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MateBook 12 from Huawei
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The initial look is ‘wow’ not a word that crosses my lips that often.
It is 27.5x19.1x.6cm and weighs 642grams. The viewable screen is 35.5x17cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial screen measurement of 12inches the normal screen resolution is 1920x1080.
Switch on is a very impressive 16 seconds, shutdown is 3 seconds.
Assuming that it is in portrait mode there are speakers left and right on the top edge together with a pin hole microphone in the centre, just below this on the top edge of the screen is a Web Cam, back along the top edge is the on/off button. The right side has two volume buttons near the top and the USB 3.1 port towards the base.
The centre of the base has a keyboard connector and finally on the right side almost at the top is the 3.5mm socket for headphone/earbuds. The back and sides have an aluminium effect while the screen surround is cream in colour. The screen while shiny seems to have mastered not showing finger marks.
Apart from a USB 3.1 to USB 3.1 lead and a power plug with USB 3.1 plug there is also a small USB 3.1 to USB adapter and a small lead included.
I deliberately used this only as a Tablet in the first week of my two week review as several of my recent review units I used the other way round and only converted them to Tablet use in the second week.
The first unit I was sent had been used previously and the user had set a password and as the agency could not contact him they then sent another new unit. I was also sent the keyboard, dock and stylus pen and offered to just return the Tablet but they said that the keyboard was paired at the factory so I returned both and was sent a replacement pair of Tablet and Keyboard.
Windows 10 and recent programs are pretty good at knowing when the onscreen keyboard is required, one program I always add is my database which is very old and this requires you to enlarge the on screen keyboard from the tray but as this program dates back to Windows XP that is hardly a problem that I can blame Microsoft and Windows 10 for.
The light brown fold over magnetic keyboard and cover was perfectly efficient. It has 79 keys with the alpha and numeric keys being full size it was the same cream colour as the screen surround the keys are close together so accurate typing is required.
The stylus pen is great for those into art and a lot more precise than a finger on the screen there is an App provided called SketchBook that makes this a useful tool.
The dock like the pen is sold as an extra and without this it could be a problem if other methods of data transfer are required as my trip round the outside of the unit revealed only the USB 3.1 connection.
The dock has everything that the basic unit does not, it is 10x5.5x1.8cm and has a 12cm USB 3.1 connecter hard wired into one end that end also has another USB 3.1 port so the unit can be charged while the main port is being used by the dock it also has two standard USB ports one .5amp and the other .9amp and also an Ethernet port. The other end has VGA and HDMI outlets.
There is a rather good basic guide on the Desktop that explains all the connections some other manufacturers could learn from Huawei here.
The Processor is an Intel Core M5 1.1GHz but running at 1.5GHz and you have 8GB of RAM. The SSD is split into two ‘C’ and ‘D’ with around 45GB of the 80GB ‘C’ drive available and all 157GB of the ‘D’ available for data.
It took 150 minutes for a full charge from empty and is stated to be usable for a full day. This is probably so for ‘normal’ use. However when streaming video via Wi-Fi full screen I found 60% was used in a tad over two hours.
At the time of submitting this review I am still waiting to receive a promised Huawei watch for review.
A quite similar Huawei MateBook (4GB RAM) is available from the link below for £796.02 with free delivery.
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