Huawei MateBook 16 is described by Huawei as a "creative" laptop. It uses a thin and light aluminum chassis and looks elegant in a meeting room or any customer-oriented event.

It is very suitable for certain types of creative applications, such as lightweight Photoshop, and is good at multimedia and entertainment activities. In this review, we will show you its advantages and disadvantages in a highly competitive market.

Note: Ubergizmo's definition of Creative laptops is the ability to take advantage of heavy graphics tasks, such as video editing and compression. The graphics processor greatly accelerates this.

As usual, Huawei's configuration options are simple. The main change lies in the CPU selection, you can choose AMD Ryzen 5 5600H or more powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU (such as our test unit). 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and display are the same as all MateBook 16.

The downside of this simplicity is that Huawei may not be able to satisfy the niche market where users may need 32/64GB RAM or 1/2TB storage space. I guess Huawei’s target user group is people who want a classic 15.6-inch thin and light productivity computer. For this reason, these options are acceptable.

The Huawei MateBook 16 uses a proven variant of the MateBook design language, as we recently saw in the MateBook X Pro we reviewed earlier. It looks great and may be a typical representative of the friendly design of the company's board of directors.

The chassis is made of CNC aluminum, which makes it slimmer (17.8 mm) and stronger at the same time, but it is compatible with Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen4 (3.99 lbs) or Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen4 (3.99 lbs) or MacBook Pro 16 (3.5 lbs).

The aluminum surface treatment feels very good, and it is very resistant to fingerprint smudges, so that the laptop always looks clean. Currently, "Space Gray" is the only color available.

The keyboard seems to be the same as the MateBook X Pro in terms of width and key size, but the keystrokes seem to be slightly longer, which some users may appreciate. The keyboard has comfortable tactile feedback, strong and flexible in the right amount.

The extra-large glass trackpad looks impressive, very smooth, and is perfect for large scrolling actions or complex 3-4 finger Windows gestures for optimal work efficiency. There is no physical trackpad button, but if you don’t like the single-finger click to the bottom right corner, you can use two-finger presses to simulate the right mouse button.

I find the input very comfortable and suitable for heavy typing, but I want the keyboard backlight to be brighter.

Due to size reasons, MateBook 16 port selection is better than 14-inch similar products. You can find two full-size USB ports on the right. There are two USB-C (power), a full-size HDMI and 3.5mm audio connectors on the left.

The lack of a full-size SD card reader means that creative users are not the main target, even if this computer runs fast on CPU-intensive creative applications such as Cinebench.

The USB-C port does not support Thunderbolt because it is an Intel technology and is not available on this AMD-driven platform. That said, unless you plan to use this computer as a desktop replacement (with a cool laptop docking station), this shouldn't be a practical problem.

Wi-Fi 6 (2×2 MIMO) and BT 5.1 can ensure near-universal connectivity, but remember that some competitors are now equipped with Wi-Fi 6E. If you upgrade your router in the next few years, it will be more oriented future.

On a 1000 Mbps symmetrical connection, we achieved real Wi-Fi speeds of 205/434 Mbps in download and upload respectively.

This 16-inch chassis leaves plenty of room for the stereo speakers placed on both sides of the keyboard. These two speakers are powerful and can output high-quality audio, which Huawei strives to incorporate and retain in all of its more expensive laptop designs.

Watching movies or listening to music is very enjoyable, if you want, you can turn your laptop into an impromptu mobile speaker for small outdoor gatherings.

The 16-inch 3:2 aspect ratio display is excellent because it provides nearly 9 inches of vertical usable space, rather than the approximately 7 inches of the classic 15.6-inch (16:9) laptop display. The extra surface makes any computer activity more "productive". I like this, but I also hope that there is multi-touch support.

The resolution of 2520×1680 is not impressive, but I found it to be sufficient for office-type work, multimedia entertainment and optimal battery life, which are the main goals. There is no 4K option.

The 360 ​​NIT brightness we measured is an average value, because some laptops can reach 600 NIT. Since this screen has a smooth surface, you must adjust the orientation of the display to avoid glare as much as possible, especially outdoors. If you often work in that environment, you need to think about it.

In other words, the image quality is very good, with high color gamut and color accuracy. Therefore, the monitor is also suitable for web development, lightweight Photoshop, and other activities that require color-accurate visual content.

Like Huawei, the camera is hidden in the keyboard keys between the F6 and F7 keys. Hidden camera can get a beautiful top frame, but the lens position is not suitable for you to look good in a video call.

Regardless of the location of the camera, the image quality is average, not as good as the selfie camera of Huawei mobile phones, but unfortunately, it is quite standard for a PC.

As we all know, Huawei also produces smartphones and tablets. The company created an ecosystem through Huawei Share, a platform that connects different types of Huawei devices. Connecting laptops and tablets is done through BT, which is simple and safe.

With it, you can quickly transfer files between Huawei mobile devices and laptops, or remotely control the phone to interact with mobile-only applications without having to hold the phone all the time.

You can also mirror or extend the Windows desktop to a Huawei tablet to turn it into an external monitor. I like this idea because the tablet you carry on the flight will become your display in the hotel, making it more useful (and worth carrying).

The content of the screen is shared via Wi-Fi, so there will be a little delay, but I found it acceptable for office use. If you have both devices at the same time, the display effect of Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 is very good, and with E-Pen, you can even create very interesting Photoshop sketch settings.

I recommend using the USB-C input of the tablet for HDMI signals via a wired connection (except Wi-Fi connection) in the future.

Finally, you can also use Huawei phones to record computer screens for presentations. In general, Huawei Sharing can help customers stay in the same ecosystem.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800H (35W) of our MateBook 16 shows comparable CPU performance to the Intel Core i7-11800H in many high-end notebooks (such as the new ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen4). Benchmarks such as Geekbench 5 or Cinebench clearly show this.

As far as the price you pay, Huawei MateBook 16 has very good CPU performance, as our Geekbench/price chart proves this very well. This is why AMD CPUs are all the rage recently, but Intel is fighting back, at least on desktops.

Below, PCMark 10 "Creative" sub-scores tend to be CPU (Disk) heavier, which is why MateBook 16 scores are comparable to ACER Predator Triton 300 SE, which has faster graphics, as shown by 3DMark.

The combination of CPU speed and very good SSD performance resulted in a high PCMark score, confirming this notebook's status as an excellent productivity notebook.

However, compared with computers equipped with RTX 3050 Ti (and higher), the lack of a discrete GPU makes GPU-intensive tasks (such as games or GPU video editing) lower performance. For many people who don't need this graphics speed, this is not a problem, but if you use graphics-intensive applications, other "creative" laptops have better GPUs.

MateBook 16 has a battery capacity of 84 Wh, and its size can be used to store sufficient energy reserves, which can be supplemented by a 135W USB-C power supply.

In our office productivity test, the battery life of the laptop was 16 hours, which is one of the highest battery life we ​​have seen so far. The chart also shows the difference in battery life for laptops designed to achieve higher peak graphics performance, such as workstations or gaming laptops.

The battery charging speed is not bad, because you can get about 27Wh of energy in 30 million recharges. Some laptops can do better, but this is the typical charging speed.

Huawei MateBook 16 (official page) is an elegant computer, and it is an excellent choice for users who need a large screen for office efficiency and light creativity. I like the great industrial design and build quality. A laptop is very suitable for use, even if you use it for many hours of work every day.

From a specification/price point of view, there are strong competitors such as Dell Inspiron 16, Lenovo's Legion 5i or Acer Predator Triton 300 SE. But in this type of CNC aluminum case, the MacBook 16 may be an alternative choice for those willing to switch to macOS and pay more.

The retail price of Huawei MateBook 16 is 1199 Euros (approximately US$1385), which is almost half of the cheapest MacBook 16 (US$2499). For the use cases we describe, this is a huge difference in value.

For creative users who need high CPU performance (Cinebench) most, this laptop may be very interesting, because Ryzen 7 5800H CPU can compete with Intel's Core i7-11800H at a much lower price. Having excellent CPU performance and long battery life is a rare combination.