Huawei MateBook D15 — value and performance in sleek design
Huawei is well known for its innovative smartphones, but in recent years, the company has put an emphasis on its range of laptops and audio accessories. I’ve reviewed and been impressed with Huawei’s flagship MateBook ‘Pro’ models, but this week's review is on the more affordable MateBook D15 from late 2021.
The MateBook D15 inherits the same design language found on the MateBook X Pro models. It has a sturdy aluminium body that feels rigid despite being relatively thin at just under 17mm thick. It weighs 1.56kg (depending on the configuration), which makes it easy to recommend to those who need a thin and light laptop for college.
The included 65W USB-C charger is like a large phone charger and comes with a thick cable that has a standard USB-C connection on both ends. The latter is also very handy for charging phones, or other devices with a USB-C port.
The laptop has a lot of ports, including 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1, 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB-C, 1 full-size HDMI, and a 3.5mm 2-in-1 headset and microphone connection. The D15 does not have a Thunderbolt port and while it would have been handy, you don’t often see it in laptops in this price range.
Like their more expensive models, the power button has a fingerprint sensor that works fast and reliably.
The keyboard features textured keys with decent spacing and a reasonable amount of travel for a tactile response while typing. There’s no keypad, but most users won’t miss this.
The bezels around the screen are small, although the bottom is much larger with the Huawei branding in the middle.
Like all the other Huawei laptops I’ve tested, the 720p webcam is seated in the middle of the top row of function keys. This is a novel approach that keeps the top screen bezel thin and you can quickly hide the camera for extra privacy — press down on this special key and the camera pops up. While the low angle isn’t always flattering since it’s looking up your nose, I’ve never found it to be any real issue for occasional use.
You get dual speakers on the base of the laptop and these sound fine when placed on a flat surface, but lack any real bass. Also, I found that when placed on your lap, the sound was a little hollow. That said, it’s nice to see a 3.5mm headphone jack included.
The 15.6-inches IPS FHD has a matte screen that reduces glare but also reduces clarity a little. It doesn’t get overly bright at 250 nits of maximum brightness, which is fine for use indoors but not nearly bright enough to use outdoors. Off-access viewing angles are not great either, but as long as you’re looking directly at it, which is most of the time, it’s fine.
The MateBook D15 is not a gaming or performance beast, but it is more than capable of performing regular office-type tasks with ease. My review model came with 8GB of RAM, 128GB for the main drive and a more generous 512GB for a second storage drive, along with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU. This is the minimum amount of RAM required to run Windows efficiently, but in practice, it worked well for its intended purpose.
The D15 is only good for some light gaming since it doesn’t come with discrete graphics. Instead, you get Intel Iris Xe graphics onboard.
The small 42Wh battery helps to keep the battery light, but also means it won’t last all day without a recharge. You should expect between 4-5 hours with typical usage, but of course, this is incredibly dependent on screen brightness, CPU usage, speaker volume, WiFi, and so on. The 65W charger is light and easy to bring with you and it can charge the laptop battery to 53% in just 30 minutes.
The Huawei MateBook D15 is light and portable, with a good selection of ports and features. The 65W charger is excellent and its performance is more than adequate for all but power users or gamers.
Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 11th INTEL I7/16/512GB - €1,099.00
Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 11th INTEL I5/8/512GB - €649.00
Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 AMD R5/8/512GB - €629.00
Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 11th I3/8GB/256GB - €579.00
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