As we move increasingly towards remote work and online meetings, the age-old problem with laptops – their lack of practicality, particularly compared to our smartphones – becomes critical. For instance, most smartphones today can be used for up to 6 hours, whereas my personal computer wouldn’t last more than three.
Not to mention the nearly bezel-less design that most phones sport, while laptops still have thick screen edges, weak Wi-Fi connectivity, and difficulties pairing with wireless headphones. These are features found in the most basic smartphones, but are absent in most laptops.
That’s exactly what Huawei has tried to address with the Huawei MateBook D14 2023 edition. It’s designed for those seeking a laptop suitable for daily use, with reliable battery life and strong performance, thanks to the use of the latest 13th generation Intel chips.
In addition, all aspects of the computer have been considered to provide an optimal experience without the sacrifices we’ve discussed. If you’re a student or an employee at a company that doesn’t require you to be onsite all the time and you find yourself frequently on the go using your laptop, we recommend reading on.
Design and Weight
- Weight: 1.39 kilograms.
- Thickness: 15.9 millimeters.
- Manufacturing materials: Metal.
The Huawei MateBook D14 comes in a complete metal design, while maintaining a very light weight. We’re talking less than 2 kilograms, specifically 1.39 kilograms, and only 15.9 millimeters thick (less than 2 cm) when closed. The full metal frame gives an impression of luxury and manufacturing quality. Achieving this light weight and thinness, we can confidently say that the Huawei laptop is an excellent choice in the ultrabook category.
Huawei used a single color for its new laptop, a blend of white and black, reminiscent of MacBook devices. We wish the company offered more color options, like a complete white or black version. Nonetheless, the design and color selection doesn’t diminish the laptop’s aesthetic appeal.
The design of the Huawei MateBook D14 is dominated by simplicity, which Huawei has employed as the aesthetic factor in its laptop.
The Huawei laptop comes with a large touchpad that takes up most of the bottom part of the device, making it more practical and smoother for browsing system windows and performing various tasks. Especially with Huawei’s support for all the gestures that make your life easier, this will be useful in those situations where you find yourself forced to use your laptop without a mouse nearby.
Huawei has attached a 75% keyboard design, meaning you won’t find that separate numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard. However, you will notice the large size of the keys, intended to facilitate typing and minimize your typographical errors as much as possible. Unfortunately, Huawei didn’t add a backlight, meaning you may have difficulty typing in low-light conditions.
In general, you will notice the small size of the Huawei MateBook D14 compared to other laptops. This is a feature that makes it easy for you to carry it anywhere, especially with its light weight and slim thickness. Achieving the most important factor of having a laptop, i.e., being “portable” without restrictions, is vital.
Huawei also confirmed that their new computer comes with manufacturing quality that can be trusted. The keyboard can withstand more than five million times, while the hinge can withstand more than 25,000 times – figures you won’t reach in regular use.
Screen
- Size: 14 inches.
- Type: IPS.
- Resolution: 1920×1080.
- Ratio: 90% of the chassis.
One of the strengths of the Huawei MateBook D14 is the screen, and the reason is Huawei’s interesting bezel removal. We’re talking about a screen that takes up 90% of the body of the computer, a percentage that most smartphones don’t achieve, without the need for an unsightly screen notch as in MacBook Pro devices.
Consequently, you’ll never feel that the 14-inch screen is small. In fact, you might think the opposite, thanks to the almost non-existent bezels. Huawei also uses a 16:10 ratio, ideal for watching content or even playing games.
As seen in the previous picture, Huawei has developed the hinge used in this year’s Huawei MateBook D14 model to support up to 180-degree opening. This will be beneficial for those who love working or watching movies in bed. In general, screen flexibility makes computer usage easier, even if you do not plan to reach such a degree of bending.
The Huawei MateBook D14 screen has very good color contrast, with stable viewing angles, meaning it is ideal for outdoor use if the sun is not overly bright. The Huawei laptop screen brightness reaches up to 300 nits, with a color contrast of 1:1200, and supports the NTSC standard by 45%, approximately equivalent to 63% of the sRGB standard and 42% of the DCI-P3 standard. These numbers are what you find in most laptops of this category, generally acceptable for normal use. However, it would not be the ideal choice if your work is heavily color-dependent, such as graphic design and editing.
Performance
Processor: Intel i7-1360P 13th Generation Processor.
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics.
Storage: 1 terabyte NVMe PCle SSD type.
RAM: 16 gigabytes LPDDR4x type.
The performance you will get from the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop is noteworthy. It comes with the latest 13th generation Intel processors, available in two choices: i5 or i7, with a separate graphics unit of Intel Iris type. Huawei also uses storage units of the (SSD) NVMe PCle type, with capacities of 512 gigabytes or up to 1 terabyte, along with RAMs ranging between 8 or 16 gigabytes of the LPDDR4x type.
The 2023 version of the Huawei MateBook D14 is the first device in the “MateBook” series to come with 13th generation Intel processors.
This means you will get all the speed and space you need with the new Huawei laptop, without any sacrifices. This will perfectly meet all your needs, and it will be enjoyable to rely on it daily. Although it is not geared towards gaming, it can run most games with medium performance. In our tests with Go Start Base, we smoothly edited 4K videos via Adobe Premiere and compressed a 1GB file using WinRar.
Interestingly, Huawei also offers two performance modes, the regular mode and the Performance Mode, which can be activated by pressing the fn+P buttons. This feature is not common in this type of computer.
We also ran some intensive tests on the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop. In the “CineBench R23” application, the device scored 1906 in the single-core processor test, and 11726 in the multi-core test. In the “3DMark” application, it scored 20234 points in “Night Raid”, 5500 in “Fire Strike”, and 2031 in “Time Spy”. The “PCMark10” application scored 6217 points.
Charging and Battery
Capacity: 56Wh (15,135.14 mAh).
Charger: 1.8-meter Type-C (65 watts).
Most tablets suffer from poor battery performance, personally, I cannot carry my laptop without taking the charger, and that story becomes more sad if the charger is heavy.
Therefore, my favorite feature in the Huawei MateBook D14 is the strong battery performance. We are talking here about an average of 6 to 7 hours of use, including using Google Chrome, Microsoft 365 apps, and Adobe Photoshop. Of course, you can achieve higher or lower numbers depending on your usage, but generally, we can trust the performance of the Huawei laptop’s battery and dispense with the charger if we know exactly what tasks we will perform and the expected time to complete them. Even if we want to carry the charger with us, it only weighs a few grams, and it is a 65-watt Type-C by the way.
It’s hard to find a laptop with a reliable battery, Huawei has achieved this with the Huawei MateBook D14.
Solving the Eternal Problems of Laptops
In the introduction of our review, we spoke about the problems we believe exist in most laptops available in the market today, which make most of us prefer to rely on their smartphones to complete as many tasks as possible. However, in the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop, these shortcomings have been overcome, turning them into features that you will only find in this laptop. Let’s review them together below.
Wi-Fi Connectivity Up to 270 Meters Away!
This is a matter that most companies do not pay attention to. It’s always difficult to get good Wi-Fi coverage on Windows laptops. Luckily, Huawei wanted to change that in the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop. The company used a new antenna structure that “stimulates more resonance modes leading to improved reception,” according to Huawei’s description. The antenna is also made using super materials (Metamaterial).
As a result of these modifications, the antenna used in the new Huawei laptop can maintain a connection with the router even after 270 meters, with a signal conversion efficiency increase of 70%.
For comparison, the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop was placed in a room separated by two walls from the router, and it was found that the download speed increased by 43% compared to last year’s version, while it managed to maintain a Wi-Fi connection from a distance of 270 meters in an open space, equivalent to two and a half football fields.
In summary, you will maintain a strong Wi-Fi connection from the farthest point in the apartment.
Experience a Smoother Environment
With the spread of wireless headphones in the markets, most of us own one and rely on it primarily. This represents a problem when using your laptop. Certainly, you can pair it via Bluetooth, but this will require you to re-pair it from your phone, not to mention the difficulty of the pairing process itself in Windows.
This is different in the Huawei MateBook D14 2023 laptop, as the device supports what Huawei calls “Superdevice”, which is a custom interface that helps you pair with any Huawei product you own, with an amazing user experience. All Huawei products are divided into small circles. If you want to connect any of them with your laptop, just drag and drop it to the circle that represents your computer.
This supports all Huawei products. Even your smartphone can be paired with the Matebook D14 2023 laptop, allowing you to display it on your computer so you can control it directly from your computer. Certainly, there are applications that can do that, but what is amazing here is that Huawei supports this by default, ensuring you a reliable environmental experience, as if all your devices are one device.
AI Sound Enhancement
Huawei introduced another unique feature in the Matebook D14 2023 laptop, which specializes in improving sound using artificial intelligence technologies. These technologies support both wired (Type-C) and wireless headphones of all kinds. This technology helps to isolate noise from the microphone, which aids in meeting attendance.
This feature can be activated through the control panel, where Huawei calls it “AI sound”, or through the “Huawei Sound” application.
Summary
The Huawei MateBook D14 laptop comes to achieve most of the points needed to be an excellent choice in its category, especially with Huawei’s attention to some details that most other companies overlook, such as receiving Wi-Fi networks from a distance of up to 270 meters.
There are not many comments here except that we would have liked to see a screen with somewhat better colors and brightness, also, most of the features offered by Huawei are exclusive to their products. This makes getting a Huawei laptop essential if you own any other products from the company, but at the same time, it won’t encourage you to acquire it if you use any other phone.
But overall, if you are looking for a lightweight laptop, with a modern design and near-nonexistent screen dimensions, along with the latest hardware you can get, and a reliable battery, the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop will be your favorite friend.
