Honor MagicBook Art 14 review: making the business case

In the same week that Intel announced the Core Ultra 200V series processors, its second generation of AI chips, it’s a little odd for Honor to be announcing a laptop with a first-gen Core Ultra 155H inside. That means this laptop won’t qualify for Copilot+ PC status as its relatively meagre AI skills don’t meet Microsoft’s cut-off.

So why consider it? The answer boils down to its fantastic design and a privacy trick that will delight every person who currently sticks Blu-Tack over their camera lens.

The MagicBook Art 14’s hidden camera

Like all magic tricks, once you know how it’s done it seems obvious. Rather than embed a camera into the screen or just above it in the bezel, Honor has created a detachable unit. This attaches magnetically (and firmly) to the top of the screen when you want to use it, but slides away into its own dedicated slot within the base when you don’t.

There are downsides. One is that this becomes a losable item, although I think that’s unlikely in practice. Another that Windows Hello via face recognition isn’t possible – there’s no IR camera – so you’re reliant on PIN, password or the fingerprint reader.

And the third is that image quality is not up to the standards of modern laptops. There’s been a jump in quality these past two years, and the MagicBook Art’s camera doesn’t match up. It’s still fine for business calls, just fuzzier than ideal.

If you’re also nervous about microphones recording your every moment, I’m afraid the MagicBook’s array is built into the chassis rather than the camera unit.

Travel-friendly design

If you travel a lot, I guarantee you will fall in love with this slim laptop’s design. It hits the magic trinity of being slim, compact (think hardback book in terms of footprint) and so light you will barely notice it in your bag.

Battery life (see below for figures) should be enough to get you through a day, maybe even two days if you’re not working the whole time, but if battery life is your priority then I would wait a while. Honor is rumoured to working on a Snapdragon version of the MagicBook Art 14, and that will much longer.

Bearing in mind its weight and size, Honor has done remarkably well to squeeze in a 14.6in screen. Honor claims a 97% screen-to-body ratio. It’s a lovely panel, too, with superb whites, strong colours and more than enough brightness.

Backed up by a fine keyboard, with a pleasant typing action and large keys, this is a laptop that’s easy to work on when whether sitting in an office or bashing out a report in a café.

And here’s one final reason to use it for travelling: an excellent port selection. Two USB-C ports, both supporting Thunderbolt 4, sit on the left, while the right-hand side takes care of USB-A and HDMI. No port replicator or clumsy USB-C-to-USB-A adapter required.

Speed and battery life

I’ve put the Honor MagicBook through a bunch of tests for speed and battery life, but won’t drown you in figures. What matters it that t’s fast, returning a solid 6,026 in PCMark 10 and 8,403 in Cinebench R23’s multicore test.

It has Intel’s Iris Xe graphics inside, so while games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider aren’t playable at the screen’s native 3,120 x 2,080 resolution you can run it at 1080p with Low settings. Intel’s Core Ultra 200V chips have stepped up gaming speeds, however, so if that’s important to you then buyer beware.

Using PCMark’s light-use battery tests, with the screen at a modest but still easy to read 150 nits, it lasted for a little over ten hours. As I say above, enough for most people’s working day, even if you do nudge up the panel brightness.

Honor at what price?

Only one question remains, and that’s the price. We know that the MagicBook Art 14 will come in Emerald Green, Starry Grey and White, but we don’t yet know any pricing. Nor on-sale dates. And this laptop is likely to be available in limited locations too.

I don’t expect it to be cheap, however, because every single aspect of this laptop screams premium. In fact, business class.