Review: Huawei MateBook 14s

Last October we were able to unbox the Huawei MateBook 14s and we have been using it for more than 2 months now. Keep reading to know what we have experienced in this semi long-term review.

Design

Over the course of our 2 months with the Huawei MateBook 14s, the laptop has retained its smooth texture and Space Gray finish, with little to no visible wear-and-tear. Carrying the 1.43kg laptop around the house or to the office has also gotten us used to its extremely lightweight form factor, sometimes making it seem as if we’re carrying nothing at all. Even with its slimness, the Huawei MateBook 14s is a catchall laptop due to the wide array of ports we could ever need, namely its two USB-C ports, USB3.2 port, 3.5mm headphone jack and a handy HDMI port.

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Performance

The Huawei MateBook 14’s 11th Gen Intel Core processor still retains its high performance, primarily due to the Huawei’s Shark fin cooling system which increases heat dissipation while decreasing fan noise. The long battery life has also been retained, as the large 60Wh battery allows for lasting usage and SuperCharging. We were also able to utilize the Thunderbolt 4 port, which has allowed us to charge when we didn’t have the primary Huawei charger around.

Smart features

Say goodbye to red eyes due to long laptop usage, as Huawei’s Smart Brightness Adjustment has consistently provided us a comfortable and safe light experience. The MateBook 14s has both TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light (Hardware Solution) Certification along with TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification.

On top of safety smart features, the MateBook 14s includes Multi-screen Collaboration with a smartphone, a tablet, a display, earphones, a mouse, speakers and printers. With the updated PC Manager, we were even able to control all connected devices with the click of a button. Another ‘instant’ feature we particularly enjoyed was the Fingerprint Power Button, which would quickly take us to the desktop after powering on the laptop. Quality-of-life is further enhanced with the new and improved full-sized keyboard which offers 1.5mm key travel, durable key caps and Soft-landing Design for a comfortable and easygoing typing experience.

One last feature we have loved about the MateBook 14s is that it allowed us to enjoy Mobile Apps on the laptop through the Mobile App Engine and Huawei Share. As we mentioned in our review two months ago, the Mobile App Engine is a first-of-its-kind innovation from Huawei that separates the Huawei MateBook 14s from the competition within its price range. Via the Mobile App Engine and Huawei Share, we used mobile-specific apps and even sent files across our different devices without using a data cable. For instance, we used mobile apps like Instagram on our laptop’s screen and even downloaded photos and videos taken on our phones directly to the laptop.

Pricing and availability

The Huawei MateBook 14s retails at P68,999 for the 8GB + 512GB with an Intel i5-11300H model. On the other hand, the 16GB + 1TB with an Intel i7-11370H chipset variant is priced at P89,999 which is only available in Space Gray. Both of these variants come with freebies — Huawei FreeBuds Pro (PHP 7,999), Microsoft 365 (PHP 3,499), and the Huawei Watch GT 2e Mint Green Edition (PHP 6,990). That’s a total of P18,488 worth of freebies from Huawei.

Verdict

Despite Huawei’s slight struggle introducing their smartphones without Google Mobile Services but feature the Huawei AppGallery, the company still excels in other aspects — thanks to their MateBooks. With the MateBook 14s, there aren’t any possible non-negotiable features now that they removed the camera recessed on the keyboard. I do wish that they made a webcam privacy feature.