Huawei Matebook 13 Complete Walkthrough: One of the Best 13-Inch Laptops For The Money
Huawei’s flagship laptop from last year the Matebook X Pro is still one of the best made and most bang-for-your-buck laptops you can buy in my opinion.
Here at CES though, they just launched a new, less expensive version in the Matebook line up–with some comparable specs that make it worth taking a look at.
This is the Huawei Matebook 13 and since I was given some time with it, I managed to do a complete walkthrough on it. If you aren’t familiar, a complete walkthrough on this channel is where I go through everything I can on a new device so you are better prepared should you be in the market to go buy one.
With that said, there’s a lot to go through so let’s get started with the styling.
Firstly, it isn’t the same size as the Matebook X Pro (although at a quick glance you might not realize that). It is though, as the name suggests, a 13-inch laptop whereas the Matebook X Pro is a 14-inch one. And besides being a bit shorter and less wide, it is a bit thicker.
In common with its beloved flagship brother though, it is made out of a metallic chassis that I always appreciated about the Matebook X Pro, and it even has similarly thin bezels on the sides of the screen.
It doesn’t not, though, have as small at the top thanks to Huawei putting the 1MP webcam back at the top of the screen instead of in the hidden key on the keyboard (which I loved for the innovation aspect but in practice, it made for a very awkward camera angle).
Check out the Huawei Watch GT’s complete walkthrough here.
Check the video for what that webcam on the Matebook 13 looks like and the microphones on the computer sound like.
Now, the screen itself s a 2160×1440 3:2 aspect touchscreen with a 1000:1 contrast ratio, will do 300 nits of brightness and is sRGD 100%.
Under that screen, we have two stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos (and, again, you can check the video for what they sound like).
We have a fingerprint power button for Windows Hello.
And beneath that, our edge to edge backlit keyboard that is apparently spillproof and has 1.2mm of key travel.
Want to see how long Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro did in a real-world battery test? Check that out here.
Underneath that, we have a larger trackpad that is a Precision trackpad thankfully (this just means that Windows handles the drivers natively instead of the manufacturer which means it’s more precise supports Windows 10 gestures, etc.).
On the left, we have a USB-C port that is also the power port and a 3.5mm audio jack.
On the right, we have another USB-C port but this one doesn’t support charging and instead supports DisplayPort.
Internally, we have, again, similar specs to the Matebook X Pro.
You have the choice of an 8th Gen i5 (in Mystic Silver) or an 8th Gen i7-8565U (Space Gray), Unlike the Matebook X Pro though, there is only an option for 8GBs of RAM and no 16GB option.
We also have a 256GB SSD for the i5 model and a 512GB SSD for the i7 model.
As for graphics, you can either have the i5 with an Intel UHD 620 GPU or the i7 with the NVIDIA GeForce MX150 2GB GPU.
For software, we’re running Windows 10 with the usual pre-installed software from Microsoft (Minecraft, etc.) but all of that can be uninstalled easily enough by right-clicking it in the start menu. Huawei, thankfully, didn’t add much on top of this.
And finally, the i5 model of the Matebook 13 is $999 here in the US while the i7 model with that MX150 is $1299. For that kind of power and the premium look and feel that while not quite as nice as the Matebook X Pro that I love, but is still one of the nicer looking ultrabooks out, its a good deal.
My biggest concern for this laptop is the, well, the fact that the Matebook X Pro exists and is still on sale and for not much more money. In my opinion, the Matebook X Pro gives you double the RAM, a nicer look and feel, a Thunderbolt 3 port for eGPUs and other peripherals, a higher resolution, brighter and higher contrast ratio screen, and I’ve managed to find it here for as low as $1450 for the top model–only $150 more.
Looking for a super affordable laptop that was launched at CES instead? Check out the new Samsung Flash I just did a walkthrough on.
There you go though guys, let me know what you think. How would you choose between the two? Maybe you like the smaller screen size and save the $150? Tell me in the comments below, love to hear from you guys, subscribe and ding the bell to be notified when I do new videos and, as always, thanks for watching!
