The Huawei Matebook 16s was launched in China in May, and earlier this week it became worldwide. The company was kind enough to send us a sample for review purposes, and it’s finally with us.
This is the current flagship laptop from Huawei, which uses the latest 12th generation Intel processors. There are three options – Core i5-12500H, Core i7-12700H and Core i9-12900H and our unit uses the middle one.
All Matebook 16s laptops come with Windows 11, 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM and either 512 GB or 1 TB PCIe SSD. We have the more spacious storage for testing, but performance differences should be minimal.
This laptop weighs just under 2 kg and is fairly unevenly distributed. The area around the hinge and the top of the keyboard is much heavier, making it a little difficult to carry around when opened.
The Matebook 16s has an impressive size touchpad. This is not exactly a surprise, as we have already handled the Matebook 16 which comes in the same body, but is always a good performance.
The “16” in the name of the laptop indicates the screen size. The 16 “touchscreen panel has 2,520 x 1,680 px resolution at a 3: 2 ratio. We were quite sad to hear Huawei did not upgrade the panel and it remains the one with only 300 nits of brightness – not bad not, but far from impressive.
Another thing Huawei does with all its laptops is the lack of a dedicated GPU – we are dealing with an Intel Iris Xe, which has advantages when it comes to battery life and weight, but limited video editing and gaming capability.
The battery capacity is 84Wh and it is charged by a 90W Huawei SuperCharge USB-C charger which is supplied in the retail box. The top Core i9 version gets a faster 135W adapter. And since it supports Huawei’s internal standard, it will also provide fast additions for P and Mate smartphones and Matepad tablets.
Our review will tell you if the upgrades add enough to make the Matebook 16s a worthy purchase at its price of € 1,699. Stay tuned!