HUAWEI MateBook D14 2023 Laptop Review – Power to it’s Collaborative Ecosystem

I will just start this with the word collaboration, unity and ease, and that is what HUAWEI is targeting all along despite something is lacking, they will try innovate on the devices to get their own brand ecosystem bridged together, it is indeed an effort and we asked HUAWEI for a review unit of the MateBook D14 and see how well it actually be able to interconnect between its phone and tablet all together.

Design

There is nothing to shout loud about here, what HUAWEI is focusing is purely no frills design while provides all the essential it has for a laptop. While some might argue it looks like some ‘fruit’ brand but I would say that it does not bother me on that, in fact the combination of the black keyboard, silver chassis gave a good combination of a dual tone colors to it with a matte touch feel.

Despite all of these, weighted at just 1.39KG, this is a fairly lightweight laptop and the hinge can lay flat at 180 degrees, making it highly flexible yet easy to carry with you, and let me tell you, the overall build is indeed sturdy and this overall give a lasting impression of a companion that keeps you and the laptop going. The slim bezels around the bezel is a plus point to me, accompanied with a webcam on the top.

They keyboard gives a pretty good typing travel experience with some steady caps there, sighting good accuracy and reliability, though it lacks keyboard LED backlight, but that’s not a total drawback anyways. The touchpad is in a nice good size and does support multiple gesture, muti tapping and compliant with Windows Precision Drivers for Windows 11. The power button also acts as a fingerprint scanner for unlocking your laptop.

Finally towards the ports, one USB C port for data and charging, two USB 3 ports, one HDMI port and a 3.5mm combo headphone/microphone jack, which at this size, this is consider plentiful number of ports and if you need more, the USB C port can be used as an expansion for more ports and it does indeed support USB C display as well, allowing a total of three displays including the laptop screen.

Display & Audio

The HUAWEI MateBook D14 2023 gave a 16:10 golden ration with a resolution of 1920 × 1200, 90% screen-to-body ratio panel with peak maximum brightness of 300nits, which is an advantage when it comes to work based application such as spreadsheets or presentation, or even certain multimedia contents, but lackluster when it comes to its sub par color gamut, which only suitable for light and minor image editing, but should you need higher accuracy when it comes to color, I’ll recommend plugging it to an external monitor. However your day to day task, work, multimedia, streaming a couple of video does not affect your overall experience and it is still a joy to use it in part thanks to it’s IPS matte display.

The laptop is able to deliver clear quality audio with its dual stereo speakers that is meant for generic entertainment and vastly meant for strong vocal delivery and I think this is one of the main advantage as this laptop can deliver good quality vocal based audio for business or casual online conferencing, while music or mixed audio delivery is consider on par with most of the laptop we tested, as long you are not comparing with multimedia or game centric laptops in the market, the audio delivery is still be able to give you all the clarity you need along with 2 array microphone for better communications.

Performance, Experience, Benchmarks

The HUAWEI MateBook D14 2023 came with last year’s 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1240P Processor, Intel XE integrated graphics with 16GB of embedded LPDDR4X RAM and 512GB of NVME Storage, Windows 11 Home out of the box. Along the line it also came with improvements of the Metaline Antenna with Intel WiFi/Bluetooth AX card connected to it, which HUAWEI claims that it is able to cover 270 m long-range network connections within range, and this is an advantage especially those work in a multiple floor buildings and large size office, where the laptop is still be able to connect seamlessly.

Towards experience, the HUAWEI MateBook D14 2023 is able to take on every work tasks and entertainment with ease, provided if you are not using it for some serious rendering, the laptop can do a very decent job it. Battery life can last anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on workload, and recharging it is quite fast in less than 2 hours with the equipped 65w charger in the box.

The Laptop came with just a few software, namely Super Device, where with a tap via NFC, you can connect to any of the Huawei mobile device to enable file sharing, collaboration, and backing up files from your mobile device, and this works especially well with Huawei Phones and Tablets alike. You also get Huawei PC Manager, where it’s a one stop app for all your Laptop related management, such as optimization, BIOS and Driver update now located under the single app, it also allows the user to do point to point file sharing to other smart devices or PC by enabling WiFi Direct within the app.

Last but not least, here are the benchmarks that is purely if you wanted to reference with any other laptops, but judging for the score, this at least is faster than any sub par mid range laptops.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The HUAWEI MateBook D14 2023 is a laptop that gives what is essential and this is another no nonsense laptop for general work, studies and some multimedia consumption. Its subtle design and comfortable keyboard also makes it highly suitable for today’s occasion, where one would bring it and work anywhere they want, with multiple choices on how you can collaborate with your devices, especially if you are using Huawei products, this is a laptop you can give it a try and go for a productive spin with it.

It is now selling at RM3199 for the 8GB RAM model and RM3399 for the 16GB RAM model. For more information and pre-order, CLICK HERE to find out.