We have taken a look at the HONOR MagicBook not too long ago – and it’s love at first glance. Despite being HONOR Malaysia’s first laptop in Malaysian, we had a great impression of this laptop. Here are a few reasons why.
HONOR does have a new ecosystem of tech products that interconnects with one another. This new strategy is dubbed as the Intelligent Lifestyle strategy which consists of smartphones, eight categories of additional connected devices, and a vast variety of third-party devices. The HONOR MagicBook series is part of this strategy too.
Long-lasting battery
For mobile warriors like us, laptop batteries are important. We need our laptops to be ever-ready so that we can get our posts up to date as quickly as possible while providing enough performance to us to complete the job.
The HONOR MagicBook has a much larger 57.4Wh battery compared to the Huawei MateBook D 15 – which is a significant upgrade. So far, most laptops at this price range have less than 50Wh batteries.
We’ve already used a few laptops with a similar set of hardware as the HONOR MagicBook, and we can say with confidence that the 57.4Wh battery can last for about 6-7 hours on heavy workload. On an average, day-to-day usage, the HONOR MagicBook can last up to 10 hours.
Our workload isn’t exactly lightweight to begin with. At any given time, we have at least 10 Chrome tabs opened at the same time, doing some Photoshop work, and Spotify running in the background. The laptop never shuts down since we need everything to work at a finger snap.
65W fast charge via USB-C
Even with a long-lasting battery, we still need our chargers. So, HONOR made it simple for us – 65W fast charging out of the box. Most importantly, the new HONOR MagicBook also supports charging via USB-C. That means even if we forgot to bring our laptop charger back home, we can use other chargers too – like this charger that we reviewed here.
We can charge the HONOR MagicBook to 40% battery capacity within 30 minutes – and that can last us for a good 3 hours or so.
What if we don‘t have a charger with us, though? Well… you can also charge the laptop with a power bank that supports USB-PD standards – like this one or that one– both works.
Balanced performance for office and gaming
Now, one might think – don’t I need a gaming laptop for gaming? That’s true. However, even a lightweight and sleek laptop like the HONOR MagicBook can actually play some games too.
The HONOR MagicBook comes with a Ryzen 5 3500U CPU that has a built-in Radeon Vega 8 GPU. Coupled with 8GB DDR4 RAM, you can get a lot of performance out of it. What we realized is that the HONOR MagicBook also has quite a relatively beefy cooling system for its hardware.
There are a total of two heatpipes connecting the SoC to the heatsink. The fan shroud is also covered with copper – which is the first time that we’re seeing such a thing. This copper fan shroud is definitely going to help dissipate some heat as it can act as a heatsink on its own, too.
The HONOR MagicBook also has a specially-designed cooling system. It has an S-shaped blade curve that claims 49% more effective airflow and 38% better heat dissipation while reducing noise.
For us, we used it to run Photoshop alongside many Chrome tabs with Spotify in the background. We also occasionally open YouTube too. The HONOR MagicBook handled all of those tasks without any issue.
When we finished our work, we went over to play some Overwatch. At its lowest graphical setting, we can get more than 30fps – which is better than what Intel’s integrated graphics can offer.
Convenient yet secure
Laptops can be easily carried away since it is not tethered to anything. That means… it can get stolen or spied by people around us. So, HONOR made it convenient for us to secure our laptop – by integrating fingerprint scanner functionality into the power button itself.
HONOR Magic-Link 2.0
Another interesting feature is the HONOR Magic-Link 2.0. By tapping your HONOR smartphone on the MagicBook, it will pair together and your phone will become a secondary screen for your laptop. You can also share your screen and files between the two devices easily via drag and drop actions.
We got the phone to display on our laptop within a snap of a finger. It’s quick and easy, and works fantastically well too. I can now reply to messages directly on my phone through Magic-Link 2.0.
Lightweight, slim design for all use cases
Be it that you’re someone who just wants a laptop for Microsoft Word or to watch movies or even just to scroll Facebook – the HONOR MagicBook is suitable for everyone.
Its magnificent 14-inch screen with fairly thin bezels around the sides resulting in an immersive movie experience. And of course, that long-lasting battery life is great for document processing too.
The HONOR MagicBook is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U chip – and this chip is not the typical CPU found in many other laptops. It has a powerful built-in graphics chip too, which means you can technically play some games like Fortnite too.
HONOR-able mentions
There are a few more features that I want to highlight. The MagicBook can open up to a near-180° angle which provides maximum comfort – especially for someone with a long body like me.
The HONOR MagicBook also placed the webcam at the top of the display – which is where all webcams should be. This means the keyboard layout is not as weird as the Huawei MateBook D 15.
Speaking of the keyboard, the HONOR MagicBook has a very pretty standard keyboard layout for laptops. The keycaps are very smooth and of course, it has backlighting as well. I still find it weird that tapping the function key also toggles the function row (F1 to F12).
Also, the HONOR MagicBook comes with a large 512GB NVMe SSD which uses the PCIe Gen 3 x4 speeds. This laptop is blazing fast!
The more time I spend with the HONOR MagicBook, the more things I discover about this laptop. There are a few unique points that are exclusively available only on the HONOR MagicBook, and I am surprised by how solid this laptop feels. Yet the overall dark grey color with matte finish gives it an enticing look.
The conveniences offered by the HONOR MagicBook will definitely spoil be as a user. Using a USB-C charger means it can charge my phone(s). Having a power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner means it’s convenient. Being a rather weightless yet powerful laptop, I’ll take this laptop to my trips – when the COVID-19 situation subsides. That long-lasting battery life means I can watch my movies on that big screen while stuck in the plane.
Pricing and availability
HONOR Malaysia just announced that the new HONOR MagicBook will be available for RM2,299 only and comes with these gifts worth RM1,017 on a first-come-first-serve basis:
- Bluetooth Wireless Mouse
- HONOR MagicWatch 2 (46mm)
- HONOR Laptop Backpack
Starting from 8th April 2020 at 12am, the HONOR MagicBook will be available at these sites:
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