Huawei MateBook 14 2020 Review: excellent performance and dedicated GPU

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Huawei MateBook 14 2020 review Review: excellent performance and dedicated GPU
Huawei Matebook 14 2020 Review: Excellent Performance And Dedicated Gpu

Huawei has brought its MateBook 14 2020 notebook to the Italian market. It is an interesting product from many points of view.

Huawei MateBook 14 2020 review Review: excellent performance and dedicated GPU

Office or studio notebooks never aimed to surprise at a performance level, but to offer a concrete, lasting and optimal experience in the contexts in which they are used. In fact, having a well-built laptop with good autonomy and able to carry out all common activities without any kind of problem is an aspect that can greatly facilitate the day, since it is possible to do everything on the move without even having to worry about having to use a power outlet.
If you then add a dedicated video card to this, which allows you to run the main casual games discreetly, you understand that everything starts to get interesting. The product that embodies this vision of the world of laptops is Huawei MateBook 14 2020, sold at a price of 1299 euros on the official website (i7, 16 / 512GB), but also available in a less performing version at 999 euros (i5, 8 / 512GB).

Design, unboxing and connectivity

The sales package contains a USB Type-C / USB Type-C cable for charging and a 65W charger. Once you take the notebook out of its housing, you immediately notice the care taken by Huawei in terms of construction. The body is in aluminum and its Space Gray coloring gives an even more “premium” look to the product. The weight is 1.53 kilograms (a little higher than other solutions, but excellent in absolute terms), while the dimensions are 307.5 x 223.8 x 15.9 mm. In short, the Chinese company has kept the portability factor in mind.
The first time you open the notebook is the display to stand out, thanks to the reduced edges, which carry it 90% screen-to-body ratio.

It should also be noted the keyboard backlight, which works very well and is able to highlight the buttons when using Huawei MateBook 14 in low light contexts. Excellent feedback on the keys, which goes well with their short stroke. It’s exactly the kind of experience you’d expect from an office laptop. In case you are wondering, you should know that this model also has the now iconic 1MP pop-up camera, hidden under the button between F6 and F7 at the top center. The shot is a bit “atypical”, but in reality you just need to get used to it and there aren’t too many problems.

Moving down we find the touchpad, which is large and has always proven to be responsive. The same can be said for the power button, located at the top right in the keyboard area. By the way, this button also works as a fingerprint sensor to unlock the notebook via Windows Hello. Sometimes some detection has been lost, but it is nothing transcendental and in general has always worked well.

When the notebook is closed, the lid highlights the Huawei logo in the center. On the right side of Huawei MateBook 14 instead a USB Type-A 3.0 port and a USB Type-A 2.0 port peep out, while on the left we find a USB Type-C port for power supply, the small LED that indicates charging, an HDMI port and the 3.5mm audio jack for headphones and microphone.
All in all, the design of the laptop is not bad and it fits well in the price range. The only thing to note is the similarity with the recent Honor MagicBook 14, which in some ways resembles this model.

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Technical features

The panel mounted by Huawei is a 14-inch IPS with 2160 x 1440 pixel resolution, aspect ratio 3: 2 and screen-to-body ratio of 90%. The viewing angles are 178 degrees and the screen is touch screen, not a little added value. The maximum brightness is good but not exceptional, in some situations with a lot of light this is noticeable, but it is an aspect that we have also found in other models and in general we are faced with a good display. The colors are well balanced and the overall visual quality is excellent.
Obviously, there is the question of the aspect ratio 3: 2, therefore “stretched” vertically, but remember that it is an office notebook and this configuration is able to offer more space, for example during the writing phases . In any case, the panel manages to convince, even if it fails to stand out completely.

Our model features, under the body, a quad-core processor (8 threads) Intel Core i7-10510U operating at a base clock of 1.8 GHz and with a boost frequency of 4.9 GHz. The production process is 14nm, while the TDP is 15W. The one mounted by Huawei MateBook 14 is a tenth generation CPU (Comet Lake U) capable of providing excellent daily performance and at the same time keeping consumption low.
Just to give a complete picture to those who do not usually follow the market, we are approaching the eleventh generation, with the Tiger Lake processors, which should bring a more refined production process, but for the moment the notebooks are still focusing on the Comet Lake U .

Then there are 16GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM and 512GB of PCIe. Too bad for the usual division of the SSD into two partitions made by Huawei: one 120GB (64-bit Windows 10 Home is installed here) and one 340GB. For office use it can fit, but already installing some games you run the risk of running out of space. In short, more experienced users may want to partition the disk independently.

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Video card – NVIDIA GeForce MX350The video card deserves a separate analysis. In fact, it offers superior performance to the integrated classics that are often found in office notebooks. It is a GPU announced in early 2020, designed precisely to give users the opportunity to play the main casual titles on their work laptop. We’re talking about an entry-level video card: don’t expect high performance. However, the GeForce MX350 defends itself well when it comes to running some of the most popular titles on the market. In short, it is a component that has its weight and that can interest those who want to play on the move without too many pretensions. This is without counting the benefits in terms of programs that take advantage of graphic acceleration.

At the video card level, we find a dedicated GPU NVIDIA GeForce MX350 2GB GDDR5. Coming to the connectivity sector, there is support for Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac and Bluetooth 5.0, while the battery is 56 Wh. On an average day of ours, made of both office use and some gaming sessions, we manage to reach about 6 and a half hours of autonomy. However, in this case it is a notebook designed for a slightly more “bland” use and, making it exclusively for office use, you can safely bring your working day home.

In any case, if during the day you have a power outlet available, even for a short time, you can take advantage of the 65W recharge. In short, Huawei never disappoints in terms of autonomy and this MateBook 14 has good results. On the temperature front, sometimes the heat on the body is felt, especially when using the notebook while connected to the power outlet or when performing “heavy” activities such as gaming. Fans are also audible in these contexts. However, it is not an exaggeration and in an office use this problem does not often arise.

The software installed on board is obviously Windows 10, the company usually pre-install the PC Manager suite, which allows you to manage the drivers and the computer in general. In addition, there is no lack of Huawei Share functionality, which allows you to share files and screens from a Chinese brand smartphone. In short, Huawei continues to focus on the path of the ecosystem, making its products interact with each other.

User experience

Windows 10 Home runs without any kind of problem. It is a laptop designed for business or school use and in this sense there is very little to say: the good touch screen panel, the audio compartment (two speakers and four microphones) that does not disappoint the expectations and the excellent materials make the excellent notebook in these contexts.
Here, however, we go further, given that the presence of the NVIDIA GeForce MX350 GPU also allows it to be used in other contexts. Previously we have already mentioned the use of gaming: Huawei MateBook 14 2020 allows to run at 30 FPS in Full HD with low details casual titles such as Hyper Scape, Ubisoft’s Battle Royale in Open Beta from 12 July 2020.

In addition, the minimum requirements for titles such as GTA 5, Valorant, Apex Legends, Overwatch and Rocket League are exceeded. In short, do not expect exciting performances, but the notebook can be interesting for a few games on the move.
Going beyond the video game field, an aspect that can be of great interest to professionals is that related to programs that use graphics acceleration, for example the Adobe suite for video editing. In this case, the dedicated GPU makes the difference, guaranteeing better performance than that of a classic laptop, but without achieving the performance of notebooks that are more heavily bodied on the hardware front.

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Huawei MateBook 14
Huawei MateBook 14 is an excellent notebook for those looking for a balance between work and entertainment. In fact, contrary to what you might think at first glance, under the body there is a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX350 video card. The latter allows both to play casual titles (it is an entry-level GPU) and to obtain greater satisfactions, for example, in terms of video editing, compared to the integrated classics. For the rest, the laptop is exactly the model that the user expects from the Chinese company: good autonomy, excellent daily performance, high build quality, 65W charger and good equipment in terms of ports. In any case, it is not perfect: it warms up a bit and the fans make themselves felt with certain “heavy” activities, there is the usual partitioning of the SSD, the positioning of the pop-up webcam may not appeal to everyone and the screen does not have one of the best maximum brightness (an aspect that can be seen in contexts with a lot of light, especially outdoors). The price is 1299 euros for the i7 model (16 / 512GB) that we have tested, but it is possible to buy the i5 variant (8 / 512GB) for 999 euros. The cost places it in a competitive range, but it is difficult to find better.