Huawei MateBook 16: a powerful and inexpensive computer, despite a poor webcam

Huawei Matebook 16 – Best prices:

It’s true, large-screen laptops are heavy and difficult to carry around. But the advantages of owning a 16-inch screen, for work as well as for entertainment, are numerous. In any case, this is the recipe chosen by Huawei with its MateBook 16, which relies on a high-quality screen, solid internal components – an AMD Ryzen 7 processor with integrated Radeon Graphics, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD With its very attractive price, will Huawei’s new laptop succeed in achieving its primary objective, namely to establish itself as a powerful computer in the face of a plethora of competition?

Solid and bulky

Huawei has a good track record in laptop design and manufacturing, and the MateBook 16 is no exception. The space gray chassis is a bit darker than most grays, giving the laptop’s clean, minimalist lines a bit of distinction. The aluminum used for the cover and the base ensures good protection of the interior when the laptop is in a bag or backpack. Small downside: the computer does not have official certification of robustness in the form of ML-STD or an IP index.

With its 1.99 kg, the MateBook 16 stands out as a heavyweight. That’s not all: the device is also bulky, since it measures 351 mm wide by 254.9 mm deep and 17.8 mm thick. The power supply adds a minimal amount, as it only includes a small AC outlet and a long USB-C to USB-C cable.

The computer’s chassis houses a 16-inch IPS display with a 3:2 aspect ratio that consumes most of the area it has.

A webcam flush with the daisies

The screen resolution of 2.5K (2520 x 1680 pixels, 189 ppi) allows for razor-sharp text and images, but the screen is very reflective, which can be distracting in some situations. The screen’s 300-nit peak brightness is fine for normal indoor work, but can be a problem in brightly lit environments or outdoors. Huawei claims 100% coverage of the sRGB color gamut, but there is no mention of the wider DCI-P3 gamut, which is widely used in video editing.

Huawei Matebook 16 – Best prices:

Loudspeaker grilles are arranged on either side of the keyboard. They diffuse the sound towards the user in a very effective way. The audio quality is well balanced, with a good amount of bass. The frame above the screen is narrow. The reason is simple: Huawei persists with its somewhat quirky webcam placement. The camera is indeed hidden under a key in the middle of the row fn, and appears when pressed. The option chosen by Huawei is not without flaws: it is simply not a viable location for a webcam.

Not everything is to be thrown into the Huawei laptop, far from it. Its keyboard is comfortable to use: the key Hall double-height is easy to find, and there are full-size left and right arrow keys, plus a row of keys fn relatively large. A dull, hollow sound is heard when pressing the keys, which is less irritating to others in the room than a more “slamming” response. Biometric authentication is further provided by a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button in the upper right corner, above the speaker grille.

The king of hitting

The Huawei laptop’s glass touchpad is huge and very responsive. The Huawei MateBook 16 configuration was based on an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H mobile processor with integrated AMD Radeon graphics, 16 GB DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB NVMe PCIe SSD. There is also another model based on the Ryzen 5 5600H processor . My Ryzen 7-based test setup handled a daily mix of productivity and after-hours entertainment workloads without issue.

Connectivity level, Huawei is quite generous. Along with the two USB-C ports, one of which is required for charging, the device has two USB-A ports, a full-sized HDMI connector, and a 3-channel audio in/out jack. .5mm. Huawei includes a few features designed to benefit owners of other Huawei devices. The PC Manager application, which is called by a key combination fnallows you to set up multi-screen collaboration and use Huawei Share.

Screen Sharing allows a Huawei tablet or phone to be used as a second screen in mirror, extend or collaborate mode – the latter mode allows files to be dragged between the tablet and the laptop. It’s a clever idea, but it only works with some other Huawei devices (and some Honor devices from when the two brands were united).

A half-successful bet

Long battery life isn’t guaranteed for 16-inch laptops, but the Huawei MateBook 16 delivers with its 84 Wh battery. During a typical three-hour work session with web apps and streaming music, the battery only lost 26% of its capacity, which suggests a total battery life of around 11.5 hours.

Well-made, with a long battery life and an excellent 16-inch screen, Huawei’s MateBook 16 ticks a lot of boxes. Its speakers are impressive and its keyboard has a very pleasant typing, which makes it a good general-purpose computer for work as well as for entertainment. Its price is also attractive.

But even with all these positives, the position of the 720p webcam is still a huge problem. Too bad: if Huawei repositioned it and improved its definition, this Matebook 16 could well have all the assets to impose itself on the market.

Huawei Matebook 16 – Best prices:

Source: ZDNet.com