Huawei MateBook 16s

pros and cons

• Understated design & solid build quality
• Colour-accurate 2.5K 3:2 IPS screen
• Good performance
• Decent battery life
• Good speakers

• No discrete GPU support
• No SD or MicroSD card reader
• No separate number pad
• No IR support on webcam

Laptops with 16-inch displays hit the sweet spot for a variety of use cases because they can, if properly designed and built, deliver a winning combination of screen real estate and reasonable portability. Huawei's recent MateBook D 16 impressed us with its understated design, comfortable keyboard with separate number pad, and conventionally located webcam. However, we thought that battery life could be better. 

Enter the MateBook 16s -- successor to the AMD-based MateBook 16, which earlier this year we judged 'could be a real winner' with a better webcam. This comment was aimed at Huawei's notoriously quirky camera that popped up from a key in the Fn row, giving an unflattering 'up the nose' viewing angle during video calls. That's fixed in the new model, which is based on 12th-generation H-series Intel Core processors and features a 2.5K IPS touch-screen plus a large-capacity battery. 

This all sounds very promising, but does the MateBook 16s -- which in the UK starts at