Honor MagicBook 14: Nice keyboard and ports aplenty – but with a webcam forever fixed on all of your chins
- Reference: 1587024906
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/16/honor_magicbook_review/
- Source link:
Yes, it looks a bit like a MacBook Pro. Cast in Chrome and with sharp edges, it doesn't feel particularly cheap. The only embellishment on the lid (besides my fingerprints) is the Honor Logo, which sits way off centre.
Things get interesting when you pop open the lid: The MagicBook 14 has a 14-inch, bezel-hugging 1080p FHD display. Curiously, there's no webcam to be found. Instead, that's located under a dedicated button, which pops up a 1MP shooter at 45°.
[1]
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We've seen this before. Huawei – Honor's parent company – uses the same design on its Matebook X Pro laptops. And while it does allow the laptop to (theoretically) occupy a smaller amount of desk/thigh real estate, it means the webcam is forever pointing towards all five of your chins – the reverse MySpace angle, if you will. And that feels particularly poorly timed, given the fact that video conferencing is now the norm for those working from home.
At least the keyboard is good. It's well spaced and comfortable to type on, with excellent travel and little noise, and wonderful stability. Huawei has always done well in this space, so it's not entirely surprising, although it is gratifying to see they haven't cheaped out on this one essential area. I also found the trackpad pleasant to use, with excellent responsiveness and tactile feel, although it may be a bit wide for some.
[2]
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The MagicBook does well on the ports front. I can't express how much I love it when laptop manufacturers include a dedicated HDMI port. Sure, USB-C is way more versatile, but there's a convenience factor that's often overlooked.
Speaking of which, yes: there's a USB-C port. This is primarily used for charging, so if you want to connect some peripherals to it, you'll probably need an adapter. Also present are old-school USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. On the wireless front, the MagicBook supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.
While there's no NFC radio built-in, the device does come with an NFC sticker that's used to power the Honor Magic-Link app, which lets you share files between your phone and laptop. That is, if you have an Honor or Huawei phone. Who said only Apple has a penchant for vendor lock-in?
On the performance front, the Honor MagicBook is well suited to the more mundane daily tasks, although isn't quite capable of taking the leap beyond into AAA gaming. You get 8GB of RAM (which is fairly generous considering many entry-level laptops cram just 4GB in) and yesteryear's AMD Ryzen 5 Mobile 3500U platform.
Still, it chugged along nicely, and had decent thermal management to boot. It didn't get particularly hot while being taxed, nor is it the noisiest laptop I've ever laid hands on. On the graphics front, you get an AMD Radeon Vega 8 integrated GPU, which can handle older games (like Civ 5 and Tomb Raider ) without stuttering too much.
Still, the display isn't the brightest ever, and it was challenging to use while outside on a luscious spring day. If you're indoors, you'll probably want to hook it up to an external monitor.
Honor wins points for limiting the amount of bloatware that comes with this machine, with just a few standard Huawei device management utilities included, such as the aforementioned mobile link tool. And that's handy, given that storage is sparing on the base model, with just 256GB to play with.
On the battery front, Honor says the MagicBook can last eight hours between charging – which is effectively a full working day. That said, real-world usage doesn't quite stand up to those lofty figures, with the real number falling a couple of hours short, depending on how extravagant you are with your Chrome tabs.
Overall, though, this is a lovely little laptop, particularly for basic business tasks, or as a university workhorse. And at £549, I'd be hard pressed to find anything real to grumble about. If you're tempted, you can grab it at Amazon and Argos. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/04/15/dscf0492.jpg
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/04/15/dscf0497.jpg
[3] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8579/choosing-a-low-code-vendor?td=wptl1936
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
I understand the mobile one port criticism - removing 3.5mm jack and not adding another USB C port. But what about the Apple approach: 4 USB C ports, and use them for whatever you want on whichever side you want. I don't think that is a bad future/forward looking provision of IO on a high end device with an expected 5 year plus service life.
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
I'm a little column A and a little column B. I have a surface go, which admittedly doesnt have much space for ports I guess. So one single USB-C and you can use it with a USB hub and then connect HDMI ,USB-B and all the other things.
But it would be nice to just have a old USB-B sometimes for when you just want to connect something like a flash drive, without needing to get the hub out.
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
You want a printer end connector? I think you meant USB-A (the flat rectangular one) as opposed to the Square USB-B (normally found on printers, external USB drives, USB hub pc output Ect).
I honestly don't think I've ever seen a computer with a USB-B port present. Possibly some RapsPi knockoff but that's my only guess.
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
Ah my bad, I'm an idiot. Yes USB-A :)
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
Interesting rant. Few problems with it though.
A) Being able to charge my laptop with USB-C means that one charger can do my phone / laptop / iPad.
B) My own laptop has two USB-C ports and a USB-A. Want more USB ports? Get a little USB-C hub, which has the added benefit that it can draw significantly more power than any traditional unpowered hub.
C) Er, why? If I can plug in a USB monitor with one port and either not have to supply power to the laptop, or vice-versa, that's got to be more convenient.
Since USB-C devices and chargers haven't taken to randomly bursting into flames I think your crayon engineering department comment is rubbish. Do you just object to new technology on principle?
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
USB-C on laptops is pointless.
I think its the best fucking thing since fucking itself. I have one cable that I plug in to my laptop, it goes to a USB-C dock that has two monitors, GbE, all the USB bits I need plugged in to it (including two more USB-C ports), and it charges the laptop at the 130W it needs. USB-C + TB3 is fucking ace, beats any proprietary dock system hands down.
Might not solve your needs, I've yet to find a situation where I think "God, I wish I had to plug 5 different things in to my laptop".
Re: Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
You appear to have bought a laptop to use as a desktop, which is often a fairly silly idea as laptops have terrible keyboards, plodding CPUs, not enough RAM, tiny disks, are more expensive, etc, compared to the kind of thing that gets shoved under the desk and eats laptops for breakfast. Laptops have their place, but permanently tethered to a desk isn't one of them.
Although perhaps you just have a huge lap which can accommodate two monitors…
"Escape" key icon because desktops still have them, unlike certain fashion-accessory laptops.
OS?
It's not clear from the review whether this is a Widows 10 or Chromebook device? I'm guessing Windows from the mention of the games titles played.
Re: OS?
Certainly Apple won't sell MacOS for it.
I'd hope Linux runs OK on it.
Why are almost all non-Apple laptops still sold with Windows pre-installed rather than an option USB you buy to download and install Win 10? It's not like Win10 works as intended without the Internet. Are we all still paying a Microsoft Tax, or do OEMS actually get Win10 free now because MS wants to make their money from Office 365, Azure and adverts?
Re: OS?
Yeah, c'mon, is it too much to ask Reg reviewers to plug in an Ubuntu (other user-friendly distros are available) live USB stick while their tea/coffee/whatever is brewing and do an at least cursory 10-minute check that a laptop Works With Linux? (We don't expect a guarantee, but at least a "seems to work OK" can be helpful.)
Perhaps it's much less of an issue nowadays, as most laptop components do seem to work well with Linux (arguably, often with far less hassle than with Windows itself, here's where your real plug-n-play is), but every so often a laptop manufacturer decides to spec a real cheap-n-nasty WiFi or Bluetooth chipset that you have to embark on a long and arduous adventure though many twisty tangled forum threads to seek out the fabled but possibly non-existent driver of power, and, if the brave adventurer finally finds the path to the goal, only the truly blessed can unlock the maze of ever-changing transient download sites, hoping against hope that they chose wisely to have the wayfinding abilities of a ranger and will not turn out to need the deep source knowledge of a wizard should the magical object need compiling before its powers can be unlocked...
Re: OS?
Actually, I suspect/hope that it might be pretty Linux friendly.
The China-produced Ubuntu derivative, Ubuntu Kylin, is introducing a new desktop environment that is [1]very clearly designed to substitute for Windows 10 as far as end users are concerned, and so I wouldn't be surprised if it ships with Ubuntu Kylin by default in China?
With the help of Wine + warez, users might then have access to everything they need, although I'd hope that they'd take the more ethical path of using open source software instead (and so also not have to worry about data lock-in, either).
[1] https://www.ubuntukylin.com/news/shownews.php?id=1569&lang=en
Camera Angle
It's OK they have Software Nose Hair Removal
bezel-hugging 1080p FHD display?
Is the display bezel-hugging? The images on Amazon and Argos suggest it suffers from the common problem of a widescreen display in a much squarer lid, so a huge bezel at the bottom of the screen. However, on those sites the logo on the lower bezel says "MagicBook" - did they change it between review samples and launch? - whereas the image in the article shows "HONOR" and looks reasonably thin but it's not clear what angle the screen is at. A few more snaps would have helped.
The popup camera made some sense on the Huawei Matebook X Pro because the screen pretty much filled the lid. When there's so much empty space in the lid, moving the screen down by a few mm to put the camera at the top would be better.
And is the screen gloss or matte? It looks like it's matte, which for me makes it much more desirable.
Data slurp?
What BIOS is in it and will it be sending data back to CN servers without your knowledge?
Could be important, because that camera angle possibly ideal for creating amateur PornHub videos, allegedly ;-)
Sure, USB-C is way more versatile
USB-C is TOO versatile to the point of being stupid. It's badly thought out "Swiss army knife" that happens to provide charging.
The great thing about this MagicBook 14 is the lipservice to USB-C stupidity. That it has the regular HDMI and USB. Has it got a 1G bps Ethernet port, or at least 100 Mbps? Often FAR better than WiFi.
A dedicated Charger / Power port would be better than USB-C to charge.
USB-C flaws
A) A stupid port to power and charge a laptop compared with a dedicated port.
B) You'd need loads of them to replace 3 or 4 USB plus an HDMI, which is an overkill for 2 to 3 of the peripherals/ gadgets plugged in.
C) Stupid to combine Display, massive power and USB in one port.
Already non-USB phones and tablets have the problem that with one port most can't charge themselves and act as a host at the same time, even with a Y-cable. Putting a single USB-C port on a phones or tablet solves nothing. USB-C on laptops is pointless.
It's a spec dreamed up by the Crayon Dept, not sensible engineering, especially the idea of supplying more than 5V or more than 8W.