Huawei MateBook 16s 2023 review – Multimedia laptop now with a brighter 3:2 display

As one of the largest manufacturers of network equipment and mobile electronics, Huawei delivers smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and also laptops to consumers. While the Android devices from the manufacturer are primarily thwarted in the western world by the US sanctions, Huawei’s PCs and laptops don’t suffer from similar limitations. They are delivered with the current Windows version and powerful processors from Intel or AMD.

Our test unit contains an Intel Core i9-13900H, which Huawei is housing in an elegant case made of aluminum and glass. The Huawei MateBook 16s mainly surprises us with a well-rounded sound. Besides Apple laptops, it has been a long time since we had a laptop in our test that sounded so good.

An IPS panel in the 3:2 format with a 2. 5K resolution provides a decent image. In addition, there are three certificates from TÜV Rheinland (a German agency for technical certifications) for the color accuracy, the low blue-light content of the display, and its being free from flickering.

With its light metal case and the Intel Core i9, the 16-inch device is a multimedia laptop for customers with high-class tastes. With this, the direct competitors of the Huawei MateBook s16 include the Lenovo Yoga 7i , the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 16 , and also the Apple MacBook Pro 16 . Those looking for a significantly lighter laptop will find it in the LG Gram 16 or 17 .

You can see links to our tests of these competitors in the table below: In the design of the MateBook 16s, Huawei was inspired by the Apple MacBook Pro. But the MateBook simply looks slimmer and more modern. There are hardly any weaknesses in the quality of the workmanship.

All the components fit tightly and without any creaking when attempting to warp the laptop. The display is easy to move and can be opened up to an angle of about 160°. The hinges aren’t moved from their position by some slight vibrations.

Unfortunately, the keyboard can be pressed down already by some light pressure. With the exception of the keys, all the surfaces of the device are made from aluminum or glass, which also provides the multimedia laptop with a high-quality appearance. The laptop weighs about 2 kg (~4.

4 lb). With the exception of the Samsung Galaxy Book3 and LG Gram 16 lightweights, the 16-inch laptops fall into approximately the same weight range. In terms of the thickness, the competitors are also fairly similar.

Those who are looking for a really slim 16-inch laptop might need to choose the Samsung device. The connections of the Huawei MateBook 16s approximately correspond to the standard of current multimedia laptops. But unfortunately, there is no SD card reader here.

Only one of the two USB-C ports support ThunderBolt 4, but both of them offer DisplayPort and PowerDelivery. Usually, one of the two ports will be occupied by the included USB-C charger. This laptop also uses an Intel WiFi AX211 as the WiFi module.

While it offers good transfer speeds during up and download, it hardly shows any advantages in the 6 GHz network compared to a 5 GHz WLAN. The webcam image of the built-in FullHD camera delivers a fairly good contrast and sharpness. The image quality only decreases minimally toward the edges.

However, with a maximum ΔΕ of 24 in dark and 19. 1 in bright skin tones, the color deviations of the camera are relatively high. The MateBook also struggles under weak light conditions, where the image quickly becomes grainy and noisy.

What is slightly unusual is the position of the built-in microphones, which are placed in front of the MateBook’s base in the little notch for opening the display. However, usually the voice quality is not negatively impacted by this. You can log into the laptop via fingerprint scanner.

In addition, the security functions of the Intel Core i9 are also available. The laptop also offers TPM 2. 0.

While SecureBoot is available, it is deactivated by default. In addition to the MateBook and USB-C charger, the box only includes the obligatory collection of papers. However, if you order the laptop directly from Huawei (in Germany), at the time of this test you also get a MateView SE Monitor, a backpack, and a wireless mouse for free included with the laptop.

The bottom cover of the laptop is held in position by ten TX5 screws and several plastic clips. To access the electronics of the MateBook 16s, you don’t need anything other than a screwdriver and prying tool. A powerful suction cup might also make removing the plastic clips easier.

After removing the screws, you can use the prying tool to work on loosening the clips around the laptop, starting from the hinges. However, once inside you don’t get many maintenance options. The working memory and WLAN module are soldered in, and in order to remove the battery, you have to remove some additional screws, some of which are covered by a sticker seal.

What is helpful is that you can take out the two fans without having to remove the whole cooling system, which makes cleaning the cooling fins and fans much easier. Our test unit is an evaluation device that is not meant for sale, so there is no warranty. Generally, Huawei offers a 24-month warranty for the display, main board, keyboard, battery, and charger for its laptops in the EU.

Laptops with a 16-inch display often also offer a full-sized keyboard. However, since Huawei is following the design of Apple’s MacBook here, it foregoes the number block. In addition to the keyboard and ClickPad, the MateBook 16s also includes a touchscreen.

The keyboard of the Huawei laptop offers a background illumination and 1. 5 mm keystroke. Together with a clearly noticeable pressure point, this results in comfortable haptics.

As a minor special feature, Huawei placed a key in the top key row between the F6 and F7 keys to start Windows voice input. The keyboard layout corresponds to the European standard (here in Germany). Thanks to its matte glass surface, the large, 14 × 9 cm (~5.

5 x 3. 5 in) ClickPad should be able to keep its comfortable haptics for a long time. It responds to inputs with up to five fingers and its palm recognition works well.

With its reflective surface, the touchscreen of MateBook 16s is more of a fingerprint magnet. The display responds without any delays to inputs of up to ten fingers. However, the surface could have made it easier to slide the fingers.

The 3:2 display of the Huawei MateBook 16s has a resolution of 2,560 × 1,680 pixels. Behind the reflective glass, you can find a contrast-rich IPS panel. The display possesses three different certifications by the TÜV Rheinland (German certification agency) and is supposed to be low in blue light emissions, free from flickering, and offer accurate colors.

Huawei advertises it with a contrast ratio of 1. 500:1, 100% sRGB color space coverage, and a color accuracy of ΔE < 1 in the state of delivery. In our measurements, the laptop misses all three of these values, but not by much.

We are still looking at a good and bright display at 435. 9 cd/m². We hardly detect any faults in the brightness distribution.

Even if Huawei advertises it as a professional display, the panel isn’t absolutely suitable for photographers and video creators, since it only covers the smaller sRGB color space almost completely. The AdobeRGB and DisplayP3 color spaces are only reproduced to around 65%. Even if the MateBook clearly misses the advertised ΔΕ < 1 in the state of delivery, the measured average color deviation is very low at a ΔΕ of 1.

6. Our ICC profile will drop these further to significantly lower than 1. Huawei also includes its own color profile, although this isn’t activated in the state of delivery.

If the brightness is adjusted very low, we notice a slight flickering of the display at 26 Hz. The change in brightness is minimal and can hardly be measured by our sensor. Because of its low amplitude and frequency, this is probably more due to some electronic noise in the background illumination rather than pulse width modulation (PWM).

Despite its reflective glass surface, the display can also be read easily outdoors, as long as it is not in the direct sunlight. Even if the reflections are clearly visible, the brightness of 430 cd/m² and high contrast ratio make the display usable outdoors. However, you shouldn’t place the laptop in direct sun for too long, since the aluminum case can heat up very quickly.

As typical for IPS panels, even steep viewing angles pose no problems, and only the brightness level decreases from increasing viewing angles. The Huawei MateBook 16s is currently only available in our tested configuration with an Intel Core i9-13900H , 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, and 1 TB NVMe SSD. Particularly considering the powerful i9 processor, the amount of working memory seems to be a bit tight here.

Since the laptop doesn’t offer a dedicated GPU, it relies on the Intel Iris Xe with 96 EUs in the Core i9. Huawei provides two preconfigured power saving modes that can be selected using the Huawei control console. In the Power mode, the Intel Core i9 can run briefly at 115 watts, with 60 watts still being available after the boost phase.

The Balanced Performance mode still offers 95 and 45 watts respectively. In battery operation, the Core i9 consumes between 35 and 40 watts. With the exception of the Hogwarts Legacy benchmarks, all the tests were run in the Balanced Performance mode.

The Intel Core i9-13900H belongs to the most powerful processors of the current 13th generation from Intel, but the H series is more of a refresh of the Alder Lake generation. The processor in the Huawei MateBook runs at up to 115 watts, which ensures strong results in all the benchmarks, catapulting the Huawei laptop to the top of the comparison field. This is not surprising, since otherwise you find the i9 more in workstations and gaming laptops.

It is rather rare to see it in a slim multimedia laptop. Huawei also included a strong cooling system with the powerful processor, allowing it to run most of the time at a maximum of 80 °C (176 °F). Among our comparison devices, only the VivoBook Pro 16 reaches a higher total amount of points in the test with PCMark 10.

But the Vivobook is also able to use a dGPU and therefore reaches significantly higher results in the Productivity and Digital Content Creation areas. In CrossMark, the performance of the graphics chips plays a significantly smaller role, and the MateBook 16s turns out to be the most powerful among the comparison devices. So as long as you don’t ask the laptop to perform any tasks with high graphics demands, the Huawei laptop is able to deliver an excellent system performance.

A minor negative point remains the amount of working memory, which is a bit tight at 16 GB. This slows down the performance of the laptop significantly when working with huge amounts of data. DPC latencies remain the achilles heel of laptops with Windows 11.

The MateBook is also unable to perform convincingly with its current set of drivers here, and LatencyMon concludes that realtime applications such as audio and video processing might become problematic with the laptop. The high latencies also become noticeable when playing 4K 60Hz videos on YouTube, and seven frames are dropped in our test video. Although Huawei uses a no-name NVMe SSD here, it shines with very good transfer rates and short access times.

The transfer rates also remain at a high level for longer time periods. Thanks to the fast working memory and a high TDP, the iGPU is able to deliver a comparatively high performance in the MateBook 16s. In almost all the benchmarks, the Chinese laptop performs at least 20% above the average of the Intel Iris Xe with 96 EUs , which comes together with the Core i9.

Another graphics option isn’t available for the MateBook 16s, unless you want to consider external graphics cards. However, it should also be clear that even entry level GPUs such as the RTX 3050 are in a higher league here, offering at least twice the performance. At this point, even Intel’s iGPUs are able to deliver fairly tolerable frame rates in current games, as long as you make some compromises in the quality settings.

For example, games such as Hogwarts Legacy and F1 2022 run smoothly in Full-HD resolution at the lowest quality settings. But you cannot expect much more from the Intel Iris Xe . Those who need a higher gaming performance should take a look at a laptop with a dedicated GPU such as the Asus VivoBook Pro 16 .

Huawei has equipped the MateBook 16s with two fans with a diameter of 75 mm (~3 in). Even though the laptop isn’t whisper quiet with those, it is tolerable most of the time. The laptop is significantly quieter in the Balanced Performance mode, where the device is hardly audible anymore.

Unfortunately, the Huawei laptop lacks a Silent mode. Huawei’s cooling concept doesn’t rely only on blowing out hot air. Between the two radiators, cold air is also sucked into the case, which is supposed to provide additional cooling.

In our heatmaps, this effect is clearly visible under load. The hinge is cooled in the center by the cold air entering. Unfortunately, this doesn’t reduce the temperatures on the other surfaces of the laptops.

Particularly in the center of the keyboard, we measure uncomfortably high temperatures at 43 °C (109 °F) after the stress test. During the hour-long stress test with Prime95 and FurMark, the MateBook is able to prove that its cooling concept is working. After a brief boost phase, the CPU and iGPU are able to maintain a constant performance.

During that time, the i9-13900H mostly remains within its comfort zone of around 70 °C (158 °F). Here we finally get to the highlight of the Huawei MateBook 16s. Where other laptops sound flat and tinny, the MateBook offers a round sound.

Those who are looking for a laptop with well-adjusted speakers will find them in this Huawei laptop. We are able to hear saturated bass and clear highs. The Huawei control console also allows you to adjust the sound to your preferences.

Those for whom the decent speakers in the laptop still aren’t enough can also connect external devices using the audio port or Bluetooth. Under low load, the Huawei MateBook 16s is relatively efficient. However, under medium and high loads, a lot of power is provided to the Intel Core i9-13900H .

Although this allows the processor to show its strength, the laptop also consumes the corresponding amount of power, ending up significantly above the class average. But the direct comparison to the Apple MacBook Pro 16 also shows that Huawei’s laptop is still significantly more efficient. In our realistic WiFi web surfing test, the multimedia laptop from Huawei lasts for a whole 13 hours away from the outlet.

Under load at full display brightness, it is still more than two hours. With this, the MateBook lasts significantly longer than most competitors despite having the most powerful processor in our comparison field. With the MateBook 16s, Huawei delivers a solid laptop that gives only few reasons for complaints.

If we want to criticize at a high level, we could mention the soldered working memory, the less than 100% sRGB color space coverage, and the reflective display surface. The case quality, performance, keyboard, and speakers of the laptop are excellent. At most, we would have wished for a version with more working memory and a dGPU.

The Huawei MateBook 16s is a powerful alternative to the MacBook Pro from Apple. The Chinese laptop is only surpassed in few areas. However, the competition among the 16-inch laptops is extensive and there are several powerful alternatives that are worth taking a look.

For example, the Acer Swift Go SFG16-71 and the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro offer a significantly better OLED display with a higher contrast and more reproduceable colors. Those who are looking for a 16-inch laptop that is as light as possible won’t get around the LG Gram 16 . And thanks to its dGPU, the VivoBook Pro 16 from Asus is also significantly more powerful in several areas.

Other than in Germany, where the MateBook 16s is available from the manufacturer for 1,800 Euros or from Amazon , the laptop only seems to be available from international or Chinese vendors on ebay, etc. .