Huawei has recently announced another addition to the MateBook family, the MateBook 14s. But how does it compare against Apple’s MacBook Air?
The latest Apple MacBook Air is powered using the impressive M1 chipset and is known for being ridiculously fast, but how will it fare against Hauwei’s latest laptop, boasting the 11th generation H-Series Intel processor?
While we haven’t had the chance to test out the MateBook 14s yet, we’ve compared the specs to see how the two laptops differ. Check out our findings below.
Price and release date
The MacBook Air M1 was £999 at launch, although it’s been out for a while now, so you can find it available for a cheaper price on third-party websites like Amazon.
The MateBook 14s, meanwhile, is currently available for pre-order and will be dispatched on 27 October. The cheapest variation of the MateBook 14s is £1199.99, though the unit with more storage and Intel Evo certification will cost £1299.99.
Specs
The MacBook Air comes packed with the new M1 chipset, which sees fantastic processing speeds to knock off competition from AMD and Intel.
Thanks to the eight-core GPU (in the higher-priced model) integrated into the M1 chip, the MacBook Air is capable of dabbling with heavy workloads such as video editing.
There is also 16GB of RAM available with the option to go up to 2TB of storage, with options at 1TB, 512GB and 256GB as well.
The MateBook 14s runs on an 11th-Generation Intel H-Series Processor which is designed for heavy workloads. We haven’t had the chance to test out the laptop yet so we can’t confirm the speeds yet, though Huawei claims it should have a speedy and smooth performance.
The processor is an i7-11370H Processor specifically, with an integrated Intel Iris Xe GPU, which should be capable of entry-level content creation and gaming.
The storage front is about the same for both laptops, the MateBook 14s also comes with 16GB of RAM with the choice between 512GB and 1TB of storage.
The Matebook also runs on Windows 10 currently, but Huawei claims it can be upgraded to Windows 11 for free. The MacBook Air runs on macOS. Which is best will come down to personal preference.
Design and features
As with previous generations, the Apple MacBook Air doesn’t look that different than usual; with a sleek design and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
It also has two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports, but we noted that the layout of the ports was a little awkward in our review.
The MateBook 14s has a similar design, with sharp edges and a thinner design than previous laptops from Huawei. This laptop comes with two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack and one HDMI port.
The bigger difference between the laptops can be found with the screens. The MacBook Air has a 13.3-inch display with a 2560×1600 native resolution. The LED-backlit display also has IPS technology with up to 400 nits of brightness, making this a great laptop to binge-watch your favourite show on.
The MateBook 14s has a 14.2-inch display with a 2520×1680 resolution, also with 400 nits of brightness. The MateBook also wins out in terms of refresh rate, as it can support up to 90Hz while the MacBook is capped at 60Hz.
Both laptops also have a 720p FaceTime HD camera with integrated microphones – the MacBook Air has three while the MateBook 14s has four – as well as integrated speakers.
Early Verdict
It’s very hard to compare these laptops since we haven’t had the chance to test one of them out, so we can’t compare performance or speed quite yet.
However, in terms of price and what we know about each laptop, it seems that Apple may come out on top, with a cheaper laptop that runs on the well-loved M1 chip. Though our opinion may change once we get to test the new Huawei MateBook 14s.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
