Huawei makes some impressive thin-and-light Windows premium laptops with specs that can perform day-to-day workloads. We review the latest Huawei MateBook D14, and here are our thoughts about the laptop.
Design
Among the numerous thin laptops that are available on the market, the Huawei MateBook D14 features a stylish design and comes in Mystic Silver color. The chassis of the laptop features dimensions of 314.5 mm width, 227.79 mm depth, and 15.9 mm height. The device weighs approximately 1.39 kg, which should make it easy for consumers to carry the device.
The MateBook D14 features a 14-inch IPS display with a screen resolution of 1920 × 1200 and 161ppi. The brightness of the display can go up to 300 nits, which should be enough for those who want to use the device in sunny outdoor situations. While the viewing angles are great, the color gamut coverage is 45% NTSC, and the contrast ratio is 1200:1, which is expected from an IPS panel. The default color temperatures for whites appear to be well balanced between warm and cool modes. We should also mention that the screen has an aspect ratio of 16:10, which gives more room to view content than standard 16:9 laptops.
While the laptop features a thin chassis, Huawei did not skip the connectivity options on the device. On the left side, there is a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 × 1 port with a power supply of 10W, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port with PD of 10W, an HDMI port, and a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones and microphones. However, there is only one USB-A 2.0 port on the right side, which also has PD support of 7.5 W.
The keys feature a travel distance of 1.5mm and the touchpad supports 5-point control gestures. The power button, which is located on the top left side of the work area, includes an integrated fingerprint scanner.
While the laptop does not have a 36-degree hinge, the display is capable of being positioned in a 180-degree position. The air vents are located on the bottom panel, along with two speaker grills on either side. The outer lid of the laptop features the HUAWEI branding.
The box contents of the laptop include the Huawei MateBook D14 laptop, a 65 W USB-C power adapter, a quick start guide, and a warranty card.
Performance
The latest Huawei MateBook D14 2023 edition comes with the latest Intel Rapter Lake chipsets, and our review unit features the Intel i7-1360P. The processor is based on a 12-core configuration, featuring eight efficient cores and four performance cores, along with a total of 16 threads. The maximum Turbo Boost clock speeds can reach 5 GHz.
Since there is no dGPU, the graphics are managed by the Intel Iris Xe iGPU of the i7-1360P processor. The laptop also features 16GB of LPDDR4 RAM, along with a WD SN740 PCIe 4.0 SSD with Windows 11 Home installed. For normal day-to-day usage such as web browsing, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel editing, online video conferences, editorial work, and other office-based jobs, the laptop’s performance is more than sufficient. I did not notice any lags or slowdowns during my time with the Huawei MateBook D14. We ran some benchmarks, such as CrystalDiskMark for SSD speeds, PCMark 10, CineBench R23, and GeekBench 6 for CPU performance. Check out the scores and results below.
Other features of the laptop include WiFi 6 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax with support for WPA3 and Bluetooth 5.1 wireless connectivity. The laptop also houses a 56 Wh Li-polymer battery, and from our PCMark 10 Battery test, the laptop was able to last for about 5 hours and 35 minutes. The PCMark 10 battery test simulates a variety of office-based application processing as a benchmark. We should also mention that the test was done in balanced battery mode.
Verdict
If you are looking for a thin and stylish laptop that features a brilliant screen and good performance, then we would suggest the Huawei MateBook D14 2023 edition. To summarize things, the laptop has a 14-inch IPS panel with 1920 × 1200 as the screen resolution. The viewing angles and colors of the screen are great. The keyboard features 1.5 mm of travel distance, and the touchpad has support for 5-point control gestures.
The main home button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, and the laptop features 3.2 Gen 1 USB-A and USB-C ports with 10W power delivery. There is also an HDMI port for those who want to connect to external displays. The device is powered by the Intel i7-1360P, along with 16GB RAM and a 1TB WD SN740 PCIe 4.0 SSD with Windows 11 Home. The laptop also holds a 56 Wh Li-polymer battery that can last for almost a day of use, and the device comes with a 65 W USB-C power adapter.
