s is up next. The 14-inch notebook includes a touchscreen, and is rather designed for average users. However, the entire laptop comes in almost half a kilogram lighter at 1430 grams. Therefore, it performs well, but there’s still room for improvement. Room which is filled by the 16.
The 14s has a 60 Wh battery that can be charged from 0 to 53 per cent within 30 minutes. In one hour the battery gets to 81 per cent, and after 90 minutes it’ll be full. This is possible thanks to the included 90 watt power supply.
Furthermore, 16 GB of RAM and either 512 GB or 1 TB of storage are included. The whole thing is powered by an 11th-gen Intel Core i7-11370H and an Intel Iris Xe graphics card.
The smaller Matebook is 313.82 mm long, 229.76 mm wide and 16.7 mm thick.
Special highlights: The Matebook 14s comes in green. Or as Huawei calls it, Spruce Green.
The other specifications:
- 1x 3.5 mm headphone jack.
- 2x USB-C.
- 1x USB 3.2
- 1x HDMI 1.4b
- 720p webcam
- TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light and Flicker Free Certificate.
Future discounts
Since Huawei wants to shift the focus of product marketing from smartphones to notebooks, the manufacturer announced discounts and extras ready for launch at the press conference. Matebook 14s buyers can snag themselves an additional 23.8-inch screen and FreeBuds 4i, saving a total of 258 Euros. The same applies to the Matebook 16. In pure mathematical terms, this means that the screen and in-ear headphones will run you about one Euro. These promotions are valid in the EU between October 5 and November 21.
Only the EU. No discounts have yet been announced for Switzerland. In our land of cheese and Toblerone, the devices should be available from around mid-October.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.