HUAWEI MateBook 13 Review: MacBook Air Clone, Almost Perfect Finish

MateBook 13 VS MacBook Air, MateBook 13 wins.

The MateBook 13, which has been competing head-on with the MacBook Air in terms of performance, design, and usability, is reviewed by Sam Rutherford of Gizmodo. The battery life is disappointing, but it is superior to the MacBook Air in other performance. Good news for those who were considering switching to Windows.

HUAWEI has been in a big fight with Apple last year on the MateBook X Pro. It was a laptop made with a "honed aim" that embodies the features of the MacBook Pro series, but ignores gimmick features such as the Touch Bar and butterfly keyboard.

And in 2019, HUAWEI will release a new 13-inch laptop for the mainstream. This is a declaration of war on the recently upgraded MacBook Air. Despite some drawbacks, the MateBook 13 outperforms the MacBook Air in many ways.

HUAWEI MateBook 13

What is this? : 13-inch MacBook Air with Windows Competitive Product

Price: $ 1000 for i5 model, $ 1300 for i7 and MX 150 GPU-equipped model

Pros: A solid, aluminum unibody. Good price. Good keyboard. Fingerprint reader and power button combo function. Comes with a free adapter to add Ethernet and ports.

Bad: Battery life is mediocre. There are only two variations.

It looks like a MacBook Air clone, doesn't it?

At first glance, it's easy to see that the MateBook 13 was inspired by the MacBook Air. You can call it a clone. But even if it's a clone, it's a pretty good clone. A well-finished unibody aluminum frame with a thickness of 0.59 inches (1.49 cm), which is about 0.5 mm thinner than the MacBook Air. But it's different from the MacBook Air's gradually thinner design, so you won't notice this difference when you hold it in your hand.

Like the MacBook Air, the MateBook 13 has two USB-C ports. But there is no Thunderbolt 3. Instead, the port on the left seems to be for data and charging. On the right is the data and video output. To compensate for the compatibility lost by this specification, HUAWEI includes MateBook Dock 2 for free. You can use it to add VGA, USB-A, additional USB-C, and Ethernet.

The keyboard feels better than Air

Differences from Apple's approach will gradually emerge. First is the keyboard and screen. Instead of recreating the hard, shallow MacBook keys, the MateBook 13 is a standard chiclet keyboard. It provides enough depth and bounce when hit, and you don't have to worry about finger fatigue. The power button with a fingerprint reader fits nicely in the upper right corner of the keyboard. You can turn on your laptop and log in to Windows with just one touch.

On the other hand, the MateBook 13's screen (2160 x 1440) has a slightly lower resolution than the MacBook Air's Retina display (2560 x 1600). Instead, it supports touch. This is still a feature that none of the MacBooks have.

I was worried that I would be disappointed in terms of brightness and color development, but after using it for a week, I am not particularly dissatisfied. In fact, the product used in our review showed peak performance of 356 nits, although the spec table states that it is 300 nits bright. This is about 10% brighter than the brightness (327 knits) obtained in the MacBook Air test. However, it's best to turn on the ambient brightness feature for optimal performance. Bright rooms and rooms with sunlight will improve visibility.

The screen of the higher-end model MateBook X Pro was 14 inches, but compared to that, the 13-inch MateBook 13 is a little easier to carry. However, the difference in size is not so big, and it is not enough to judge that it is this if you put it in a bag. But for users who often work while traveling by plane, the slightly smaller 13-inch will be a little more comfortable. The aspect ratio is 3: 2, similar to the X Pro. The high aspect ratio compared to the MacBook Air's 16: 9 and 16:10 screens will be a plus for work productivity.

Performance that doesn't seem like $ 1000

However, its performance is the highest point compared to the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is an Intel Core i5 CPU (dual core), but the HUAWEI machine has a faster Core i5 or Core i7 (quad core chip). Therefore, MateBook is better for people who need a little video editing.

The $ 1,300 Core i7 model is powered by the Nvidia MX 150 GPU, which allows for a little game. When I played Overwatch at 1920 x 1080, I set the graphics to high and the render scale to 100 to get an average of 50-55fps. It's not a great performance, but it's a machine that can be used for time-killing games with just a few tweaks.

Stamina is not as good as its rivals

Unfortunately, the MateBook 13 sacrifices battery life to achieve these performances. According to HUAWEI's announcement, the MateBook 13 can operate for 10 hours on a single charge, but in the video playback test of the editorial department, the operating time was 8 hours and 9 minutes. This isn't particularly bad, but it's also not great battery performance. It's about an hour shorter than the MacBook Air (9 hours 16 minutes).

Some people may think that the MacBook Air is good because of its relatively short battery life, but when you compare the overall performance, you still come to the conclusion at the beginning. With a Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD, the price of $ 1000 is about $ 200 cheaper than the MacBook Air's baseline, which is even worse in terms of performance and storage. It's the same as other Windows machines. The new Dell XPS 13 has about the same specs, but is about $ 200 more expensive than the MateBook 13. However, I would like to mention that Dell's XPS 13 has an i3 CPU and 4GB of RAM, which is a cheap product that HUAWEI cannot match.

Also, unlike HUAWEI smartphones, the MateBook 13 can be purchased in the United States through the online shopping site (it will be available in the Microsoft store in a few weeks). Although the MateBook X Pro has attracted a lot of demand, it seems that there is no problem that the retailer will run out of stock because the production has finally caught up.

The MateBook 13 is not a luxury machine. It doesn't have the brand appeal and system breadth that the MacBook Air and XPS 13 have. However, it is a machine that is made in good quality, has good functions, and pursues the perspective that a portable laptop should be like this. And at a price of $ 1000, it's a very good product in terms of value per dollar.

・ Operating time is a little over 8 hours. The biggest drawback of the Core i7 is its mediocre battery life.

-Only the USB-C port on the left can be used for data transfer and charging. The right side only supports data and video output via DisplayPort.

-Compared to the MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13, the MateBook 13 is cheaper and will be better than the two.

-The $ 1000 i5 model is Mystic Silver. The $ 1,300 i7 model with Nvidia MX 150 graphics has a slightly darker space gray finish.

Windows 10, 13 inch (3: 2) 2160 x 1440 LCD touch screen, Intel Core i5-8265U CPU (integrated graphics), 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, or Intel Core i7-8565U CPU (Nvidia MX 150 GPU), 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Fingerprint reader and power button, 3.5mm jack, 2 USB-C ports, 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac wi-fi, 1 million pixel front camera, Bluetooth 5.0, keyboard backlight, 41.7 Wh battery, 11.26 x 8.31 x 0.59 inches, 2.82 lbs (weight)

Correction [2019/02/05] Corrected a typographical error.