Huawei MateBook D Hands On: For the Masses

Besides the flagship-tier MateBook X, Huawei also announced the MateBook D laptop for the Chinese market at CES Asia 2017. As you can imagine, this is almost the opposite of the MateBook X: a laptop for the masses, with decent hardware at attractive prices.

The Huawei MateBook D is a mainstream laptop, built with college students in mind. There’s a choice of Intel Core i5 or i7 H-series processor, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 940MX GPU on all but one of the configurations. Huawei also made use of its size to include two storage bays (one SSD and one HDD), which is rare in mainstream laptops. But, there’s only a choice of 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

What’s also good is in the choice of material for the body. The MateBook D packs a metal lid and bottom, while still managing to keep the weight at 1.9kg. It is also within an Ultrabook’s level of thinness, at 16.9mm. In terms of design, this is basically a MacBook Pro-like body, but with a curvier bottom panel.

As a result, the Huawei MateBook D is feels robust but not too heavy to the point where it feels bulky. It’s a good balance, especially for a 15.6-inch laptop.  Speaking of which, the display also has smaller than usual bezels, with a large 83% coverage.

There’s a healthy amount of USB ports too, which is very important in a student’s life. There are three USB ports, an audio jack, and an HDMI port – besides the power jack, of course. It would have been nice to see perhaps a USB Type C, though.

The keyboard is also par for the course: it has good travel, but the keys are a little wobbly (though that’s to be expected at this price point). The Dolby-enhanced speakers are also decent, which should fill a dorm pretty well.

What’s perhaps mosta attractive is in its retail prices. The Huawei MateBook D comes in five configurations:

Core i5/4GB RAM/500GB HDD/Intel Graphics: 4,988 Yuan (about RM3,130)
Core i5/4GB RAM/500GB HDD/GTX 940MX: 5,288 Yuan (about RM3,320)
Core i5/8GB RAM/256GB SSD/GTX 940MX: 5,688 Yuan (about RM3,570)
Core i5/8GB RAM/128GB SSD/500GB HDD/GTX 940MX: 6,288 Yuan (about RM3,940)
Core i7/8GB RAM/128GB SSD/1TB HDD/GTX 940MX: 7,288 Yuan (about RM4,570)

These are definitely not considered gaming devices, given the modest GPU, but the hardware should be more than enough for light gaming such as Dota 2 or League of Legends – these are popular with the youth anyway.

It remains to be seen if Huawei will be bringing its laptops to Malaysia, but for a first try, the company seems to be off to an encouraging start with the MateBook D.