Computer Shopper 2019-11-01

ISSUE 381|COMPUTERSHOPPER|NOVEMBER 2019

SPECIFICATIONS

Windowsoverall

Multitasking

Batterylife

0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100

Seepage94forperformancedetails

PROCESSORQuad-core1.8GHzIntelCorei7-8565U•RAM8GB

• DIMENSIONS286x211x14.9mm•WEIGHT1.3kg•
  SCREENSIZE13.3in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,160x1,440•
  GRAPHICSADAPTORIntelUHDGraphics620•TOTAL
  STORAGE512GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home


• WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSconsumer.huawei.com


• PARTCODE53010GCQ

99

87

7h0m

on 13in displays, the additional sharpness isn’t all
that noticeable; the MateBook 13’s 2K resolution
still keeps everything looking clean and crisp.
Colour reproduction is good, with the screen
achieving an sRGB gamut coverage of 91.9%.
Acontrast ratio of 938.61 and amaximum
brightness of 333.3cd/m^2 are perfectly decent
foreverydayuse,but forwatching movies on the
go the contrast is atad lacking.
Then again, with its 3:4 aspect ratio providing
more vertical screen real estatethan the XPS 13’s
16:9 display, the MateBook 13’s displayisarguably
centred more around productivity than video
watching. The taller proportions make scrolling
through web pages and documents aslightly
more pleasant experience than alaptop with
more horizontal screen space.
As the MateBook 13’s displayhas areflective
rather than matt finish, it’s not ideal if you
happen to be sitting directly under abright light
source.What’s more,all of the laptop’s rivals beat
it in our screen tests forcolour accuracy,
brightness and contrast. Nevertheless, the
MateBook 13 has asolid displayand its minor
shortcomings can be overlooked thanks to the
narrow bezels and useful aspect ratio.

FAST LANE

Given the quad-core WhiskyLake Core i7-8565U
with abase clock speed of 1.8GHz and aboost
speed of 4.1GHz, paired with 8GB of LPDDR3
RAM –afairly standard spec foranultraportable
in 2019 –it’s no surprise performance is
practically on apar with the MateBook 13’s rivals.
It managed an overall score of 99 in our
in-house benchmark test, roughly in the same
ballpark as the Blade Stealth 13 and XPS 13, and
sitting pretty with 15 points more than the
Surface Laptop 2. In the Geekbench 4benchmark,
the MateBook 13 achieved asingle-core score
of 5,081 and raked in 17,354 forthe multicore
score.Inthese tests, it’s the fastest of the
ultraportables, although the difference isn’t vast
and is atad arbitrary,asinreal-world use the
machines perform equally well.
The fannoise ramps up and the chassis gets a
little warm when the MateBook 13 is pushing
itself,but never unbearably so.It’s about as loud
as the XPS 13 when running hard, and during
benchmarks, the processor temperature hit a
maximum of 93°C on one of the four cores,
which is acceptable and didn’t lead to any
noticeable CPU throttling.
As our review unit didn’t have the optional
GeForce MX150 GPU, graphical performance has
to be handled by the processor’s integrated Intel

UHD 620 graphics accelerator.Inthe GFXBench

car chase test, the Huawei MateBook 13 managed

to deliver 21fps onscreen, which is slower than

the XPS 13 and agood waybehind the Razer

Blade Stealth 13 with its dedicated MX150 GPU.

This translates to agraphical performance that

will run casual and older games, but it’s certainly

not amachine to pull gaming as well as general

productivity duties; you’ll want the MX150 model

forthat, and even then it won’t be suitable for

proper gaming performance.

The NVMe SSD does amuch better job at

beating the competition. Using the AS SSD

benchmark, we recorded ablazing sequential

read speed of 2,892MB/s and asimilarly

commanding sequential writespeed of

2,342MB/s. Only the MacBook Pro achieved

comparable speeds, and even the MateBook X

Pro wasn’t as fast in either of the individual tests.

The MateBook 13 lasted precisely seven hours

in our video loop battery test. This is afine,if

unremarkable result; the XPS 13 managed over

10 hours in comparison. The MateBook 13 will

still last most of aworking day, and longer if

you’re careful with brightness settings and

aren’t doing any demanding tasks.

LOWPROFILE

Huawei could have done more with the

MateBook 13, such as by offering abetter port

selection and Thunderbolt 3connectivity.There’s

asense of playing it safe, resulting in alaptop

that’s the sum of its parts and nothing more.

That said, when these parts include solid

internal specs, adecent displayand aneat

keyboard, things could have been worse.Most

shortcomings, such as the weak trackpad and

meagre connectivity,are more than compensated

forbythe MateBook 13’s wallet-friendly price.

RolandMoore-Colyer

on 13in displays, the additional sharpness isn’t all UHD 620 graphics accelerator.Inthe GFXBench