Huawei MateBook 16 review 2024: speedy and comfortable

Huawei sells the Huawei MateBook 16 as a “creative” laptop that looks good in a meeting or other place where customers are present. It’s great for multimedia and fun, and it can also be used in creative ways, like light Photoshopping.

The keyboard is a lot of fun to use, and the big touchpad is very sleek, even though it sinks a lot when you press on it, especially in the front. The backlight on the keyboard can be set to one of three levels, and the on/off button in the top right corner of the computer has a fingerprint reader.

The Huawei MateBook 16 is a good laptop with a great 16-inch screen that is great for working and watching videos. With a long-lasting battery and a fast eight-core processor, this is without a question one of the best 16-inch laptops for getting work done.

Huawei MateBook 16 review Comparison Table

Huawei MateBook 16 review: Design and build

The Huawei MateBook 16 has one of the most basic looks of any laptop. The only color it comes in is Space Gray, which I got. Silver seems to be the standard color for many of the best laptops out there, and I’m sure this is great for a lot of people, but I find it kind of boring.

The laptop does, however, look and feel fine. When you open the lid, the keyboard deck has these etched edges that remind me a lot of the edges on the lids of the Honor MagicBook laptops I have tested in the past.

The change is that those had blue accents around the edges, while this one is still silver but now has a lot more shine. It does add a bit of style to the design as a whole.

Huawei MateBook 16 review: Display

The Matebook 16 is a great choice if you want a laptop with a big, powerful screen. Even though it’s not 4K, the 2.5K (2,520 x 1,680) resolution is sharp enough for editing photos and other similar tasks.

Other specs include a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees, a contrast ratio of 1500:1, and 100% coverage of the sRGB color range. It’s made to be a powerhouse of productivity. HUAWEI says that each MateBook 16 is calibrated at the factory to have an average color accuracy grade of just one Delta error.

That’s what you’d expect from panels made for professionals. The company also says that this is the first notebook to get approval from TÜV Rheinland for accurate colors and quick stability. So, we tested the quality claim.

Huawei MateBook 16 review: Keyboard & Trackpad

The buttons on Huawei’s laptops won’t win any awards. Most people like typing on the Dell XPS 13, but I like the Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Pro. This doesn’t mean that typing on the MacBook Pro is bad, though.

There is a full-size backlit keyboard with good key travel for easy touch typing, but the keys can feel a little spongy compared to the crisp response of some other high-end computers. Also, the Enter key is only on one row on the right side of the keyboard.

It also has Huawei’s signature 720p camera built into the keyboard. When not in use, the webcam is hidden under a fake function key. The camera then pops out when you press it, ready to be used, while most computers have it on two rows so it’s less likely to be pressed by accident.

Huawei MateBook 16 review: Battery life

Huawei also has a Performance Mode, which can be turned on and off by pressing the Fn and P keys together. The idea is that you can get more out of the laptop when you need to, but you can slow it down to make the battery last longer.

Performance Mode can only be used when the device is plugged into the wall, so I used normal mode to test the battery life. The Huawei MateBook 16 has a long battery life thanks to its 84Wh battery.

This is not always the case with 16-inch computers. In a normal three-hour work session where I used web apps and streamed some music, the battery dropped by only 26%. This suggests that the total battery life is about 11.5 hours. If you want to purchase this laptop so you can go to its officially website.

Huawei MateBook 16 review: Price and availability

The Ryzen 5 5600H model of the Huawei MateBook 16 starts at €1,099, which is about $1,250, £935, or AU$1,750. The Ryzen 7 5800H model is only a little bit more expensive at €1,199, which is about $1,350, £1,000, or AU$1,900.

Well, the biggest problem with this laptop is that it’s not available everywhere. At the time of this writing, it’s only sold in a few English-speaking countries. If you try to buy it from the UK website, it will try to send you to the German language one.

Final Words

Huawei’s MateBook 16 is made well, has a long battery life, and has a great 16-inch screen. It checks off a lot of boxes. The speakers are good and the computer is easy to use, so this is a good all-arounder that can be used at work and at home. But even with all of these good things, the 720p webcam’s location is a big problem.

Huawei MateBook 16: The Good and Bad

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