Huawei MateBook 13, an ultraportable that tackles the MacBook Air head-on

Construction

With the MateBook 13, Huawei seems to want to continue its move upmarket in the laptop market, launched with the excellent MateBook X Pro. This new model is however positioned in a slightly less luxurious niche, the PC being sold for less than € 1,000. But that doesn't prevent the MateBook 13 from being a particularly well-finished ultraportable, as pleasant to look at as to use. The all-aluminum chassis is neat and benefits from a matt coating which repels fingerprints very well. The look is sober, and only the brand logo disturbs the gray dress of the product.

Huawei has also paid particular attention to the keyboard and touchpad of its MateBook 13. Typing is thus very pleasant, thanks to the slightly curved keys in their center. The race is quite short, but the return is very pleasant, and you can easily type a long text. The keyboard also occupies the entire width of the chassis and the keys are wide and well spaced apart. Backlighting is also offered on two levels. The touchpad, quite elongated, is a good size and is above all very easy to use. Precise and responsive, it can be used without any problem.

In terms of connectivity, the MateBook 13 bets on the economy, since you have to settle for 2 USB-C ports, one of which is used to recharge the PC, as well as a jack. Note that the PC is sold accompanied by a USB-C hub which allows you to take advantage of a USB 3 Type-A port, an HDMI output and a USB-C.

Nothing to report concerning the heating and the noise: on these points, the MateBook 13 is exemplary. The chassis temperature does not exceed 41.6 ° C at the front, just above the keyboard, and 47.8 ° C under the hood. The hot spots are also very localized. When the PC is very busy, ventilation is heard very little, barely a very slight breath that does not exceed 37 dB, so it is almost inaudible in a room.

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Screen

The MateBook 13 offers a 13-inch touch screen in 3: 2 format. The panel used here is of IPS type and displays a definition of 2,560 x 1,440 px. Like the MateBook X Pro, Huawei has opted for a screen format that is very pleasant to work with, the 3: 2 having a height slightly larger than the 16: 9. The frame around the screen is once again well optimized, the frame occupancy rate reaching 88%.

contrast 950: 1 Delta E 1.8 temperature 6 650K

Still like the MateBook X Pro, the screen of the MateBook 13 is very good, but remains a slight notch below. Bright (344 cd / m2 maximum recorded), the panel disappoints a little in terms of contrast, the latter capping at 950: 1. The gamma curve is quite stable, sign of a good gray gradient. Readability remains good anyway, even outdoors.

The color balance is excellent, and this screen is particularly well calibrated. We thus note a color temperature of 6,650 K, a figure very close to the video standard at 6,500 K. The balance of tones is therefore respected and the gray gradient does not draw towards blue or red. Delta E - the difference between actual colors and displayed colors which is considered excellent below 3 - does not exceed 1.8. The rendering is therefore extremely faithful.

Finally, there is a remanence time of 16 ms, which remains relatively correct for an ultraportable dedicated to office automation.

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Performances

The MateBook 13 is available in two versions: one equipped with an Intel Core i5-8265U processor (4 cores / 8 threads, frequencies ranging from 1.6 to 3.9 GHz), 8 GB of RAM and 256 storage in SSD, and the other with a Core i7-8565I (4 cores, 8 threads, frequencies ranging from 1.8 to 4.6 GHz), 8 GB of RAM and 512 of SSD. It is this second version that we tested.

Not surprisingly, the level of performance delivered is very good and expected on an ultraportable of this caliber. The trio CPU / RAM / SSD allows Windows 10 to be perfectly fluid and to start very quickly while multitasking proves to be quite possible. A wide variety of applications will thus function without any problem and only certain heavy applications (video editing or advanced photo editing) are likely to harm this model. Our power index based on a series of benchmarks (file compression, 3D calculation, audio and video conversion, photo editing) thus rises to 75, which places the MateBook 13 a little below certain competitors with the same processor. We also note that there is a slight difference with models equipped with a Core i5-8250U, the fault of an average processor frequency which stabilizes here at 3.2 GHz.

Note here that we have not had the opportunity to test the MateBook 13 in Core i5 version, but, from experience, we assume that the performance gap between the two models is very small. Unless you absolutely want to take advantage of 512 GB of storage, we therefore advise you to opt for the cheapest configuration.

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Mobility / Autonomy

This new Huawei ultraportable is a model of compactness and transportability. Thanks to the excellent optimization of the screen / chassis ratio, it measures only 28.6 cm long and 21 cm wide, for a thickness of 1.4 cm. Accompanied by a small USB-C charger, it can therefore be transported very easily in a medium-sized bag. Its weight of 1.3 kg is also very appreciable, even if it is not the lightest on the market.

However, autonomy is not completely up to our expectations, even if we stay here in the upper average. Our streaming video playback test (Netflix in Chrome, screen brightness at 200 cd / m2, headphones plugged in and keyboard backlight off) thus worked for 7 hours before the computer shut down. A correct duration, but not exceptional, especially since many competitors in an identical price range are now doing better.

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Audio

The MateBook 13 has its speakers placed under the chassis and relatively far from the screen, which seems unwise and generates a little muffled sound depending on the surface on which the PC is placed. The stereo is still quite good. In general, the rendering is not really convincing, with in particular a big lack of bass and even low mids. As often, we noticed that the rendering is better when we leave the Dolby Atmos activated, but that we cut the effects (see the screenshot below). The voices are transcribed in an intelligible way, but the distortion is still audible and brings a "whistling" side which can be unpleasant.

The headphone output is however optimal and borders on excellence (see the figures below). The output power is very good and largely sufficient for mobile headsets, and even for most monitoring headsets. The stereo separation is very satisfactory and the signal is very clean. However, we have noted a problem with current handling beyond the 86/100 volume level. Our power measurement indicated below was also made with this setting.

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Conclusion

A little less upscale than the MateBook X Pro, the MateBook 13 is nonetheless an excellent ultraportable, well built, comfortable to use and powerful enough for a large number of tasks. Only a "correct but no more" autonomy, a slightly low contrast ratio of the screen and the medium speakers do not allow it to obtain the maximum score. Huawei, however, once again shows its know-how in terms of IT product.

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