Riley Young/Digital Trends
If you’re looking to buy a slim, light, and premium laptop in 2019, you might consider the Huawei MateBook 13, or the 2018 Apple MacBook Air. Since the Huawei MateBook 13 was just announced at CES 2019, you might be wondering how it stacks up against the latest MacBook Air.
Be it the differences in the operating system, processor, display, or performance, there is a lot to think about when considering both devices. Yet only one laptop can come away the victor.
Design
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
The Huawei MateBook 13 and the MacBook Air are similar, but with subtle differences. Both devices are sporting aluminum finishes that are thin and light, but Apple’s MacBook Air comes in Space Gray, gold, and silver. The MateBook 13 only comes in Mystic Silver (with integrated graphics) and Space Gray (with dedicated graphics.)
Huawei’s Matebook 13 is slimmer than the MacBook Air, coming in with a width of 11.26 inches, and a thickness of 0.59 inches. That is just slightly smaller than the MacBook Air, which comes in with a width of 11.97 inches, and a thickness of 0.61 inches.
The keyboards are different between the two devices. Huawei’s MateBook 13 comes with an edge-to-edge keyboard with a total of travel of 1.2mm, but Apple’s MacBook Air sports the third generation butterfly keyboard like on the most recent 2018 MacBook Pro. Some may like the Matebook 13 for its better travel space between keys, as we’ve found that the MacBook Air 2018 is a bit too shallow when typing.
Finally, both the MacBook Air and the MateBook 13 are sporting fingerprint readers. Apple includes a TouchID sensor on the top right corner of the keyboard deck, and Huawei includes a sensor on the power button. Both should make for quick and accurate logins, without the need to fiddle with passwords, but Apple’s is the more reliable and responsive overall.
Performance
Riley Young/Digital Trends
Asides from the fact that the MacBook Air runsMmacOS, and the MateBook 13 runs Windows 10, there are other important performance and pricing differences between the two. Though all variants come with 8GB RAM, Huawei has two models of the Matebook 13. The first is a Mystic Silver option with the 8th generation Intel Core i5-8265U processor, and a 256GB NVMe PCIe SSD. The other Space Gray model comes with the 8th generation Intel Core i7-8565U processor and Nvdiaia GeForce MX 150 graphics on board. Pricing on Space Gray model is at $999, whereas the Mystic Silver model is $1,300. These processors are Intel’s latest quad-core Whiskey Lake CPUs, which are optimized for better performance.
The base model of the MacBook Air starts at $1,200 and comes with the 8th generation 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Y-series processor. This doesn’t pack as much power as what is seen with the Huawei MateBook 13 and, and we found that it was a bit sluggish for more demanding tasks like watching videos on a secondary 4K monitor. Also, Apple’s MacBook Air doesn’t come with an option for dedicated graphics like the MateBook 13.
Both devices pack impressive displays, though the MateBook 13 edges out Apple in the overall screen to body ratio and its support for touch. Huawei’s Matebook 13 touchscreen packs a resolution of 2,160 x 1,440 or 200 pixels per inch, and the MacBook Air packs a resolution of 2,560 × 1,600 for 227 pixels per inch. Obviously, the MacBook Air is sporting more pixels, but Huawei’s screen on the Matebook 13 is in the 3:2 aspect ratio. That gives it an 88 percent screen to body ratio (vs 82 percent and 16:10 on the MacBook Air) and more room for you to multitask. Huawei’s screen also gets up to 300 nits of brightness, which is more than the 291 that we experienced on the MacBook Air.
Portability
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
Coming down to portability, there is a small difference between MateBook and MacBook Air. As mentioned earlier, both are thin and light, but the MateBook 13 is a bit heavier. It comes in at 2.82 pounds on the unit with integrated graphics, and 2.86 pounds on the unit with the discrete GPU. That’s a bit more than the MacBook Air, which comes in at 2.75 pounds.
Elsewhere, with ports and connectivity, the two laptops are on similar footing. You’ll find the MacBook Air comes with two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, and the MateBook 13 has two USB-C ports. Dongles will be needed in both cases, but unlike Apple, Huawei includes a dongle in the box, expanding connectivity to VGA, HDMI, and traditional USB-A.
Battery life looks like a dead heat. In our testing on the 2018 MacBook Air, we got to around eight hours in web browsing, and 10 hours in video playback. Huawei is quoting a total of 9.6 hours of video playback and 7.3 hours of web browsing on the MateBook 13 model with integrated graphics and 10 hours on the model with an integrated GPU. As for the model with the discrete GPU, it can get up to 9.6 hours of video playback, and 7.2 hours of internet browsing.
Winner: Huawei’s MateBook 13
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
If you’re after a true work-horse of a laptop, go for the Huawei MateBook 13. For almost the same price as the MacBook Air, it comes with a more powerful processor, optional discrete graphics, and a better display with slimmer bezels. For most people, those should be the most important aspects of a laptop.
Editors’ Recommendations
- Huawei’s MateBook 13 is smaller than a MacBook Air, yet includes Nvidia graphics
- Huawei MateBook 13 hands-on review
- Huawei MateBook X Pro review
- Apple MacBook Air (2018) vs. Dell XPS 13
- Asus ZenBook 13 UX333FA Review