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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Chap and this little beauty, well this 28.2 inch beauty
00:05to be exact, is the new Huawei MateView and along with the new MateView GT which is the
00:11more gaming focused display, this is their first proper foray into the world of monitors.
00:17And it definitely makes a good first impression with this ultra premium build with a slim
00:22profile and bezels, a 3 by 2 aspect ratio, 4K plus resolution, colour accurate IPS screen,
00:29wireless display connectivity, screen mirroring and if you have a recent Huawei phone, a desktop
00:34mode like Samsung's DeX and we also get pretty decent speakers, plenty of connectivity
00:39options and this very nifty touch bar control.
00:43However at £600 or €700, considering we don't get proper Thunderbolt 3 support and
00:50there's also some brightness uniformity issues that I'll show you in a second, there's
00:53definitely room for improvement but I still love having this on my desk.
00:58I mean it should be no surprise really that Huawei can make a beautiful monitor, I mean
01:02their MateBook laptops, here's one I made earlier, are some of the most stylish and
01:07well just good looking ultra portable laptops that you can actually buy and of course we've
01:11also got their phones, this is the Mate 40 Pro which I'll demonstrate some of the wireless
01:17smart features in a second but they are masters of industrial design.
01:21And it's great to see them bring all that aluminium clad loveliness to a monitor.
01:27So we get this all aluminium chassis which is just gorgeous, it's clean, it's modern
01:31but it certainly takes the page out of the likes of Apple and Dell's design playbook.
01:36From the side, the screen has a definite iMac vibe and the all round slim bezels keep things
01:41feeling modern up front.
01:43The stand feels really solid as well, there's a ton of height adjustment and a good 25-30
01:48degrees of upward tilt and 5 degrees downward although it does miss out on rotation.
01:53It is fairly lightweight though so swivelling the whole screen is easy enough.
01:58Now when you power on the MateView for the first time you get a quick tutorial on how
02:02to use the smart bar which is Huawei's name for this touch sensitive strip that runs under
02:07and along the base for controlling the on screen display options.
02:10Now I must admit usually I like a good joystick to control the OSD and I didn't think I would
02:16like this at first because one of my complaints with the Mate 30 phone from whenever it was
02:22is that we had this purely virtual touch sensitive volume rocker.
02:26We still have that with the Mate 40 but they've also then added in the physical volume as
02:29well so I'm not always been the biggest fan of their touch only sort of direction of UI
02:35but actually this works really well.
02:38You slide left and right to adjust volume, you tap to open the menu and double tap to
02:42go back or close it and sliding two fingers across lets you switch input.
02:46It's intuitive and it makes a nice change from the usual fiddly joysticks or buttons
02:50and ugly BIOS like OSD.
02:53Now the screen inputs are at the base of the stand and we get a HDMI 2.0 and a mini DisplayPort
02:591.4 along with a USB-C for power.
03:02And then on the side we get three USB 3's, two are type A and one is type C as well as
03:07a headphone jack and also the power button.
03:10Now sadly the USB-C port doesn't support Thunderbolt 3 or 4 which is a little bit disappointing
03:15given the price but it does still have some Thunderbolt like benefits so if you connect
03:19a laptop it'll charge it at 65 watts and you can also use the MateView as a second
03:24screen at the full 4K plus resolution at 60Hz over both USB-C and the HDMI port.
03:32Okay let's talk about this screen because it's all well and good having a fancy design
03:36but this is what counts.
03:39And it's a calibrated 10-bit IPS panel with a 3840 by 2560 resolution so 4K plus essentially
03:47as we have some extra vertical pixels owing to this taller 3 by 2 aspect.
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04:38And I'll tell you what this is the kind of monitor that I've been waiting for for quite
04:41a long time because mostly we see kind of like 27 inch 4k monitors which I just think
04:46are a bit small especially to really fully take advantage of that resolution and then
04:51the one up is 32 inches which may be too expensive or just too big for some people.
04:56So this is a 28.2 inch slightly higher than 4k res so it's a really good size and also
05:02we have this 3 by 2 aspect ratio which is not something you see very often on a monitor
05:07and I quite like it although it depends on how you're using it.
05:12The extra height can make everything feel a lot less constrained especially websites,
05:16documents, editing photos maybe, any content that has a feed basically.
05:21So it's funny that now it's taller and more squared off it's actually the width that starts
05:25to feel constrained.
05:26Putting two apps side by side makes them feel a little bit claustrophobic as do apps that
05:31benefit from more width so editing video in Premiere Pro felt a little bit constricted
05:36versus a regular wider 16 by 9 screen.
05:39And also 3 by 2 isn't ideal for gaming and watching TV and movies as we get some quite
05:44chunky letterboxing although the image quality itself is very good.
05:48And for gaming the cropped field of view really does impact that sort of immersive factor
05:53in games so they don't quite draw you in like they do on a regular screen.
05:57But of course this isn't billed as a gaming monitor that's the MateView GT which is an
06:01ultra wide.
06:02Still though at 4K 60 it looks sharp and it plays well enough.
06:07Now Huawei says this meets the HDR 400 standard which means 400 nits of peak brightness but
06:13in the spec and also in my tests it's clear this can actually hit 500 nits and it maintains
06:18this in my full screen test which is pretty good although I would have liked a little
06:22bit more given the price since we're getting the same 500 nit peak brightness in both SDR
06:27and HDR.
06:30The bigger issue though with this is panel uniformity.
06:34It may be harder to tell on the camera but in person you do notice the brightness drop
06:39off around the edges especially on the right hand side which is noticeably dimmer.
06:45So at maximum brightness I found the center of the screen hit the full 500 nits but then
06:49it drops to 450 towards the edges and actually down to 400 nits just on the right hand side.
06:56So when I move windows or apps around whites look noticeably grayer for a few centimeters
07:01from the right edge which isn't good if you need a consistent image across the screen.
07:06Now it's certainly possible this issue is just with my particular panel but it's worth
07:10keeping in mind.
07:11The good news though is the overall color accuracy is very impressive which is great
07:15if you're a creator and your work is color sensitive although again I do worry that that
07:20inconsistent brightness will impact accuracy towards the edges.
07:24Pop open the smart bar menu and you can choose between sRGB, DCI-P3 and Huawei's native
07:30color modes.
07:31Interestingly though it was that native mode that got me the best overall results with
07:35100% sRGB, 89% Adobe RGB and 95% DCI-P3.
07:41So screens are all well and good but we have a few little extras with this because this
07:46is a smart monitor.
07:48In fact Huawei calls this their first standalone monitor meaning it doesn't have to be physically
07:53connected to a laptop or phone to work.
07:56First up is one hop projection so if you have a Huawei phone or tablet from the last couple
08:01of years you can tap it on the base of the stand to connect and then either mirror the
08:05phone on screen or open this desktop mode.
08:08Quite a lot like Samsung's DeX in that it lets you use your phone with a desktop style
08:12interface and you can even plug in a keyboard and mouse to use it like a proper PC.
08:17So it's pretty cool to have this flexibility but how much you'll actually use this well
08:21it's really up to you and desktop mode looks a little bit squashed like it was designed
08:26for 16 by 9 and of course there's the continuing issues of Huawei being locked out of much
08:31of the Google ecosystem.
08:33Older Huawei or other Android phones can use screen mirroring as well but not using the
08:38NFC one hop connection.
08:40And funnily enough I actually managed to get Samsung's DeX to work on this as well.
08:44And then we have wireless projection which lets you cast your laptop screen to the main
08:48view at up to a 2K resolution and it works reasonably well.
08:52It's responsive and useful if you're sat further away from the monitor and can't go with a
08:56wired connection for whatever reason.
08:59Although image quality is definitely grainier and it's not quite as responsive than with
09:03a proper wired connection.
09:05So it's got some fancy extra smarts built in but I'm not convinced I would really use
09:10them that often.
09:11Although let me know in the comments if you would and which one of those would be most
09:14useful to you.
09:16Most of the time I'm just going to be hooking this up to my desktop or my laptop.
09:20Now just a quick mention of sound quality and the speakers are built into the stand.
09:25Sound and speech are clear enough and it gets pretty loud.
09:27And I did detect traces of bass but no more than that.
09:39Alright then so let's sum up and should you buy the Huawei MateView?
09:43Well yeah I think it's definitely worth considering.
09:47It's not perfect.
09:48The screen uniformity issues are a problem especially at this size and I haven't had
09:53another one to test so it may just be this one.
09:56It may be more widespread.
09:58Also the 3 by 2 aspect ratio will be a massive selling point for some people.
10:02So this really does depend on your use cases.
10:05But personally I really enjoy using this aspect ratio and it does make it stand out especially
10:10together with that 4K plus resolution.
10:12So it's incredibly sharp, solid color accuracy, lovely build and design and actually this
10:17isn't something I say very often but I think it's priced pretty fairly at £599 or €699.
10:24Still quite a lot of money and it would have been nice to have proper Thunderbolt support
10:28and also as I say that screen uniformity issue.
10:31But I don't think that's too bad at all for an ultra premium stylish home office monitor.
10:37However I'm not totally convinced how useful those smart features are although I do quite
10:40like the touch bar but then that's like a fairly trivial thing and you're not going
10:44to be using it that often.
10:45I think the most obvious alternative to this though would be Samsung's smart monitor which
10:50I reviewed a few months ago although this is much better.
10:54While it doesn't have a UI like a TV which that monitor did, the color accuracy of this,
10:59the build quality, overall I think it's just much better than Samsung's.
11:03So this is definitely worth considering.
11:05But what do you make of the MateView and also a 3 by 2 aspect?
11:09Do you love it or do you hate it?
11:10Let me know in the comments below.
11:12Thank you so much for watching guys and if you want to see more from me then a cheeky
11:15little like and subscribe would be very much appreciated and I will see you next time hopefully
11:20right here on the Tech Chap.
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