First Look: Huawei MateBook D14

It's got the look
It's got the look

We’re taking a quick look at one of Huawei’s newest laptops, the Huawei MateBook D14, powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 chip with some good hardware to boot. We’re simply excited to unbox this one since this is the more affordable version of the MateBook X Pro 2020 laptop we reviewed a few months back.

Huawei Matebook D 14 specs:

  • 14-inch FullView IPS display
    1920 x 1080 px, 250 nits
  • AMD Ryzen 5 3500U or Ryzen 7 3700U CPU
    Built-in Radeon Vega 8 or Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics
  • Huawei Shark Fin Design 2.0 cooling system
  • 8GB DDR4 RAM
  • 256GB, 512GB PCle SSD
  • Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0
  • 1x USB-A 3.0, 1 x USB-A 2.0, USB-C, HDMI
  • 3.5mm headset and microphone 2-in-1 jack
  • 2-in-1 power button and fingerprint scanner
  • Chiclet keyboard
  • 1MP (720p HD) recessed webcam
  • 2x 2W speakers, 2x microphone
  • Huawei Share
  • Windows 10 Home
  • 56Wh battery
  • Metallic body in Mystic Silver, Space Grey

Unboxing the package Huawei Philippines sent us revealed just the essentials — a 65-watt charger, a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, and the laptop itself.

Opening the device and booting it from the get-go reveals similar aesthetics from what we’ve seen with its more expensive MateBook X Pro sibling. There’s the 14-inch Full HD display that is surrounded by narrow bezels. The Huawei monogram is at the bottom. It’s honestly a minimally-designed device, which is very similar to the MateBook X Pro. The display can be opened to as far as 180 degrees, which is great.

The full-sized keyboards are recessed in the body, with a button between F6 and F7 dedicated to the pop-up 720p camera. the power key is embellished with a chrome accent around it and is placed at the upper-right corner. The same button also acts as the fingerprint scanner, which you can use with Windows Hello.

There’s also the adequately-sized trackpad that offers a multi-touch response. It even has the Huawei Share icon for NFC-based sharing and multi-screen collaboration with Huawei smartphones.

Keeping in line with its minimalistic design, fewer ports can also be noticed. At the right, we can notice the USB Type-A port and the 3.5mm audio jack for both the speaker and microphone.

At the left, we have the USB Type-C port that acts as the laptop’s charging port, another USB Type-A port, and an HDMI port. When closed, it is thin and light enough to be carried around easily with one hand.

Under the laptop we have rubber feet, a long ventilation grille, and two loudspeaker grilles at the left and right side. We’ll discuss why that long rubber feet is up atop the ventilation grille in our full review.

We’ve tried it so far and it seems to be rocking pretty good. The model we got is the AMD Ryzen 7 variant with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. It’s currently priced at PHP42,990, but you can get it until August 31 with great freebies geared for those going back to school as part of the brand’s Online School Bundles. You’re getting a free Huawei B311 Router and backpack (worth Php 3,780) for every purchase of this.

We’re working on our full review for the Huawei MateBook D14, so stay tuned.

Carl Lamiel
Carl writes for WalasTech when he's not working full-time. Give him tips and/or leads at [email protected].