The metal body of the Honour MagicBook X14 Pro gives it a MacBook Air-like appearance and feel, but how does it perform and hold up over time? Here are my thoughts on Honor’s most recent mid-range laptop.
Offering a blend of performance and battery life, Honor’s MagicBook line has established itself in the mid-range laptop market. The company’s most recent model feels and looks like a MacBook Air, with a 13th-generation Intel processor housed in a lightweight casing. Following a few weeks of use, I’ve listed my impressions of the Honour MagicBook X14 Pro (2024) along with my complaints.
Style and Presentation
The Honour MagicBook X14 Pro is a MacBook Air-like device with an aluminium unibody. Although it has a lovely matte texture that deters fingerprints, I have found that it occasionally retains smudges, particularly when my phone or smartwatch is placed on top of it. But it didn’t matter because I could just wipe them off with my palm or a cloth.
Though Honour has done a good job of distributing the weight, the laptop weighs 1.4 kg, which is a few grammes more than the most recent MacBook Air. I’ve used a lot of heavy laptops in the past, so if you commute and carry your laptop around on your back, the MagicBook X14 Pro is a very easy pick because it won’t strain your back or cause arm fatigue from lugging it around the house.
With a resolution of 1900 x 1200, it features a 14-inch screen. If you want to watch your favourite web series or browse the internet, the display’s 60Hz refresh rate is sufficient. According to Honour, the display’s maximum brightness is 300 nits. Even if the laptop’s screen is bright enough for indoor use, you should expect to be disappointed if you try to use it outside in the bright sun. You won’t be able to see anything on the screen.
The laptop’s keyboard is one feature I didn’t enjoy. It was difficult for me to adjust to a laptop because I’m used to a mechanical keyboard. Although I can work with a membrane keyboard, I found that the MagicBook X14 Pro’s keys were too small, and I found myself pressing the wrong button more often than I usually would.
To be fair, most computers have this issue, so I wouldn’t hold Honour responsible in this instance. It may take some time to get used to a slightly smaller layout if you are used to a desktop or full-sized keyboard until your hands adjust to the laptop.
Activity
Depending on your needs, 8GB of RAM may or may not be sufficient for the Honour MagicBook X14 Pro’s Intel Core i5-13420H processor. I spend hours upon hours typing, opening tabs on my browser, idly browsing, listening to music in the background, and watching web series or anime at night.
The Honour MagicBook X14 Pro will easily handle daily duties if you’re in the same situation as me and want to get a laptop for productivity. However, as the laptop lacks a specialised graphics card, it may not be up to par if you edit videos.
Honour has also included a performance mode, which is simple to use by pressing the “Fn+P” shortcut. The laptop increases power somewhat and uses more battery when in performance mode, according to the company, but I did not observe any change in regular use.
By MunafeKiDeal