Honor MagicBook Art 14 review

Honor MagicBook Art 14: 30-second review

When we first saw Honor's new MagicBook Art 14 up-close at its IFA 2024 launch, we were impressed - and even more so once we went hands-on the ultra-slim, ultra-lightweight laptop, with its smooth vine-leaf design and performance-led specs. So, away from the bright lights of the big tech event, and armed with our trusty benchmarking software, we were keen to put the hardware to the test.

In short, the Honor MagicBook Art 14 is a great choice for anyone wanting an ultra-portable laptop without sacrificing power or screen size. To ensure there's ample power for creative tasks, this laptop features the latest Intel Core Ultra processor, which is partnered with Arc Graphics. This helps to deliver solid performance on the 14.6-inch screen for a range of uses, including power-hungry creative applications like Photoshop and Resolve. Comparisons to the similarly creator-driven Apple MacBook Air are inevitable.

The laptop's design and style will instantly appeal to creatives, along with its robust magnesium alloy body, which is available in two striking colour options: Emerald Green and Sunrise White.

The casing materials and the use of the latest components mean that the laptop is lightweight and slim, weighing around a kilo and measuring just over a centimetre in depth. This is impressive considering the 14.6-inch OLED display, which offers a 3.1K resolution, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, and a brightness of up to 700 nits. Overall, this makes it perfect for photographers, designers, and videographers who require high colour accuracy.

When it comes to performance, general office applications run smoothly, as do Photoshop and Lightroom for image editing. Da Vinci Resolve works smoothly through HD video edits and some 4K, although the system does start to get stretched with the processing, and the 1TB SSD is limiting for handling large files. However, with the inclusion of multiple ports like Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C, which enable fast external storage and EGPU connectivity, there is plenty of upgrade scope for the performance when needed.

Additionally, the AI Cross-OS WorkStation provides seamless connection with other HONOR devices to share content, screen and even the keyboard and mouse.

Battery life is generally impressive, offering an average of 9 hours of standard usage. However, intensive tasks like 4K video editing or gaming will see the battery life diminish far faster, at around 3 hours. For gaming, you will also need to drop graphic demands to the base level for games such as Hogwarts Legacy if you want to experience smooth gameplay.

Despite some limitations in high-end gaming or heavy video work, the HONOR MagicBook Art 14 is a versatile machine that balances portability, performance, design and, most importantly, price, making it an excellent choice for both creative professionals and business users.

Honor MagicBook Art 14: Price & availability

The Honor MagicBook Art 14 is available in two color options, Emerald Green and Sunrise White, with pricing aimed at the mid to high-end market. While exact pricing may vary by region, it typically sits in the $1,200 - $1,500 range depending on configurations (16GB/1TB vs. 32GB/1TB). Currently, it's available to buy across Asia-Pacific and Europe. Availability can be found across major retailers and Honor's official website by clicking here.

• Price: 4/5

Honor MagicBook Art 14: Design & build

With our matte-like Emerald Green review unit, the MagicBook Art 14 instantly catches the eye. As is common with premium laptops of this type, a magnesium alloy has been used for the casing, which further enhances the premium feel as well as helps to keep the laptop ultralight at just 1.03kg; this is matched by a slimline profile of 11.5mm instantly making it one of the best ultrabooks if you intend to cart the device across multiple locations. The slim line design means that it will easily fit most laptop and camera bags, with the materials used for the outer casing offering a robust build that should give you confidence that it will survive a knock or two. Ultimately, the overall build quality feels solid while keeping the design stylish, sleek and modern.

Popping the lid open and it reveals the impressive 14.6-inch OLED display, with a 97% screen-to-body ratio alongside ultra-thin bezels, which again add to the machine's stylish looks and premium feel. While this screen is touch-sensitive, it only supports 10-point multitouch. This essentially enables more interactive use of the monitor, enabling you to touch and navigate applications directly on the screen. However, it should be noted that, unlike other creative laptops, it isn't positioned as a 2-in-1 or tablet replacement, which is no bad thing.

Despite being ultra-thin, the laptop includes a good selection of ports, including Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, USB-A, and HDMI 2.1 giving you plenty of connectivity options.

While most of the laptop follows what you expect from this level of machine, there are a couple of features that do make it stand out. One of these features is the removable AI magnetic camera, which pops out from the side when needed. This design offers flexibility for video calls and privacy, enabling you to completely remove the camera so you can be sure it's completely switched off when not needed.

Overall, the MagicBook Art 14 is a beautifully designed machine with striking aesthetics, perfectly complimented by the stunning emerald green finish and ample power and functionality that will appeal to creative and business users.

• Design: 5/5

Honor MagicBook Art 14: Features

When it comes to features, the MagicBook Art 14 offers something different from the mainstream. You might think that such a lightweight, slimline laptop would compromise on power and features, but it's surprising just how much the MagicBook Art 14 has to offer.

Once you open up the laptop most of the width and length is used by the large 14.6" 3.1K OLED display, ensuring maximum screen real estate. The typical teardrop design around the camera has been removed, with the camera itself neatly fitted into the side of the body and removable for placement on top of the screen when needed, if you value your privacy then you'll love this feature.

Despite its lightness, the laptop still managed to pack in a 60Wh battery, and Honor states that you can expect up to 9.5 hours of power during general web browsing and processing. For tasks like video editing, multimedia playback, or gaming, the battery life will decrease, but 9.5 hours is still impressive for most standard usage.

When it comes to the processing and graphics, the HONOR MagicBook Art 14 is well equipped with our review sample featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 155H with 16 cores and Intel Arc graphics. This combination is complemented by a 1TB SSD and 32GB of LPDDR5X 7467MHz dual-channel RAM, which should be enough for most applications, although if you're using this for imaging or video, the storage might be a touch on the light side. However, the fact that this laptop features Thunderbolt 4 ports means ultra fast external SSDs can be attached if you do need to boost the storage.

Another feature that is well worth noting is the AI Cross-OS WorkStation that enables this laptop to seamlessly integrate with other HONOR products, such as the company's range of smartphones and tablets. Using this feature essentially enables the sharing of screens, keyboards, and mice across devices.

Another major feature is Honor Spatial Audio, powered by six speakers capable of delivering high-quality sound. When using headphones, the laptop supports DTS certification for premium audio. For audio recording or video conferencing, the three microphones are equipped with AI-powered noise cancellation to improve clarity and reduce background noise.

As more of us work away from the office, another feature that Honor is keen to promote is the 360° all-round network connection. This essentially provides a 360-meter connection distance from all directions and is designed to ensure that wherever you are, say a café or another location where typical signal strength may be unreliable, you'll get a connection, or at least that's the theory. When it comes to that wireless connection, the laptop supports Wi-Fi 6E (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 160 MHz), operating on the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands. There is, of course, also Bluetooth 5.3, so most modern Bluetooth headphones as well as accessories will be supported.

In terms of power, the laptop is equipped with the 60Wh Li-polymer battery previously mentioned. Charging options include both USB-C and Thunderbolt 4, with fast charging that provides 46% charge in 30 minutes and a full charge in about 95 minutes.

• Features: 4.5/5

Honor MagicBook Art 14: Performance

After the initial setup and loading the laptop with Windows 11 Home 64-bit, the Microsoft Office suite of applications was loaded for testing. Loading up Word and Excel, it was instantly obvious that the Honor MagicBook Art 14 was able to handle spread sheets and documents with absolute ease. Similarly, browsing with Microsoft Edge and performing basic office tasks like word editing and administration are all well within the abilities of this laptop.

Moving on from admin tasks, we tested applications from the Adobe Creative Suite, starting with Adobe Photoshop to enhance a series of images as well as browsing a recent shoots file using Adobe Bridge. The 14.6" 3.1K OLED display instantly deserves a mention, with its clear, bright, high-resolution visuals that are ideal for photographers and creatives. Editing multiple images was easy enough thanks to the powerful CPU, and quick edits were done with ease. It's worth highlighting that images are loaded through a connected portable SSD as the internal 1TB would have quickly filled.

When it came to batch exporting images from Lightroom, the Thunderbolt 4 connection allowed for fast data transfers from the external OWC Envoy SSD, making the entire workflow quick and essentially seamless.

The MacBook Air is one of the best video editing laptops we've tried. So, how does Honor's contender measure up? Switching to Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, the laptop performed impressively well for basic HD editing despite having a relatively low-powered GPU. Upgrading the footage to 4K showed the laptop's capability but also revealed its limitations. Loading raw footage from a Canon EOS R5 C began to push the laptop's power to its edge, especially during more complex editing tasks where it slowed considerably.

Essentially for creative applications, the MagicBook Art 14 handles image enhancement, social media edits, and light video editing with ease. It's a great option if you need a laptop for general creative work and some video editing, though for small production or corporate video work, it may begin to stretch its limits.
In terms of multimedia playback, the laptop performs well, streaming video from popular services such as Netflix and Disney+ without issue. Videoconferencing, even with high-resolution video, runs smoothly, and it seems that the strong network connection works. The removable AI magnetic camera, which can be mounted on top of the display and then packed away into the side of the machine when not in use, is a great addition and one I hope to see more often in future laptops.

In terms of overall performance, the laptop fully utilises the latest CPU technology, handling functions, and features that other laptops in this price range might struggle with. While it does falter somewhat with more intense video editing or gaming that requires high-end graphics, it performs better than expected given its size, weight, and price.

Benchmark tests mirrored the real-world performance. General processing was exceptional, with applications like Microsoft Office and web browsing being smooth. For creative applications like Photoshop and Lightroom, which rely more on CPU than GPU, the laptop was more than capable of image enhancement and other similar tasks. Even when pushing the system with DaVinci Resolve, the laptop managed HD footage and some 4K editing well.

However, the laptop starts to struggle with longer or more complex 4K video edits, and it doesn't take much for the fans to kick to help the system stay cool, however, the fans always remain quiet. Similarly, when playing games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla or Hogwarts Legacy, it's necessary to lower the graphics settings and your expectations to get smooth gameplay. While the Honor MagicBook Art 14 isn't built for intensive GPU tasks, for general processing and lighter video editing and gaming, it's a solid performer—especially given its price point.

• Performance: 4/5

Should you buy the Honor MagicBook Art 14?

The Honor MagicBook Art 14 impresses with its sleek design, lightweight portability, and excellent performance for both general tasks and creative work. Easily one of the best business laptops, and with its standout 3.1K OLED display providing stunning visuals that are ideal for designers and photographers, one of the best laptops for photo editing too.

Although the Intel Arc graphics may not be powerful enough for high-end gaming or intensive 4K video editing, in most professional applications the laptop works well. What's more with a competitive price point and strong integration with the Honor ecosystem, it's a great choice for creatives and professionals.

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