The Chinese laptop vendor delivers a fantastic piece of tech hampered by availability.
Honor’s latest flagship laptop will be well received by professional users looking for something different with some compelling features for a business use case. However we do not understand why Honor only rolled it out to three territories (Russia, France and Belarus) outside of China when it could easily have done so. That aside, the laptop is a very well executed product and one that – if it ticks the right boxes for you – should be on your list of best business laptops. The screen is a pleasure to work with, it is fast enough for most tasks, even graphics intensive one, the touchpad is huge, the webcam is one of the best around and so is the audio subsystem. Only the slightly disappointing battery life and the placement of the Thunderbolt 4 ports are worth mentioning in the “to be improved” section. You can’t buy the Honor MagicBook View 14 in the UK or in the US. We do understand the hesitation when it comes to the latter but can’t understand the rationale behind foregoing the United Kingdom (where the Honor 50 launched late last year). The laptop is on sale in France for just under 1,100 Euros (about £920, $1,240, AU$ 1,730). If you are adventurous enough to attempt changing the language on a Chinese laptop, then you can purchase Honor’s latest flagship product on Banggood for $1,180 (about £870, AU$1,650). Note that local taxes and delivery fees are excluded. It is difficult to ignore the influence Apple’s legendary MacBook Pro range had on Chinese laptop manufacturers like Huawei, Honor or Xiaomi. The minimalist looks of the aluminum alloy chassis (available in Space Gray or Blue Hour) go hand in hand with the brushed metallic finish that delivers a premium feel to the product. Other than the Honor logo and a couple of stickers, the surface of the MagicBook View 14 is pristine. Open its lid and you’re met with a slab of glass, a black mirror that peers back at you. This is the 14.2-inch touchscreen display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, a refresh rate of up to 90Hz and a resolution of 2520 x 1680 pixels (that’s more than twice the number of pixels on a full HD display). With a screen-to-body ratio of 90.5%, it comes as no surprise that its bezels are minuscule, especially at the top and near the bottom and connected to the keyboard via a long hinge. The laptop is surprisingly portable given its screen size. At 227 x 310mm, it is a smidgen bigger than an A4 sheet.
