Two years ago, we praised Huawei for their brilliant Huawei Matebook 13 (2020 Edition) which happened to strike the perfect balance between innovation, ease of use, creativity, and value for money. In fact, it was deservedly named our Product of the Year for 2020. Fast forward 24 months and Huawei have returned with their successor, the Matebook 14s which brings some welcome improvements to an already stellar package especially when it comes to the ‘s’ for the screen.
Let’s start with that screen, with a stunning 14.2-inch-high resolution 2.5k IPS display with a 90-hertz refresh rate and a brightness that tops 400+ nits, this is one fluid, bright and responsive touch screen that just looks great. We love the slightly larger screen space thanks to the squared aspect ratio as it allows you to see more on the screen at one time. Contrast and black levels are also very good for this IPS panel as it seems to be well-calibrated when it comes to color and brightness which for us tech hounds, is a good thing.
Flanking the display is matte-finished aluminum chassis that has a premium MacBook-Esque aesthetic paired with some nice, tapered edges, rubber feet to stop sliding, and a generous long-lasting 60-watt battery. New this year is the addition of not one but two USB-C ports; one is USB-C gen2, with data, video, and charging, and the other supports Thunderbolt 4. There’s also a full-size HDMI port (thankyou Huawei for listening), an audio jack, and a USB-A port on the right side. We continue to be big fans of the soft-touch compact keyboard with some above average 1.5mm key travel and the responsive multi touch clickpad which means navigating with a cursor is smooth and easy. Also of note is Windows Hello face recognition laptop unlock and even a biometric fingerprint scanner built into the power key which continues to impress with their ease of use, it makes us wonder why all laptop manufacturers’ don’t adopt this design principle.
Powering this Windows 11 laptop is the latest Intel Core i5/i7 processor paired with 8 or 16GB of RAM, the Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics processor, up to 1 TB of storage plus the latest Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity options. Needless to say, using the Matebook14s was a very satisfying experience, load times are exceptionally quick which is likely helped in part by the LPDDR4x-3733 dual-channel memory plus the higher screen refresh rate. Heat dissipation was also excellent, even on the heaviest of multitasking, the processor stayed cool, calm, and collected. The cherry on top of this versatile package is the inclusion of Huawei’s own unified PC Manager app that offers control over the power modes, battery and audio settings, updates, etc. It also facilitates connections with other Huawei devices (smartphones, earbuds, monitors, tablets) through the Link technology. There are also some excellent sounding stereo speakers and an included compact-sized 90W USB-C charger which can charge up the device quite swiftly at the end of a busy workday.
To conclude, it is safe to say that Huawei has made the necessary upgrades where it matters most on the Matebook 14s. With a better, vibrant, and faster screen, more connectivity ports, a better processor, and longer-lasting battery, the Matebook continues to be our laptop of choice that powers everything we do at One Cut Reviews. So, the best recommendation we can give is that we continue to use it every day and you should too.
Get yours at https://consumer.huawei.com/en/laptops/matebook-14s/
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