Huawei MateBook 14 (2024) review

The Huawei Matebook 14 is billed as a flagship-level Windows laptop that sits between the Chinese manufacturer’s ultra-premium MateBook X Pro and its MateBook D series devices. It features a gorgeous OLED display that would not be out of place on the most expensive Windows laptops but is slightly let down by middling performance on its Intel Meteor Lake chip when stacked up against its ARM-based competitors.

We’ve been sent the top spec of the Huawei MateBook 14, which comes in at £1,199 RRP and gets you an Intel Core 7 Ultra 155H processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. This is the only version of the MateBook 14 that will be available in the UK, unfortunately, but readers based in the rest of Europe will also have the cheaper Core Ultra 5 option, though you’ll have to settle for a more boring gray finish.

Overall the MateBook 14 presents a sleek package that delivers solid all-round performance that would have thrust it into any conversation for most well-rounded Windows devices available on the market around the £1,000 mark. But major leaps in performance and battery life unlocked by new Qualcomm processors leave the MateBook 14 with a considerable challenge ahead of it.

Huawei Matebook 14 (2024) review: Design

The MateBook 14 stands out from the crowd with its eye-catching pale green exterior. Somewhere between green tea and mint, the finish takes on an ethereal silverish tint in brighter settings, and would not look out of place on a meeting table.

The green MateBook 14 is only available with the Core Ultra 7 chipset, so users who opt for the base unit will have to settle for Huawei’s space gray; but for those who do spring for the higher spec unit will enjoy a refreshing point of difference from the blacks and grays dominating the laptop market

The device is built with ‘metallic materials’ according to Huawei, but it feels closer to a sturdier plastic rather than lightweight alloy. This is not necessarily the worst sacrifice to make, however, as it leaves the MateBook 14 feeling lightweight and portable (weighing in at 1.31 kg) but with enough heft that it feels solid when in use.

Overall, Huawei’s MateBook 14 feels on the sleeker, more stylish end of the Windows laptop spectrum, and has a beautiful 91% screen-to-body ratio that is hard to achieve in terms of aesthetics at this price point.

But the MateBook’s slightly plasticky feel, which flexes under firm pressure, means it’s not quite the ultra-premium experience you might get with the Surface lineup, or Huawei’s more pricey MateBook X series.

Huawei Matebook 14 (2024) review: Display

Displays have been something of a strong point for Huawei’s devices and the MateBook 14 did not disappoint. It sports a very impressive 14.2in touchscreen OLED panel which has rich colors, deep blacks, and is comfortably bright when placed in direct light.

In our testing, the 2.8k panel boasted color gamut volumes of 99.9% sRGB, 85.7% Adobe RGB, and 96.8% DCI P3, which is handily ahead of devices in the same price rang, such as the Asus ExpertBook P5 and the Acer Swift 14 AI.

Although listed as 450 nits we only managed to get a peak brightness closer to 400 nits in our testing, but the display never felt dim, and it does a great job of making high-fidelity content pop.

A 120Hz refresh rate means everything feels a little bit smoother using the device and you really miss it when dropping back down to lower refresh rate panels.

The 3:2 aspect ratio has been a mainstay on Huawei laptops and is slightly rarer than the 16:10 Macbook-esque form factor, and we’re big fans of 3:2 from a productivity perspective.

The taller display is perfect for working with documents or spreadsheets, and the added vertical room is noticeable when navigating the increasingly ubiquitous mobile-friendly-UIs on the web

It does slightly hurt the MateBook 14’s credentials as a content consumption device, however, as HD video will suffer from slightly worse letterboxing, but this might be a trade-off you are willing to make for better usability when dealing with documents or webpages.

Overall the display is where the MateBook 14 really shines and lives up to Huawei’s flagship label, where perhaps other aspects of the device fall slightly short.

Huawei Matebook 14 (2024) review: Keyboard and touchpad

The MateBook 14’s keyboard is well laid out and offers a solid typing experience with noticeable key travel, although we found it is lacking somewhat in terms of tactile feedback when typing.

As a result, although we were able to get up to full speed fairly quickly without too many errors or double key presses, the switches are slightly muddier than we would like in order for the MateBook 14 to compete with the best laptop keyboards out there.

The touchpad is one area where the device falls down; it has good glide and doesn’t skimp in terms of size, but the diving-board clicking mechanism feels slightly dated as it requires different pressure according to where your finger is on the touchpad. It is definitely a serviceable touchpad and has no glaring problems but we feel it is noticeably worse than touchpads on the Surface lineup and ultimately detracts slightly from the premium flagship-feel Huawei is going for.

Huawei Matebook 14 (2024) review: Specs and performance

We tested the top-spec configuration of the MateBook 14, which has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, featuring Intel ARC graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD.

In our testing, the MateBook 14 achieved a single core CPU benchmark of 2,177 which was not far behind the 2,405 notched by the MateBook X Pro’s i9 chip, but slightly falls behind the performance of new Qualcomm-based laptops like the Dell Inspiron 14 plus or the Acer Swift 14 AI.

It’s a similar story for multi-core performance scoring 11,957 compared to the X Pro’s 13,365 as well as the two competitors from Dell and Acer, which both scored above 12,000.

The gap is not huge, however, and if you are worried about compatibility problems with ARM-based devices, the Intel chip in the Huawei is more than capable, and in daily use, the MateBook 14 felt snappy with no lags or stutters.

Only during intense stress tests did things get a little choppy as the Intel ARC graphics system appeared to struggle with 4K video playback. Apart from this, the MateBook 14 dealt with these very demanding workloads admirably, and when the fans kicked up they only generated a faint whir at their loudest.

The MateBook 14 performed well on our looped video test lasting over 13 hours, which was better than the more expensive MateBook X Pro, and about par for what we would expect from a Meteor Lake device.

In day-to-day use, the MateBook 14 was able to last an entire shift of moderate use, with a little left in the tank at the end of play. This would have previously been considered very respectable but the recent surge in battery performance achieved by new Qualcomm and Lunar Lake chips puts the MateBook 14’s score in perspective. The competition has leaped ahead in recent years and the MateBook 14 is some way behind the Zenbook S14, Surface Laptop 7, and HP Omnibook X in this department.

Huawei MateBook 14 (2024) review: Is it worth it?

The Huawei MateBook 14 is a solid all-round laptop that really shines through its display, which is one of the best you can find at £1,199. It has no glaring failings, performs well in every category, and exceeds expectations for its luscious and eye-grabbing OLED display. The MateBook 14 falls behind the competition slightly in terms of performance and battery life when compared to devices using Qualcomm chips, but it is certainly no slouch and will easily get you through the day.

For businesses, however, a beautiful display is likely not going to seal the deal over boosted performance and multi-day battery life, and even visual creatives would likely want to opt for a device with a discrete graphics chip. As such, Huawei is something of a jack of all trades, and its strengths don’t quite line up with the business priorities of most enterprises.

Huawei MateBook 14 (2024) specifications