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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Jap and this is the new 2020 Huawei MateBook D15.
00:05So I've got the cheapest model here, the entry-level version.
00:08It'll set you back £600, which is actually relatively affordable for a fairly premium
00:13ultrabook.
00:14Now, this does also have a smaller brother, the MateBook D14, which surprisingly actually
00:19costs you £50 more for the entry-level spec, although you do get double the storage, and
00:24we'll come back to that in a second.
00:25So the MateBook D is actually Huawei's cheapest laptop.
00:28Followed up from this, we have the standard MateBook, the 13-inch, which they haven't
00:32actually updated yet for 2020.
00:34And then we have the top-end MateBook, MateBook?
00:37MateBook X Pro.
00:38They've just launched the new 2020 model with a green version and a faster 10th-gen i7 processor,
00:44but that will cost you upwards of £1,500.
00:45As I say, this starts at £600.
00:48So if you're on a budget, if you're a student, if you're looking for just a nice, compact,
00:53thin and light travel laptop that you can watch Netflix on and do some work on and maybe
00:57a little bit of photo editing and light, maybe 1080p video editing, then this is pretty
01:02much all you need.
01:04So the first question, what makes this stand out compared to the million or so other mid-range
01:08laptops on the market?
01:09Well, I think, firstly, the design.
01:11It looks pretty smart, actually, and premium considering the price.
01:14There's definite cues from a certain fruit-based rival.
01:17They even call this aluminium chassis space grey as well, but that's no bad thing, and
01:22I think it definitely looks more expensive than it is, which is always a good thing.
01:26You've got pretty thin bezels, although they are plastic and they protrude a little bit.
01:29They're not flush with the screen, so that takes away a little bit from the premium aesthetic.
01:33The keys feel a little bit plasticky and cheap, and they're not backlit either, so you can
01:37see some areas where they're cost-saving.
01:39But for a 15.6-inch laptop and weighing just 1.62kg, it's remarkably portable as well,
01:45so I think design is definitely one of the selling points of this.
01:48Then we have this little guy.
01:49The MateBook D comes with Huawei's famous recessed webcam.
01:53If security is important to you, if you're someone who puts a bit of tape over their
01:56webcam normally, the fact that you can just press the little key here between F6 and F7
02:03to physically hide or recess the webcam, I think is definitely a selling point.
02:09Then we have the power button, which also doubles as a fingerprint reader, so with just
02:12one press you can start it up and log in.
02:14We also get USB-C charging, which is not something you find on lower-end, mid-range laptops.
02:19You usually get those horrible proprietary little DC-in cables.
02:23So actually what that means is you can also charge your phone, assuming you're not using
02:26an iPhone.
02:27And actually it's pretty fast as well.
02:28The charger is 65W, so you can go from 0 to 55% battery in half an hour, which is actually
02:35very impressive.
02:36And again, fast charging is not something you tend to see on more mid-range laptops.
02:40And finally we have Huawei Share.
02:42Now you may have seen this before on previous MateBooks, and the idea is that you can pair
02:45it with a Huawei phone and then easily transfer photos and videos with one touch through NFC.
02:50And if you're using a Huawei phone with EMUI 10 or later, there's a new feature called
02:54multi-screen collaboration.
02:56So what you can do with your P30 Pro or Mate 30 Pro is with one touch you can connect it
03:00to the laptop and then you can actually use your phone on the laptop screen, whether you're
03:04swiping between home screens, messaging someone, you can even use the mouse and keyboard to
03:07type messages.
03:08And the coolest thing is you can then drag and drop files or photos over to the desktop
03:13from the phone.
03:14And it's all done through its own local Wi-Fi network, so it doesn't use up any data.
03:18And I love it when tech works together that seamlessly, it doesn't happen very often.
03:21Although of course you do need to buy into the Huawei ecosystem to make this work.
03:26This only works with Huawei devices.
03:28Just to reassure you though, unlike the phone department of Huawei, the laptops don't seem
03:32to have any issues with this so-called sort of trade war ban.
03:35We still have Microsoft Windows and we're getting the latest updates, and on the higher
03:39end models of this and other MateBooks we get Intel processors, so their laptop division
03:43doesn't seem to be affected at all, which is good news.
03:46There are a couple of downsides to this though, which we'll get to in just a second.
03:49But first, let me run you through the specs.
03:51And as I say, this is the entry level model where we get the AMD Ryzen 3500U along with
03:578GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage, which is absolutely fine.
04:02It's not going to break any records.
04:04That processor is roughly equivalent to the previous gen i5, the 8250U.
04:09So it's okay.
04:10It's a quad-core chip with 8 threads, and also 8GB of RAM is pretty much the minimum
04:14but acceptable minimum these days for laptops, although this can be specced up to 16GB.
04:19So actually, using it every day, it's pretty nippy, and that's also largely thanks to the
04:22fast NVMe SSD we get inside here, although 256GB isn't a lot.
04:28If you install a couple of games and put a few videos on there, that will fill up quickly.
04:32As for graphics, we get AMD's Vega 8 chip, which is built into the processor as an integrated
04:37chip.
04:38It might come up to, say, the NVIDIA MX150 or even Intel's brand new Iris Plus graphics,
04:45and that's because actually this processor is getting on a little bit.
04:48We're expected to see AMD's new 4000 Ryzen series in a month or so, so that is worth
04:52bearing in mind.
04:53But you know what?
04:54For everyday stuff, a little bit of light room, light, tainty-pea video editing, this
04:58is absolutely fine, and you can also get away with just a little bit of light gaming as
05:01well.
05:02And actually, even when I was gaming or rendering videos, it stayed cool and quiet throughout,
05:06and I think that's thanks to Huawei's new Shark Fin 2 design, which is another new feature.
05:11It never got particularly loud, and nowhere on a laptop did it get anywhere close to uncomfortably
05:15warm.
05:16It was actually very impressive.
05:18So far, so good then, but as I say, I do have a couple of problems with the MateBook D15,
05:23the first one being the screen.
05:25It's okay, but it is not color accurate.
05:27It doesn't get particularly bright, looking at a peak of 220 nits.
05:31As I say, if you try to color correct photos or video on this, the 65% sRGB, 49% Adobe
05:37RGB and 48% P3 gamuts, color accuracy is pretty poor, actually.
05:42And also, with an 800 to 1 contrast ratio, it just looks a little bit washed out.
05:47And also, as you can see, the viewing angles aren't fantastic.
05:50This I think is the biggest area, the biggest sort of compromise versus the higher-end MateBooks
05:55like the X Pro, which have absolutely stunning screens.
05:58It's not the end of the world.
05:59And again, you do have to factor in the price of this, £600.
06:02My other issue is battery life.
06:04It's not great.
06:05Inside, we get a 42-watt-hour cell, which is a good deal smaller than the 56-watt-hour
06:10cell we got on the 14-inch version of this, so that's kind of another reason you might
06:14want to go for the smaller model.
06:16And while we say you may get up to sort of 10 hours of use, that's their test with local
06:20video playback at 150 nits.
06:22But with normal use, you're looking at more like five and a half hours.
06:25The upside, though, is that we do have that fast 65-watt charging, so you can top it up
06:29pretty quickly.
06:31While we're talking about areas for improvement, it would have been nice to see a backlit keyboard
06:34as well on this.
06:35And also, while the range of ports is decent, we actually get three USB Type-As, one Type-C,
06:41although it's not Thunderbolt, headphone jack, and a full-size HDMI.
06:45That's okay.
06:46It would have been nice to see maybe an SD card reader.
06:48But actually, two of the USB-A ports are only USB-2.
06:51We only get one fast USB-3, which for a 2020 laptop, is a little bit old-fashioned.
06:57Now here's another version of me to test the speakers.
06:59And if I whack the volume right up, it does get nice and loud, actually, but it's definitely
07:07tinny, lacking in bass.
07:09I wouldn't say they're fantastic speakers.
07:11So then, the big question, should you actually buy the 2020 MateBook D15?
07:16Well, I think for £600, it's a pretty good value laptop, although I have to say, I do
07:21think its smaller brother, the 14-inch model, may be a better bet.
07:25You get a better battery life, it's obviously thinner and lighter because you get a smaller
07:28screen, and while it does cost £50 more, you do get double the storage, 512, which
07:33is kind of what you want in 2020.
07:35So for a bunch of reasons, I think that may be the better option.
07:39But if you want the bigger screen and also the extra USB-A port, then yeah, this is still
07:43worth considering.
07:44The screen and the battery let it down a little bit, but then I think the design, the fact
07:48that we get the fast charging, the webcam, and also the Huawei Share, assuming you are
07:52invested in the Huawei ecosystem, do make up for it in some areas.
07:55And I think for, as I say, £600, you're getting quite a lot for your money here.
07:59But what do you think of the MateBook D?
08:01Would you consider buying this?
08:02Or if not, what laptop are you looking to upgrade to next?
08:05Let me know in the comments below.
08:06Thank you so much for watching, guys.
08:08If you enjoyed the video, then make sure you hit that like and subscribe button so I know
08:11to make more of them.
08:12And I'll catch you next time right here on the Tech Jab.