Huawei MateBook 14s review 2024: great ultra-portable laptop

The Huawei MateBook 14s might not have a name that makes you think of luxury (at least in the West), but like other Mate devices, it has some amazing features and a decent bit of luxury. As an alternative to other portable workstations like the M1-powered MacBook Air, the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, and the Dell XPX 15, the Chinese tech giant Huawei has introduced a compelling alternative. This is especially true if you live in an area that supports the wider ecosystem of Huawei products.

This is the MateBook 14s’s biggest problem, though, because countries like the US have put limits on Huawei products that take away many of their advantages. Not just the laptop’s regional availability, but also the availability of Huwei phones and tablets, bring down a product that works very well as part of its own ecosystem. In places like the UK, where Huawei products are available but you can’t use important features like the Google App store, the whole package feels much less appealing.

Huawei MateBook 14s SPECIFICATIONS

Huawei MateBook 14s review: Design & build quality

The Huawei MateBook 14s looks like other Huawei computers like the MateBook 16 and MateBook Pro X. It has a simple, but modern design. It has a CNC-machined aluminum chassis that, at 3.1 lbs/1.4 kg, is incredibly light. This makes it slightly heavier than both the Dell XPS 13 and the MacBook Air, but only slightly. We had no trouble moving it around for hours while commuting.

It seems to be well-made and hard to scratch, so even if it gets dirty you won’t have to worry about damage. However, we noticed that it was easy to leave fingerprints on the surface, so if you like things to look brand new, bring some cleaning wipes with you. You can buy this laptop from its official website

Huawei MateBook 14s review: Display

The 14.2-inch has a resolution of 2520 x 1680p, which is sometimes called 2.5K. It has thin borders for a modern look and a touch screen, which the MacBook Air doesn’t have. This is also a 3:2 ratio display, which is becoming more popular because the extra height is so helpful for getting work done. You can use that extra screen space for more than just spreadsheets and other boring tasks. You can also use it for palettes or settings windows in artistic programs, giving you a bigger area to work with.

Huawei MateBook 14s review: Performance

The most important thing about it is that it has a 90Hz screen, which makes it much smoother to use than most computers on the market today, which have 60Hz screens. It also has Intel’s Tiger Lake H35 processors, which are pretty good for work (we’ll talk about what it means to have a powerful processor without a separate GPU later). First of all, it has features that only Huawei computers have, like Huawei Share, which lets you tap your Huawei phone against it and share photos and videos right away. 

Huawei MateBook 14s review: Battery life

The worst thing about this laptop is that it doesn’t have a long battery life, even though it still works fine. We used the PCMark 10 Modern Office test to see how long the battery would last, and the answer was just over nine hours. We actually tried the battery twice because we were hoping the MateBook 14s would last at least 10 hours, especially since the MateBook 16 lasted 13 hours, which is a long time.

Price and availability

As of this writing, you can buy the new MateBook from the Huawei website for only £1,200. That is for the version with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The review sample has a bigger 1TB SSD and official Intel Evo certification, which means it works with Thunderbolt 4. It costs £1,300. At the time of writing, however, this type wasn’t for sale. Both prices are good for what you get, but if you buy the laptop from Huawei’s website, you can get a bunch of extra bonuses. First up is a free 24″ Full HD monitor and Bluetooth mouse worth a total of £150.

Final Words

The Huawei MateBook 14s is a great ultraportable laptop. It has a 14.2-inch screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio that makes it easy to work with multiple apps. This laptop is hard to criticize because it has a better webcam and an Intel engine from the 11th generation.

Huawei MateBook 14s review: THE GOOD AND THE BAD

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