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Monday, 18 July 2016

Huawei Matebook Review: Suitable Laptop Replacement, But Tablet Part Needs Refinement

With the recent “go bigger” trend in smartphones being the sole exception, consumer tech has always focused on making things smaller, slimmer, more portable. In recent years, manufacturers such as Microsoft, Samsung, and even Apple, have been pushing the so-called 2-in-1 machine — essentially a tablet that can also function as a proper laptop — and the Chinese electronic giant, with its ambitious goals, isn’t about to be left out of the game.

And so came the Huawei Matebook, released last month in Asia and this month in June. As I’ve already addressed in a hands-on preview last month, the Matebook is a extremely well-built, very sleek device that worked fine as a laptop replacement. I wrote entire articles on the Windows 10 machine, and I’m writing this review on it now.

All of that is possible because Huawei has done a great job with the typing experience on the keyboard. It is, to me, every bit as good as a proper keyboard on a desktop. I tried out various keyboards on typingtest.com’s 1 minute Aesop’s fables test and here are my results. – on an old school desktop keyboard: 106 words-per-minute, with two mistakes, so adjusted wpm of 104.

–Macbook Air keyboard: 111 words-per-minute, with nine mistakes, meaning adjusted wpm of 102 wpm.

–Matebook keyboard: 104 words-per-minute, with four mistakes, resulting in 100 wpm. So as you can see, the typing experience on the Matebook keyboard is almost exactly the same as on other keyboards. The trackpad is large and easy to use. That’s pretty uncanny considering how portable the Matebook keyboard is — it’s part of a folio case that wraps around the device and gives it a premium leather feel (it’s not exactly real leather, but looks and feels close enough).

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