Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey review – latest model

Ultraportable, lightweight laptops are all the trend nowadays, and it’s easy to understand why. The idea of being able to use them for work or leisure while on the go is an extremely appealing prospect, and the convenience aspect has prompted many to switch to the ultraportable life. Huawei, with their expertise in the smartphone industry, is no exception, branching out into the notebook terrority with the Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey and MateBook X Pro in 2019, before following each up with an improved 2020 iteration. The differences between both versions are not that all obvious, however. You can find details in Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey review.

Pros & Cons – Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey

Pros

• Powerful performance
• Good keyboard
• Great build quality
• Compact design with 3:2 display
• Can play most 3D games
• Good price
• Combo fingerprint reader/power button
• Comes with a free dongle that includes ethernet and extra ports
• Nvidia MX150 GPU included in top-tier model

Cons

• Screen is a bit dim
• Short battery life
• Muffled, tinny sound
• Limited USB-C ports
• No Thunderbolt 3 support
• Only two configs
• Crazy-loud fans
• No USB-A ports
• Both models only support 8GB of RAM

Specifications – Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey

• Accessories included: Huawei USB Type-C power adapter 65W, Charger Cable (USB Type-C), Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card
• Additional memory: No additional memory
• Audio details: 2 Speakers – Dolby sound system
• Battery life: Up to 10 hours
• Bluetooth enabled: Yes – 5.0
• Brand: Huawei
• Camera (front-facing): 1MP
• CD/DVD/Blu-ray Drive: No
• Dimensions: H14.90 x W211 x D286mm
• Display: LCD; IPS; PPI: 200
• Generations: 10th generation
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce MX250
• Graphics card type: Shared
• Hard drive: 512GB
• Manufacturer Part Number: (MPN)53010UQL
• Memory (RAM): 16GB
• Memory card slots: No
• Model name / numberHuawei Matebook 13 2020 Laptop
• NFC enabledNo
• Operating systemWindows 10 home (64 bit)
• Ports2x USB-C 3.1, 3.5mm audio jack
• Processori7-10510U
• Processor speed1.8GHz to 4.9GHz
• Processor typeIntel Core i7
• Product code82718302
• Screen resolution2160 x 1440 pixels
• Screen size13″
• Touch screenYes
• Weight1.30kg
• Wireless displayNo wireless display
• Wireless networkingYes

Compare HUAWEI MateBook 13 vs HP Envy 13-ba0010na 13.3-Inch

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Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey review

Build quality and design

As mentioned before, the notebook does not see any substantial change from its previous version. We are looking at a metal chassis that feels both premium and rugged. On the lid of the device, you find some minimal Huawei branding whereas the bottom sports feet for grip. The feet at the rear of the device are a bit larger than those on the front giving the laptop not only a good ergonomic feel but also enhanced air flow.

At the bottom, you also find considerable perforations for cooling the device. When pushed, the laptop’s Shark Fin Fan 2.0 definitely kicks in. However, it is not as loud as expected. Furthermore, the laptop does a fairly good job of handling moderate to heavy loads without heating up excessively. Just, graphic rendering or video editing makes the underside a bit uncomfortable to touch.

Speaking of the bottom, this is also where you find a pair of stereo speakers. If the laptop is intended to be used on a flat surface, this is not much of a problem. At up to 70 per cent volume, they are great but at maximum, they do show signs of peaking. But if you intend to use the laptop on a softer surface, the experience is underwhelming. Because of the soft surface, the speakers sound muddy and muffled and we wish in this case, they were designed to be on the side or top of the laptop.

Display technology and I/O

While the speaker experience could be better, something Huawei has done well with the MateBook 13 is the display. The 3:2 panel sports a 2K resolution and an impressive 88 per cent screen to body ratio. It comes equipped with multi-touch support for increased interactivity and despite the small bezel, Huawei has done well to include a front camera, albeit of mediocre quality.

The display being of that aspect ratio, your typical 16:9 video content online will have black bars on the top and bottom when viewed. However, its quality is great. Contrast levels are good and so is saturation when looking at colorful content. There is a hint of motion blur in content but that is not particularly evident unless you are looking out for it with scrutiny.

One thing though that is a bit of a drawback is brightness. While indoors, the laptop exhibits good levels however outdoors especially in brightly lit areas, the screen may struggle just a bit. Of course, it being a touchscreen does not help as this means you cannot have anti-glare properties on the screen. Even the non-touchscreen Intel Core i5-10210 variant comes with no anti-glare.

With regards to I/O and connectivity, your choices are rather bleak. The laptop features just three ports, 2 that are Type-C USB with no Thunderbolt 3 support and a 3.5mm headphone jack. In this scenario, it would have been nice to see both ports support charging for added flexibility but unfortunately, that is not the case. It looks like for anyone wanting to use many peripherals with the notebook, a dongle would be their best bet.

Memory

There are two variants available of 8GB and 16 GB large memory. And to make things more interesting there is 512GB of PCIe SSD storage. There is sufficient memory to run multiple applications simultaneously efficiently.

Track-pad and keyboard

In spite of having no separate click keys, the track-pad on the MateBook 13 is a joy to use. Its precise, responsive and supports a lot of gestures which work smoothly. Of course, this is partly due to the Windows 10 software the laptop runs but even so, the experience has been natural. Scrolling web pages, zooming in and switching applications has become a lot easier because of this.

With regards to the keyboard, it is more good things. Keys on it are well spaced out and support two levels of back-lighting. There is a satisfying ‘thud’ to keys when you press them and their travel distance is great too. One chance I would have liked to see was the inverted-T style arrow keys however this is still not a deal breaker.

While we are at it, an honorable mention goes to the bio-metric support on the laptop too. It comes with Windows Hello support for both facial and fingerprint recognition. The latter is built into the power button of the device which improves convenience and we are happy this has been borrowed from Huawei’s MateBook X series.

Audio and fingerprint

The speaker and fingerprint scanner, meanwhile, are both very much in order. Compared to the MacBook, the MateBook 13 has better audio output, boasting rounder, louder sounds. But that’s a low bar to beat, and the latter does have its flaws: it displays signs of peaking at around 75 percent volume, and produces muffled audio when placed on softer surfaces such as the bed. As such, it’d be better to shift the speaker to the gutter at the top instead, between the screen and the keyboard. 

The biometric scanner is impressively responsive, and allows for easy login. There’s just a slight problem, however – the feature only detects the registered finger from one angle, so users will have to let it rest upon the circle properly. 

Games and camera

While the laptop is capable of simple editing, handling 3D rendering, or anything more than 2K resolution will be a tough struggle. Case in point: rendering a seven-minute 4K video yielded a 22-minute wait, which is longer than average. The fan’s whirring, surprisingly, wasn’t as loud as expected, and overheating was kept to an acceptable level. Outside of work, the ultraportable is also able to support some light gaming for a quick breather after a busy day.

Delving into the nitty-gritty reveals two more minor flaws. A front camera has been included to the top of the device, but its mediocre 1MP quality is hardly the best fit for a video interview or presentation. Additionally, the 3:2 aspect ratio of the MateBook 13 falls short of the usual 16:9 industry standard, so there will be black bars on the top and bottom when video content is played. It might affect the full-screen experience a little, but that’s easily something that users can live with.

Huawei SHARE

This is a special feature of HUAWEI. With a simple tap, you can combine your smartphone and MateBook into a single device. And this doesn’t even require an Internet Connection.

The phone screen appears on the laptop, and one can easily drag and drop files between the laptop and the phone. Hence you can work on the laptop as well as send texts on your phone using a single keyboard and mouse. This Multi-screen collaboration is a special function of Huawei Share and provides a degree of comfort not experienced before.

Heat dissipation

To ensure that the laptop runs without any hiccups, Huawei provides MateBook 13 with its new Shark Fin 2.0 fan. This has dual fans which increase the speed by 25% and enable quicker heat dissipation. This further makes a great working experience. Also, this makes the laptop a good platform for playing intensive games.

Hardware performance – Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey review

Benchmarks aside though, the laptop shows some incredible real world performance. You could have multiple browsing windows open alongside demanding programs and the laptop will show little to no signs of strain. Throughout usage, there have been no force closes or lag spikes that I have experienced either.

On our variant of the MateBook 13, we have an Intel Core i7-10510 CPU clocked at 1.8GHz with Turbo Boost support up to 2.3GHz. This the latest Intel ultra-low power processor on the market for notebooks and it is accompanied by 16GB of RAM and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage. In our sequential read and write tests, the storage drive registered a read and write speed of 2,234MB/s and 1,656MB/s respectively. As for the CPU, we ran Cinebench R20 on it, where it mustered a score of 1,355.

Even as a tool for content creation, the MateBook 13 is a handy device. Editing video content is smooth and you should be able to get away with simple 1080p quality edits with no problem. This is also thanks to Nvidia’s MX250 on-board our variant of the device. But when dealing with 4K content or 3D rendering on Blender for example, the laptop may be a bit under-powered. For reference, we rendered a five minute 4K test file on the machine, clocking a time of 14:36. In comparison, a two year old Lenovo Y520 with a dedicated Nvidia 1050Ti graphics card could complete the same test in 08:14 whereas the new Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with AMD Radeon 5500 graphics clocks a time of 02:44.

Software performance – Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey review

By simply using NFC, you can connect your smartphone to the laptop to open up new ways of interacting with your social media feeds or games. The smartphone’s screen is displayed on the notebook and can be controlled all on the single panel. Furthermore, you can also use this feature to change how you play games.

While much of Windows 10 is fairly standard, Huawei has made efforts to customize the experience. One key feature about the MateBook is Huawei Share. While it works on select devices equipped with EMUI 10, if you happen to have the recent Huawei Mate 30 Pro, you are in luck.

Pertaining to the touchscreen and away from Huawei Share, you can even three finger swipe on the display to capture a screenshot. Small things like this are great additions that enhance utility and we are excited to see where Huawei takes this further. Perhaps, enabling access to Huawei Share for non-Huawei smartphones could be on the cards via an application as that would be make this notebook a much more popular choice for sure. But as with many companies, Huawei may want to keep this feature proprietary to encourage more users in its ecosystem.

Your smartphone can act as the console to game whereas the MateBook 13’s display being the main screen. However, the most useful for has been to transfer files. By connecting, I can simply drag and drop files and images from my smartphone to laptop. And the process is not only quick but fairly seamless.

Battery life and charging

The battery’s rated capacity is 41.7Wh. According to tests local 1080p videos can be played for 11.6 hours on a full charge. The battery supports QuickCharge technology. The battery gains 2.3 hours of office use just from a 15-minute charge.

The Charger is a 65W USB-C type and comes with a detachable cable and weighs just 160g. It can be used for charging and transferring data. The charger supports HUAWEI SuperCharge and this feature can be utilized for certain phones. Being super light-weight the charger is very pocket-friendly.

Alternate of Huawei MateBook 13 (2020) i7 space grey

1. Huawei MateBook D

Pros: Starting at $621, the Huawei MateBook D is more than $300 cheaper than most of its counterparts. And while its AMD processor doesn’t provide the speeds seen in the Intel-based MateBooks, its strong battery life score (9:16) beats the 6:15 score from the MateBook 13 and isn’t that far from the original MateBook X Pro’s score of 9:55.

Oh, and the MateBook D offers a great set of ports for users with a lot of legacy devices. Dual Type-A USB ports means your existing flash drive and HDMI cables will work without a dock.

Cons: You’re taking a hit on speed with the AMD MateBook D. This laptop scored an 8,845 on Geekbench 4, which was obliterated by the scores from the 8th Gen Core-i7, chip-powered MateBook 13 (17,136). The latter notebook features the same chipset that comes in the new MateBook X Pro and MateBook 14.

Also, the MateBook D’s 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 panel is the lowest-res of the bunch, outdone by the X Pro’s 3000 x 2000 panel, the MateBook 14’s 2160 x 1440 screen and the MateBook 13’s 2160 x 1440 display.

2. Huawei MateBook 13

Pros: The 2.91-lb., 11.3 x 8.3 x 0.6-inch MateBook 13 is the lightest MateBook. The 2.93-lb. MateBook X Pro isn’t far behind, while the heaviest of these machines, the 3.41-lb. pound MateBook D, is half a pound heavier than the MateBook 13.

The MateBook 13 (94 square inches) also has the smallest footprint of the bunch. The MateBook X Pro (102 square inches), the MateBook 14 (107 square inches) and the MateBook D (111 square inches) take up increasingly larger amounts of your desk or bag.

Cons: Unfortunately, the MateBook 13’s 41.8 Whr battery doesn’t provide much stamina. Its Laptop Mag Battery Test score (web surfing over Wi-Fi) topped out at 6 hours and 15 minutes, which isn’t great by anybody’s standards.

3. Huawei MateBook X Pro

Pros: Huawei put its best display in its flagship laptop, the MateBook X Pro. Inside that laptop, you get a super-sharp, 3000 x 2000 display that makes the 2K (MateBook 13 and 14) and Full HD (MateBook D) screens on the other models look dull by comparison.

The MateBook X Pro’s screen is both the most colorful and the brightest, as its 2018 edition produced 124 percent of the sRGB spectrum and 458 nits of brightness. Those measurements beat the 122-percent, 318-nit MateBook 13 and the 73-percent, 241-nit MateBook D.

Cons: Starting at 1,599 Euro (which is around $1,809 U.S.) the MateBook X Pro is the priciest of the bunch, and more than it used to be. Huawei’s yet to release U.S. pricing yet, and we will update this story when they do. While the 2018 model was still the most expensive, it topped out at $1,499 for the Core i7 configuration.

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