For a while now, the Honor MagicBook 14 has been regarded among the best-valued laptops on the market. Given its high-grade package of well-rounded and excellent features, specs, and design, the Honor MagicBook 14 was a reliable and versatile laptop until Honor’s 2021 model release. Some significant improvements came with the Honor MagicBook 14 2021, transforming it from a mid-range laptop into a top-tier contender.
Design
In terms of design, the Honor MagicBook 14 looks identical to its predecessors. Through the sleek and simple build, the Honor MagicBook 14 exhibits a minimalistic and sleek design. Especially with the aluminum alloy throughout the body, the laptop not only looks aesthetically pleasing but also fairly durable and sturdy.
On top of its modest yet elegant looks, the Honor MagicBook 14 is surprisingly compact and lightweight, making it effectively portable for traveling and storing in bags.
Keyboard
Honor did a fairly decent job with the keyboard since it keeps up quite well in terms of performance and responsiveness. Although the keys register accurately, the keystrokes are positioned slightly too low, resulting in a semi-smooth experience when pressing down on keys. Regardless, the key action is optimized to feel comfortable when typing. Also, the keystrokes are impressively quiet, further adding to that minimalistic approach. With a spacious layout, the keys are evenly spaced and uniformly balanced, which creates an almost ergonomic layout for typing. Dual-stage backlighting is also available for typing in dark and low-light environments. The power button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, which is positioned in a convenient spot for easy access while also improving security.
The trackpad matches perfectly with the keyboard layout and is not only positioned considerately but also effectively responsive and fast.
Connectivity
The Honor MagicBook 14 comes with several ports for connectivity including a USB-C port, two USB-A ports, and one HDM1 2.0 connector. One of the two USB-A ports is limited to USB 2.0 spec while the other is 3.2 Gen 1. Also, the USB-C port does not work with DisplayPort.
Display
For the display, the Honor MagicBook 14 features a 14inch 1080p IPS display with up to 60Hz refresh rate. The display quality is fairly decent with some finely detailed color reproduction given its higher sRGB rating of around 90%, which is far better compared to its predecessor. Color accuracy is on point with its vibrant display but sees a slight degrade in contrast ratio from the last model. Despite not having touchscreen capabilities, the display already offers some excellent visual qualities that are simply too good for its price.
Performance
As a major upgrade from its predecessor, the Honor MagicBook 14 comes as an Intel Core i7 laptop with integrated XE graphics. These powerful internals is paired with 16GB of RAM. Especially compared to its last model, the Honor MagicBook 14 sees a significant bump in power allowing for seamlessly powering through everyday work tasks without issue. Also, with such potent hardware, the Honor MagicBook 14 can even run some notably heavy games through some tweaks on the settings and lowering the resolution for a steady frame rate of 60fps. The Honor MagicBook 14 even does an excellent job maintaining steady temperatures and a quiet fan, which is quite impressive at this price.
Battery
Even the battery has improved drastically from its predecessor since it can last around 11 hours through light to moderate usage, which is much better compared to the last model’s 8 hours of battery life. Given a massive 56Wh battery, the Honor MagicBook 14 is expected to have such long-lasting battery life.
Conclusion
The enhancements that came with the Honor MagicBook 14 made the laptop go from excellently valued to worthy of competition among the big name brands and their flagship models. Everything from design to overall performance has been top-notch but comes with a few tradeoffs like a lack of an SD card reader or awkward camera positioning. Regardless, the Honor MagicBook 14 is an overall decent laptop with some of the best features at its price point.
