LAPTOP | £1,100 from Huawei www.snipca.com/47772
Smashes Windows
We’ve reviewed models in Huawei’s MateBook range before and we’ve usually been pretty impressed by the level of performance and features at an affordable price. This latest model is no different.
It has a 16in IPS screen, where we might prefer to see an OLED model. That was the case in the Acer Swift Edge 16 (£1,299 from www.snipca.com/47480, reviewed in Issue 667), which was our favourite laptop until this model showed up. It slices nearly £200 off the Edge’s price and we think it’s made all the right compromises to get there.
Typically, Huawei has struck a sensible balance with the IPS screen, which is actually at the top end of what we’d expect from this technology and is capable of reproducing 95 per cent of the sRGB colour standard. It has a 2520x1680-pixel resolution, so looks sharp despite its 16in expanse, and its peak brightness level of 500cd/m2 means you can see everything on screen in a brightly lit environment.
The screen is glossy, but its anti-glare coating meant we didn’t find our overhead lights to be a problem during testing. It’s a touchscreen, which is always a handy option.
Having such a large screen has obvious benefits for those who use their laptops to watch TV, so it was a relief to hear the high-quality audio from the built-in speakers. Don’t expect high fidelity, but there’s enough bass to make film effects sound suitably immersive.
However, the real reason this laptop has taken the Swift Edge 16’s crown is the boost in Windows performance it gets from its components. It’s powered by Intel’s Core i9-13900H chip, whose 14 cores keep even complex software running at a decent pace. In multi-core benchmark tests it provides an extra 10 per cent of power over the Edge, which is a noticeable upgrade.
It didn’t perform quite as well in our gaming tests. Here the MateBook is around 30 per cent slower, showing that the Acer’s AMD processor is a better option for running more demanding games than the Intel on the Huawei. If gaming is more important than
