Huawei MateBook D 14 review: complete budgetlaptop

Huawei is targeting the laptop market in Europe and is gradually putting a whole line-up in the store. The Huawei MateBook D 14 is a budget-friendly appearance with which Huawei makes a lot of interesting choices and puts the right priorities first, but still cuts a corner here and there.

You will no longer find bad laptops at prices above 800 euros. Some configurations suit certain people or companies better, but the majority are decent without too many surprises. It is only once you dive below that limit that you step into a minefield.

The Huawei MateBook D 14 (599 euros incl. VAT) does its best to give it the maximum within a competitive price range, without you noticing that it is a cheaper device. Every house has its cross, but in the case of the MateBook D 14, it’s a very small cross that few people will see.

Windows 10 Home

First of all, we must clarify that this is a Windows 10 Home device. The Huawei MateBook D 14 does not come with Windows 10 Pro, which is sometimes a requirement within companies from the IT department to better manage the device. If that doesn’t apply to you, you can save a lot of money.

The beautiful, sleek premium design is immediately noticeable, despite its competitive price tag. The aluminum casing feels sturdy and the thin screen edges give the laptop a modern, premium look. The wide touchpad feels pleasant and the keyboard offers enough depth to type comfortably.

The round on / off button next to the keyboard doubles as a fingerprint sensor to secure the laptop with Windows Hello. Striking is the placement of the webcam in the middle of the function keys between F6 and F7. As soon as you tap this, the 1 megapixel camera appears from the housing. Ideal for privacy-minded people who like to mask their camera.

The only drawback: the angle of the camera is anything but pleasant for video calling. Typing while video calling is not an option, unless the other party likes to admire your fingers up close. By the way, you have to take quite some distance from your laptop to be comfortable in the picture. What helps is a laptop holder to place the Huawei MateBook D 14 higher and an external keyboard. In those circumstances, the result is fine.

Premium design

The 14-inch Full HD screen looks bigger than it is thanks to the thin bezels. Considering its price tag, the quality of the LCD panel is excellent. The only downside we find in the maximum brightness of the image. We only measure 258 cd / m², which is not enough to work comfortably outside in daylight. Inside, you don’t notice much of that limited maximum brightness, and the Huawei MateBook D 14 performs well.

Thanks to the thin chassis, this laptop has remarkably few connections on board: twice USB, HDMI, headphone connection and USB-C. In itself that selection is solid and complete, but apart from the headphone connection, every connection deserves an asterisk with additional explanation. For example, the HDMI connection is v1.4, which does not allow you to connect a 4K screen at 60 Hz. For that you need HDMI v2.0. A deal breaker for some people, but this is just the smallest asterisk.

USB-C with major limitations

The two USB connections look the same on the laptop, both black, but one is USB 3.0 and the other the much slower USB 2.0. See it wondering: the left USB port is USB 3.0. Here we achieve speeds of up to 330 MB / s with our SSD disk. The right port reaches 40 MB / s. Minimalism adorns many laptops, but Huawei could have put a small symbol here to indicate the difference.

The biggest Achilles heel of this laptop is the USB-C connection. We welcome the addition of the plug as it has become the mobile standard, but in the case of the Huawei MateBook D 14, you can only use it for charging or copying data at USB 2.0 speeds. Funnily enough, the port does not support the faster USB 3.0 and you cannot connect a USB-C monitor due to the lack of DisplayPort support.

The USB-C connection should be like a trump card, a flexible port to which you can connect all USB-C peripherals. Without a picture output, this is not an ideal flex desk laptop and, as in the past, you still need two cables to connect a laptop to an external monitor: HDMI for image and USB-C for power.

Great performance and battery

Inside, Huawei hits the nail on the head in terms of specifications. The AMD Ryzen 5 3500U is a great chip coupled with 8 GB DDR4 RAM. The integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 GPU is up to three times faster than an equivalent integrated Intel graphics chip, which is ideal for playing games in between or for limited graphics operations.

The absolute odd one out is the 512 GB PCIe SSD in the Huawei MateBook D 14. This much fast internal storage is unseen in this price range and more than sufficient. Half is more than enough for most, double is a handy bonus.

The battery life is excellent and scores above average. You can easily achieve a full working day with this laptop. Still too little battery in the end? The fast charger provides 50% battery in 33 minutes and the same charger serves as a fast charger for your smartphone or tablet if it supports USB-C Power Delivery.

Almost perfect

The Huawei MateBook D 14 (599 euros incl. VAT) is a very cleverly designed laptop that offers a lot of value for money. The device ticks off all the most important things: decent battery, good screen, solid chassis, good performance and a good touchpad. The only thing we stumble upon is the USB-C connection, which is unnecessarily limited by the lack of DisplayPort compatibility and USB 2.0 speeds.

It seems like a small task to us to make that USB-C connection more flexible, but on the other hand we also understand that the price requires compromises. For some users, the limited USB-C connectivity can be a deal breaker. Those who don’t care much about this, will get a top device with an unprecedented price-quality ratio with the Huawei MateBook D 14.

Huawei MateBook D 14: AMD Ryzen 5-3500U, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 14 inch Full HD screen, Windows 10 Home– 599 euros (including VAT)

Tip: Huawei is using all means to conquer the Belgian laptop market