With laptops often looking much the same, Huawei has opted for one way to stand out: its new MateBook 14S laptop comes in a 'Spruce Green' finish. Whether you see that as 'spruced up' or more 'dragged through the forest' is for you to decide. There's also the more classic 'Space Grey' and 'Mystic Silver' finish too though.

Huawei has a history of releasing understated yet highly capable laptops, with the MateBook 14S looking to be no exception. It's got all the latest hardware under the hood, with the 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, but the headline feature regards its screen - and not just because of the trim bezel design.

The 14.2-inch panel here is not only 2.5K in resolution, making it super sharp, but it offers a 90Hz refresh rate. That's 50 per cent more than a display's typical 60Hz (i.e. 60 cycles per second), which can aid visual smoothness.

It's by no means the first time a faster refresh rate has appeared in a laptop - you can buy some gaming laptops with 360Hz panels, to put things into perspective - but for the everyday user this kind of boost will add genuine benefit with simple tasks such as document scrolling.

Huawei MateBook 14S photo 2
Huawei

The number 90 seems to be an ongoing sell point, too, as there's Huawei's 90W SuperCharge speedy charging technology on board. That's something laptops have sorely lacked for years, so it's great to see a company pushing forward in this area. The company claims that 15 minutes at the plug could deliver three hours of life - super handy for those busy conference days where plugs are scarce.

Elsewhere there's a fingerprint scanner and face recognition for login, AI noise cancelling for calls, Wi-Fi 6 for fast connectivity, and enhanced Huawei Sound. Sounds like it's got all the key ingredients to be a great everyday laptop for work and play.

The Huawei MateBook 14S - complete with 11th Gen Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage - will go on sale in the UK priced at £1199.99 on the Huawei Store.