You’re a mover, you’re a shaker. A game-changing record-breaker. A candle. Stick. Maker! You’re young, you’re fun and you’re full of confidence. You need a laptop that’s designed for you. You need something that you can slip into your bag as easy as slipping into those Netflix, track-sweet pants, but something stylish enough to be an accessory to your meeting-with-that-big-customer outfit, you know what I mean, tens across the board. You need something that can buckle down when you have 7 different spreadsheets open, but something that can go all night long for that Harry Potter movie marathon.
Friend. You need to look at the Huawei Matebook D14 with the new 11th gen Intel processor.
The new Huawei Matebook D14 positions itself in the laptop market as a stylish, affordable machine, that can still kick some butt when it comes to grinding through the workday, and after having it around for a few days, that’s pretty much how it felt for me. Design-wise, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but they’re not trying to fix what isn’t broken. It’s slim, it’s smooth and features a full metallic body. It comes in mystic silver with a matte finish and a black keyboard to break the ice. It’s professional and pleasing. The D14 boasts a 14” IPS Display with a black 4.8mm bezel which really feels like they’re maximizing the space to screen ratio. It’s a real stunning screen to work on, the colours feel rich and deep, and the viewing angle is impressive. It also offers Dual eye Protection for those long nights on Netflix, ahem, I mean those long nights working on projects.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on and, although nothing to write home about, it comes with a set of speakers that push the sound right into your lap, or desk, whatever your work style is. The laptop functions as a great all-rounder, whether you’re always on the go, travelling from customer to customer, or class to class, or if you’re bumming it out in your dorm room for the night binging on that new season of Stranger Things. But that’s pretty much every laptop, sort of, so let’s get into what Huawei has really done with the new D14.
First off, they’ve gone back to a fingerprint sensor to log in to the laptop. Sure, this may seem like a step backwards to some, since fingerprint sensors were all the rage a few years ago and we face detection now, like duh, but friends… MASKS? I can’t even count how many times a day I have to pop my mask down to my chin for a second just to try logging into my laptop before it decides my face isn’t the ugly mug it’s used to and asks for my password. The fingerprint sensor on the D14 is quick and seamless and picks up as you press the power button, so it’s pretty much instant.
Huawei has also opted for an 11th gen core i5 in this model, which means this little firecracker is ready to work. They’ve built in a balanced and performance mode (only available when plugged in) which means you can get dirty with those resource intensive applications when you need to or perhaps squeeze in a little Genshin Impact if the boss is out of the office. I also ran a Valheim server on it and, although it ran fine with just me online, I wouldn’t be letting the rest of my colleagues in on it as I was maxing out the 8GB RAM and the built in Intel XE was hovering at 93% usage. For giggles we ran some benchmarks: Cinemark came in at 4760 and 3DMarks Time Spy scored at 1523. They have, however, improved the cooling here; opting for a 0.2mm shark fin fan, which kicked in when I had 26 YouTube tabs running my favourite NAG show episode, and it was comfortably quiet enough not to bother me at all. The laptop did get a little warm, but I’ve held hotter potatoes.
The D14 also has WiFi 6, which offers a theoretical 2.7 times speed increase over WiFi 5 and a hefty 56Wh battery, which isn’t the biggest laptop battery on paper, but after a full day of running a few work apps and a little, ok a lottle, bit of browsing the web, I still came home with about 36% battery.
The best part, ok wait, let me be clear here, what I THINK is the best part of the D14 is Huawei’s new Smart Device feature and I say think because I don’t actually have any other Huawei devices to test this feature out with, but hear me out. Imagine one, harmonious working environment where all your devices seamlessly connect to one another AS IF THEY WERE ONE. With a simple drag and drop interface, you can use the D14 as a hub to connect to your other Huawei devices instantly and wirelessly. From your mobile phone to copy over files, to your tablet as a second display, or even as a pen display to do your creative work on. You can connect your external Huawei speakers for a more pleasurable listening experience, and if you own one, your Huawei TV can be a part of the party as well. It sounds wonderful to me, and I only wish I got to test it for myself as I’m a real big fan of this seamless technology thing that we’re slowly building towards. Obviously, it means that you’ll have to have a full suite of Huawei devices to take full advantage of Super Device, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree here, but if you are already in the Huawei ecosystem, I’m excited for you.
Overall, the new Huawei D14 is a great day to day companion, it’s got a sleek and compact design, a beautiful IPS display that’s easy to spend hours working on and, with the added boost of the new chip upgrade, it can take on harder tasks than your average everyday laptop. With the promise of a “powerful, smart experience” when using the new Super Device, I can really see this laptop being popular amongst creative collaborators and workplace wizards alike. Although I may not be whipping it out my local LAN, I’d definitely feel comfortable having this machine in my backpack for work.