The Huawei MateBook 16 Review, Powered by AMD Ryzen 7 5800H: Ecosystem Plus

Huawei: Building its Ecosystem

From the 30000ft view, I’m a fan of notebooks that promise good power and battery life at the expense of graphics. As a journalist, when I’m on the move I need something that’s going to be easy to carry, easy to work on, and has enough juice to last me through the day. Naturally, some might think that I should pivot to one of the Snapdragon or Chromebook devices, but alas I have some software in my daily toolset that doesn’t work on either, so until then, I’m still focused on devices built with AMD or Intel.

With that brief, the MateBook 16 on paper fits the bill. It’s a 16-inch device that shuns discrete graphics in favor of a larger battery, lighter unit, and slimmer design. The IPS display is an odd resolution (2520x1680), but the 3:2 aspect ratio is appreciated for the sort of text-heavy writing and research I tend to do. It has Type-C and Type-A ports, a full-sized HDMI port, a large smooth trackpad, and an off-center power button with an excellent fingerprint sensor inside. So it’s a shame that the pop-up camera makes for nasal meetings. Overall, at 2 kg, it isn’t the lightest in its segment (the LG Gram 17 is 1.5kg), but it is half the price, and comes with a 45W-class processor.

When the CPU Isn’t What You Think It Is

So here’s where we get into some of the discussions around performance. The Ryzen 7 5800H is a good choice for this class of device: eight Zen 3 cores at high frequency with Vega 8 graphics. While the graphics aren’t great for regular 16-inch devices that often have discrete graphics, the CPU has grunt. However, the Ryzen 7 5800H is a 45W-class processor, and so reading a specification sheet you would expect that level of performance. Huawei runs the processor at 35W instead, which is well within the spec for this part, however nowhere on the box does it say as much. There are tradeoffs with the lower power setting, such as slightly reduced performance in exchange for some battery life, but also less dependency on cooling and a lighter chassis. Huawei does offer a performance mode, when the charger is plugged in, however this just means the 35W mode is infinite, whereas in regular mode (unplugged or plugged in) may only stay at 35W for a limited time based on temperature/efficiency.

Performance was 6% quicker to complete over 20 minutes

So if you were to buy this laptop, or any laptop for that matter, should you expect the processor to run at the power given by the processor manufacturer? Almost every laptop processor is offered to the laptop manufacturer with a configurable power option, allowing them to optimize for the chassis design. If it is adjusted from the CPU default, then should the customer know about it? As of right now, and every OEM is guilty of this, no laptop ever mentions when the CPU is configured for the chassis at a lower specification point than the default.

This drives me somewhat insane, as someone who likes to know exactly what performance I’m getting from a device. Now it might seem a bit oblique to talk about this specifically during one particular review, but it’s an endemic problem across all laptop manufacturers. It wouldn’t take much to say ‘Device X (35W)’ in the specification page. Unfortunately sometimes the people writing those specification pages for retail or for websites aren’t connected to the engineers tuning the device at all. So we’re left with automatically assuming the processor manufacturer specifications, which in this case, isn’t correct.

The plus side, I guess, is that laptops should be reviewed to know their real performance!

Huawei MateBook 16

The goal of the MateBook 16 seems to be that it offers one tool for anyone investing in Huawei’s ecosystem, combining laptop, smartphone, tablet, or anything else. Using features like the Huawei Share was actually quite easy, to move files, or to extend a workspace. If I already take a laptop and a 13-inch Type-C wired display with me when I go on a work trip, then migrating that display with a wireless connection, as well as doubling it up as a standalone tablet, isn’t so much of a leap. However, when it comes to display sharing or extending, input lag will be a thing for anyone looking to do some gaming.

That being said, the 16-inch size of the unit isn’t ideal when faced with modern-day economy travel. Even as small as I am at 5’5, pulling a 13-inch laptop in an economy seat is sometimes fraught with issues (especially as the person in front leans back and catches your screen, cracking it), let alone using a 16-inch. To get the best in that light, you need to be on a bulkhead seat, or be in a business-class seat.

Therein lies a bit of a dilemma. I would imagine someone using a business class seat that was paid for would have access to $2000-$3000 for a work device. The Ryzen 7 5800H in this review is 1199 Euro or £1000 GBP (USD$1150 pre-tax), which marks it more as an entry-business notebook. As a business device, where graphics aren’t needed and you’re happy with the size, then the MateBook 16 works well with its strong display, CPU, and reasonable battery life, but the DRAM/storage might be limiting. At 16 GB / 512 GB, this does teeter on the barely acceptable limits. But this all combines into that lower cost.

For comparison, at Dell the similar device is the Inspiron 16. Around the same price, it offers the Intel Core i7-11800H, a 16:10 slightly higher resolution screen, same DRAM/storage, similar battery, TB4, full keyboard, but is also slightly thicker for the same weight, and doesn’t have dual front-facing speakers. Lenovo’s IdeaPad Creator 5 16 has the Ryzen 5 5600H, 1600p display, same DRAM/Storage, comes with a GTX1650, and a slightly smaller battery, at around 10% higher cost. This market is bigger than you might think, with most of the major players having at least one offering around this price, and the minutiae come down to exact features vs favoring one brand over another.

Overall, it isn’t the device for the person that I am – it’s just a bit too physically big, and ultimately I can feel the difference between lugging a 2 kg device around a trade show compared to a 1.5 kg device. But for those that it fits, the building blocks are there for a very easy-to-use ecosystem. I wait for a version where Huawei ditches that camera though.