Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD Unboxing and First Impressions
Right on schedule, Huawei earlier unveiled the new MateBook 14 2020 AMD in the Philippines.
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| Meet MateBook 14 |
It's a 14-inch laptop boasting a high-end-like build, crisp 2K display, pretty powerful 7nm AMD Ryzen 5 4600H 6-core processor, and capable overall specifications that could make it a great all-around and on-the-go laptop for work, school, and entertainment.
Huawei is also claiming that it is one of the slimmest and most compact with such specs right now.
Let's check it out and see if it is the one for you.
Unboxing/Accessories
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| Simple box |
MateBook 14's packaging is simple yet elegant-looking. Inside, it is straightforward as well. You'll immediately see the laptop itself, followed by the paper documents, 65W power brick, and the long USB-C to USB-C data/charging cable.
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| Huawei Classic Backpack |
If you will buy the laptop from October 10 to 24, 2020 will receive a FREE Huawei Classic Backpack and FreeBuds 3i worth PHP 11,998.
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| FreeBuds 3i |
The Huawei Classic Backpack is a premium-looking bag made out of 290T nylon fabric and microfiber leather. FreeBuds 3i, on the other hand, is one of the most affordable in-ear earphones with ANC in town.
Build Quality/Design
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| Sturdy aluminum build |
The material used on the new MateBook is similar to what we saw with most MateBooks which uses a sturdy aluminum-clad build, but it feels more solid than the lower-end MateBook D series.
Minimalist yet stylish build!
It has a few plastic parts found on the hinge cover and the keyboard and rubber feet at the bottom to prevent the laptop from slipping.
The laptop still has bezels, it is now covered in a glass along with the display unlike lower-end MateBook D laptops with plastic bezels. This move allowed Huawei to make the laptop even slimmer.
The overall design of the laptop is MateBooks which is obviously inspired by Apple. To keep it simple, it has minimalist yet elegant-looking.
When closed, you'll be greeted by either Mystic Silver or Space Grey colored cover with a matte-like finish and embossed Huawei logo in the middle.
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| Below |
Below, you'll see a 1 long rubber foot and two smaller rubber feet. You will also find a big exhaust showing the dual Shark fin fans with an S-shaped fin arrangement to keep the performance in check. It is for improved cooling performance and quieter fan acoustics.
The stereo speakers are also found below. Each of those speakers provides up to 2W loudness which could be great for your movie or music time and even zoom calls.
It also has a total of four microphones for better voice reception when doing web calls.
It also has a total of four microphones for better voice reception when doing web calls.
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| Crisp 2K screen, power key/fingerprint scanner |
When opened, you'll find its 14-inch IPS screen with a crisp QHD 2K 2160 1440 resolution, 100 percent RGB color gamut, 1500:1 contrast ratio, TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification for eye comfort, and 300 nits of brightness.
Immersive 2K display for less!
Since it has 4.9mm super-slim bezels with a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio, it provides a more immersive viewing experience than a lot of older generation laptops.
The 2K resolution is also a huge step-up versus most similarly priced laptops with 1080p screens.
In addition, it has a 3:2 screen aspect ratio with a taller 3:2 aspect ratio where you can fit a lot of vertical information into two windows side-by-side. This could greatly enhance your multitasking experience. Most Windows laptops in this priced range come with 16:9 ratios.
It wasn't mentioned, but we think that it has an oleophobic coating as the screen is not prone to fingerprint smudges.
There are higher-end versions of the MateBook 14 2020 AMD with touchscreens, but sadly we won't be getting those in PH.
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| The keyboard and touchpad area |
Huawei also updated its keyboard with a more backlit that is not noticeable when there's enough room light to prevent distraction while performing well in low light.
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| Backlit keyboard |
Similar to most MateBooks its power button doubles as a fingerprint reader and it is quite fast and responsive.
Huawei also updated its gesture-ready touchpad with a built-in Huawei Share tag. Compared to the old Huawei Share tag found on the right side of the lower portion of the keyboard, the new tag underneath the touchpad is neatly hidden with a larger area for better touch detection.
This allows Huawei Share users to connect their phones easier and faster on the MateBook 14.
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| Hidden webcam |
If you are looking for the webcam, it is neatly hidden in the middle of the "F" keys. It allowed Huawei to implement a slim screen bezel design without the need of eliminating the web camera.
However, I still prefer MateBook 13's webcam implementation even if the top bezel is a little bit thicker as it isn't showing your face awkwardly from below unlike a lot of MateBooks with a hidden webcam.
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| Left 1 |
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| Right |
For ports, this has plenty of ports despite its slim and compact profile. It has a 1x USB-C, 2x USB-A 3.2, 1x HDMI, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The USB-C port of this laptop supports the fast charging 65W Switching Power Adaptor.
It is a bit of a bummer that there's no slot for SD cards though.
Overall, it is pretty impressive how Huawei was able to fit all those parts in its 307.5 x 223.8 x 15.9 mm body.
At 1.49 kg, it is also considered pretty light and easy to carry a Windows-powered notebook.
MateBook 14 2020 AMD Specs
Display: 14-inch IPS screen w/ QHD 2160 x 1440 resolution at 185 ppi
CPU: 4.0GHz 7nm AMD Ryzen 5 4600H 6-core processor
GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (6-core)
RAM: 16GB DDR4
ROM: 512GB PCIe SSD
Selfie Camera: 1MP
Battery: 56WHr LiPo w/ 65W Switching Power Adaptor
OS: Windows 10 Home
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, 1x USB-C, 2x USB-A 3.2, 1x HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack
Sensors: Hall, gravity
Others: Power button/fingerprint scanner, backlit keyboard, touchpad w/ Huawei Share tag, 4x microphones, 2x 2W speakers, 2x Shark fin fans, Colors: Mystic Silver, Space Grey
Dimensions: 307.5 x 223.8 x 15.9 mm
Weight: 1.49 kg
Price: PHP 54,999
As of the moment
The Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD is potentially the Windows laptop to beat in its class.
Versus a lot of other slim notebooks for work found in this price point, it has a crisper 2K display, a more powerful chip (AMD Ryzen 5 4600H), and a larger 16GB RAM size.
The new 4.0GHz 7nm AMD Ryzen 5 4600H 6-core processor is no joke and it is leaps and bounds better than the older Ryzen 5 3500U. There are even claims that it outperforms Intel's 9th Gen Intel Core i7 and 10th Gen Intel Core i5 chips found on several more expensive ultrabooks.
But of course, we will have to do a full review first to see if those claims are correct.
So far, the MateBook 14 is a super sleek laptop with minimal compromise in performance. This is looking to be a great buddy for work-or-school-from-home and a bit of play.
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