Huawei MateBook E Laptop Review – A new Windows tablet with OLED

It is not easy to distinguish the new MateBook E from the MatePad Pro based on the design, because both the visuals in Nebula Gray as well as the chassis design with rounded corner is pretty much identical between the two units. The bezels are just 5.6 mm wide and results in a high body-to-screen ratio of almost 90 percent. Both the build quality as well as the stability of the tablet are very good and there are no creaking sounds or picture distortions when we tried to twist the device. The rear of the tablet is made of a slightly roughened and offers good grip, but you can quickly see fingerprints and it is not easy to clean the surface, either.

A direct comparison with the MatePad Pro reveals the fan exhausts at the top, which are required for the active cooling solution. The buttons are very well integrated and do not rattle around, and the power button also implements a fingerprint scanner. It is also possible to attach the optional M-Pencil magnetically at the top edge, but more on that later.

We already mentioned that the MateBook E does not offer an integrated kickstand. The problem is that Windows is much harder to operate just with your fingers compared to Huawei’s own HarmonyOS on the MatePad Pro, for example, so the use of the keyboard cover (including the touchpad) is recommended. The connection with the tablet is very stable and the quality of the keyboard cover also leaves a decent impression. The black material is slightly rubberized and smooth.

Despite the active cooling solution, the tablet only tips the scale at little more than 700 grams and is therefore lighter than convertibles like the Surface Pro. The weight of the full package with the keyboard cover is around 1.15 kg, so it is still a very compact unit.

Huawei does not save money in terms of ports, because you get a modern USB-C port including full Thunderbolt 4 support. However, you are limited because there is only one port. If you want to attach an external screen, for instance, it should be one with power delivery via USB-C, otherwise the MateBook E will have to run on battery power. Always disconnecting the power adapter when you want to attach a USB drive or external hard drives can be annoying during productive tasks as well. We will later see that the battery runtime of the MateBook E is not great, so you will have to use the power adapter quite often.

Like other modern Windows devices, the MateBook E is quipped with a modern Wi-Fi module (in this case Intel AX201) including support for Wi-Fi 6 as well as Bluetooth 5.1. The transfer rates are very good in combination with our reference router from Netgear (Nighthawk AX12) and we did not notice any signal issues during our review period. Huawei also offers the HuaweiShare technology, which can be used to transfer files between compatible Huawei devices (from smartphone to a MateBook, for example) and is similar to Apple’s Air Drop technology. There is no option for an LTE or even 5G modem, though.

The small clickpad underneath the keyboard (11.3 x 5.7 cm) works well and offers good gliding capabilities, but the unit on our model was a bit clattery. This was also noticeable when we juts tapped the surface or repositioned our fingers. If you depress the pad in the lower half, you are also confronted with a very loud clicking sound. We would recommend an external Bluetooth mouse, at least when you use it as a stationary device.

You can obviously use the capacitive touchscreen for inputs, which works very well. Huawei also offers the optional M-Pencil (first or second generation). It can be attached to the top of the tablet via magnet and is automatically charged and connected (Bluetooth). We cannot tell you anything about the new second generation M-Pencil, but we could test a first-generation model we still had from a MatePad pro. Inputs worked well, but the resistance from the touchscreen surface during writing was a bit high.

The MateBook E is equipped with Intel Tiger Lake CPUs, but only the very efficient UP4 models, which are operated at much lower TDP values compared to the usual UP3 model like the Core i5-1135G7, which is familiar from many modern ultrabooks. In addition to the Core i5 (4 cores) in our review unit, you can also get an entry-level SKU with the Core i3-1110G4 with just two cores and also a slower version of the iGPU.

Huawei usually equips its MateBooks with an optional Performance mode, and the new MateBook E is no exception. You can activate it via PC Manager software or key combination (Fn + P). The CPU can consume up to 30 Watts for short periods of time in both modes, but quickly levels off at 10 Watts (Balanced) or 12 Watts (Performance), respectively, so there is not a huge difference. We performed the following benchmarks and measurements with the default Balanced mode in general and only checked the effect of the Performance mode in some sections.

Intel’s Core i5-1130G7 is a Tiger Lake-UP4 chip and has four cores (eight threads) with a maximum clock of up to 4 GHz or 3.4 GHz for all active cores, respectively. The short-term power consumption is set to 30 Watts, which ensures solid performance figures in peak load scenarios, which are very common during everyday workloads. The performance quickly drops under sustained workloads and the overall performance level is pretty low when you consider the price of 1200 Euros. The results are a bit better with the optional Performance mode, but they are still low in general. The performance does not drop any further on battery power. More benchmark results are available in our CPU section.

The subjective performance impression of the MateBook E is solid and there is plenty of RAM at 16 GB, but there can be some stutters or delays when you stress the system a bit more. We notice it during the installation of applications, for example, where there was not much headroom for additional tasks. As long as you only use it for common tasks, however, there should not be any issues.

Huawei uses an M.2-SSD, which is attached via PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and the benchmark performance is good, so there should not be any limitations. The SSD offers a storage capacity of 512 GB, and you can use around 408 GB for your own files/apps after the initial set-up. Like on other current MateBooks, however, the SSD is partitioned and you only get 72 GB on the system drive. This can quickly result in capacity problems when you are not careful with installations and downloads. We once again think this is completely unnecessary and we can only hope Huawei will discontinue this method for future products. More SSD benchmarks are available here.