Verdict
The Huawei MateBook D16 2024 is a slimline , big - screen laptop computer with a powerhouse productivity performance , yet it ’s still surprisingly affordable .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Huawei MateBook D16 is the modish in the brand ’s stemma of 16 - inch productiveness laptop ; a compass which has strike us in the yesteryear for serve out great specs and a high - calibre cover at a price that undercuts the rival .
The 2024 edition sticks to the general look and feel of previous efforts , with a similar aluminum body , large 1920 x 1200 resolution screen and 16:10 aspect ratio , but update the spec with a 13th gen Core i9 mainframe and a large 70Wh battery , while cutting down the thickness and weight .
The result is a laptop that ’s about as flimsy and light as 16 - in laptops get , but that ’s still powerful enough to handle a full chain of job . What ’s more , at £ 999.99 , this spec comes in at the same terms as the 2022 Core i7 strain , so on paper it sounds like cracking value . But how does it obtain up in the anatomy ? I ’ve been using the MateBook D16 for the last week to find out .
Design and keyboard
The cuticle is aluminum , though it now come in a option of dark gray and light atomic number 47 finishes , and the styling keeps things dewy-eyed , with just the Huawei logo on the lid , thin bezels around three sides of the screen and a minimalist pack of cards with the keyboard bring up the top half , a large , off - centre of attention trackpad below and a business leader - button / fingerprint reader in the top - correct recess .
This year ’s model is 1.4 millimeter sparse and 2 g light than last year ’s and at just 1.68 kg with that weighting quite evenly balanced , it feels sluttish for a laptop computer of this filmdom size . sure enough , it ’s not as illumination as the Mg alloyLG Gram 16or the15 - inch MacBook Air , but I still would n’t have any problem at all carrying it around all day .
The benefits of this size of it and strain factor rush in pretty quickly during everyday use . You ’ve got a screenland that ’s heavy enough for comfortable multi - tasking , plus a fairly broad keyboard with numeral launchpad and sailing key . You ’ve got enough infinite to rest your palms on the deck while typecast , and the thin , slenderly wedge - shaped profile pay you a comfortable typewriting slant . The D16 is braggart enough for all - day comfort when you ’re work on from home or from the post , but not so big that it causes any grief when you ’re assay to get from A to B.
I retrieve Huawei could make some improvement on the connectivity . It ’s honorable to have two USB eccentric - A port wine , but one only supports USB 2.0 while the other stick at 5Gbits / sec USB 3.2 Gen 1 , not the fast 10Gbits / sec USB 3.2 Gen 2 .
Meanwhile , just the oneUSB Type - Cport is n’t really good enough on a laptop computer that uses USB Type - C for charging , especially if you require to use it as a DisplayPort out . You could use the HDMI 1.4 production instead , but it cuts down your options .
You ’re also give with Wi - Fi 6 rather thanWi - Fi 6Eat a time when the quicker touchstone is appear oft on quite cheap laptops . You ca n’t aid feel that the D16 is n’t quite keep up with the latest technical school .
I ’m a little limited in what I can say about the keyboard because Huawei sent me a D16 with a German QWERTZ layout . I ’ve still been working on it , anyway , as I have it pose to a UK layout and I do n’t face much at the keys as I type , but I was occasionally wrongfooted by the placing of some special quality and punctuation marks .
As is , there ’s not much to grumble about the spacing beyond a lowly and disunited odd - fault . Meanwhile , the key have 1.5 millimetre of travel and what Huawei calls a ‘ soft landing place ’ , where the key are designed to buffer the impact as you type , giving you a quieter , softer activeness that still feels nice and curt .
As for the touchpad , it ’s jolly freehanded at 12 atomic number 96 by 7.4 curium and , while plastic rather than glass , feels smooth and precise in its tracking . However , there ’s something about the off - meat positioning that can sense uneasy , making your right hand move further allow to move the pointer and make the left-hand stretch further while you ’re typecast . It ’s a immanent thing and nothing major , but it hold back annoying me during everyday purpose .
Huawei makes up for it by include a fingerprint proofreader integrated into the power button to the top - right of the keyboard . It ’s quick and worked flawlessly in testing . Press once , leave your finger on the button , and you ’re in .
The Huawei MateBook D16 comes in composition board packaging with plastic froth inserts to protect it during transport . These are label as recyclable , but do n’t appear to use any recycle content themselves . Huawei does n’t make any claims about the sustainability of any materials used in the laptop , either , so if that ’s a cardinal concern to you you may require to appear elsewhere .
Screen
I think the 16 - inch , 16:10 screenland hits a sweet spot for many multitude . Weirdly , the extra vertical space makes it feel considerably larger than the equivalent 15.6 - column inch 16:9 showing , even though it ’s only tall . There ’s more space to have multiple windows open and work fluidly between them , and it ’s majuscule for streaming video .
And while I ’d like to see a higher 2560×1600 QHD resolution , that ’s also going to push the cost up . If you desire that and have the bountiful budget , the more expensiveMateBook 16Smay be more your thing .
This is an IPS display , so you ’re not going to have the really vivacious colours and perfect contrast of anOLEDscreen . Put that aside , and it ’s an excellent effort .
I mensurate the maximum brightness at 334.3nits , which is bright enough for economic consumption in most situations where you ’re not in the path of bright sunlight , while it covers 99 % of the sRGB colour spectrum , 72.5 % of DCI - P3 and 69.7 % of Adobe RGB , which is more than adequate for productivity work , browsing and amusement , if a little too limited for serious video - editing or design work .
color accuracy is telling , with an Average Delta - E of only 0.66 . I did n’t have any serious concerns line up photos or browsing through my Google Photos albums on this projection screen , and it holds up well for follow videos on YouTube or Netflix .
I ’d wish to say that audio was as honorable , but the slender , light redesign appears to have touch on sound quality . At low bulk levels it ’s not too sorry , with some bass part and reasonable clarity and detail , but as you prod the volume slider up the tint gets brash and overall output tinny . I ’d want some earphone for anything beyond video meetings , background music and casual entertainment .
While we ’re on the subject of video merging , the original MateBook 16 notoriously range its webcam in between the F6 and F7 key on the keyboard , where it was guarantee to capture your cheek from an unflattering angle . Luckily , the D16 serial publication has n’t made the same mistake , and this model has its webcam in the more conventional top bezel of the screen localization . It produces clear , tart and well exposed telecasting , though it can struggle in gloomy daylight conditions or harsh stilted ignition , with some smearing if there ’s much apparent movement across the frame .
Performance
My test MateBook D16 uses an Intel Core i9 13900H with 16 GB of DDR5 RAM – an 8 GB Core i5 version is available at a £ 699 RRP , currently reduced to just £ 549 . The 13900H is slightly old in 2024 , having been supersede by Intel ’s 14th generation CPUs , yet still delivers enceinte carrying into action and , I suspect , might have helped Huaweil build the MateBook D16 to meet its monetary value gunpoint .
Whatever the suit , the MateBook D16 sits comfortably ahead of Core Ultra 7 slim and light laptops like theAsus Zenbook 14 OLEDor theAcer Swift Go 14 in Geekbench 6 and bewilder the former in PC Mark 10 . It ’s also slightly speedier than its stablemate , the 2023 Huawei MateBook 16S , though theAcer Swift Edge 16has the , hem , boundary on both . It even acquits itself well in some more demanding creative benchmarks . A score of 12778 in Cinebench R23 is nothing to be sniffed at . extend office apps and productiveness apps on this matter is n’t really using it to its full electric potential .
Gaming is another affair . With their incorporate Intel Arc GPUs the Core Ultra 7 laptop computer can function rings around the MateBook D16 in the TimeSpy three-D benchmark , as can anything with a dedicated GPU . I prove to be given Returnal , but could n’t even get it up and running . Stick to older games or less take RPG or scheme titles and you might have more fortune , but this would n’t be my choice of laptop computer if I go for the odd game after working minute .
Overall , the MateBook D16 performs like a more expensive laptop , and you get plenty of speedy storage too . In tests , the 1 TB SSD posted sequential read speed of 4907.99MB / sec and write speeds of 3943.14MB / sec .
Software
Huawei does n’t go overboard on pre - installed package and my test MateBook D16 came relatively free of objectionable bloatware . The independent inclusion body are Huawei Mobile Cloud and Huawei PC Manager . The first combine an app for using Huawei ’s cloud storage service with swarm - establish note of hand and picture veranda features .
The 2nd is a weird kind of multi - function machine management app , add up feature to habituate an Android lozenge as a 2d screen or apportion single file with other Huawei devices , along with tips , troubleshooting features and nosology and optimisation tool . The most utile act are a feature film to check and update gadget driver , and tool to switch between the normal Balanced and a profligate operation way , at the common cost of shorter battery life and extra noise .
Battery life
Want all - mean solar day bombardment biography ? You ’ve got it . The big 70Wh electric battery of the Huawei MateBook D16 ( 2024 ) improves on the hapless six time of day and 21 minutes we saw from the 2022 model to take us all the way to twelve hr from a single charge , though working at full brightness level or run more demand apps will see that dip .
It ’s not particularly fast to recharge , however . A 30 - minute commission with the bundled 65W battery charger took the battery back up from zero to 30 % , but nowhere near the 50 % we ’re see with some tight - charging laptops .
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Should you buy it?
The Huawei MateBook D16 ca n’t give you the full 15 - column inch MacBook Air experience for half the price , but you ’re pay back a powerful , well - built and lightweight laptop with a good 16 - inch screen for importantly less .
This is a truehearted machine , but gaming performance is limited by the integrate GPU , while a high resolution screen would have been a great improvement . But if you require more power , you ’ll have to pay off more .
Final Thoughts
The Huawei MateBook D16 ( 2024 ) might not be anyone ’s dream laptop , but with its big screen , slimline style and sinewy CPU , it ’s a very decent selection for anyone needing a machine they can exploit on all day long , but still need everyday portability . And while the Core i9 variant does n’t come in at the same humbled monetary value as the Core i5 version , it still gives you a lot of operation for what ’s still a very fair price .
honest , Huawei ’s thinner , lighter laptop computer ca n’t quite meet the premium tone of the15 - inch Macbook Airor the lightweight delicacy of theLG Gram 16 , but it get you a lot of the path there on a lower budget . For anyone struggling to rationalise spending more than £ 1000 , that ’s going to be more than enough . Otherwise , check out ourBest Laptopguide for more options .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform stay designed to gauge primal broker , admit human body timber , operation , screen quality and battery life .
These let in stately synthetic benchmark and scripted tests , plus a series of genuine - humanity check-out procedure , such as how well it run popular apps .
FAQs
No , the Huawei MateBook D16 ( 2024 ) does not feature a touchscreen .
While the Huawei MateBook D16 ( 2024 ) is capable of loose gaming , it ’s not really suited for AAA games due to its relatively light GPU . There are good choice at this price .
Test Data
Full Specs
