Specifications

Display Size: 14.2 inches
Screen to body ratio: 90.5%
Resolution: 2520 x 1680, 213 PPI
Aspect ratio: 3:2
Viewing angle: approx. 178° (Typical)
Colors: 100% sRGB (Typical)
Contrast: 1500:1 (Typical)
Max. brightness: 360 nits (typical) Touch layer 10 simultaneous touches
Appearance Dimensions (H × W × D ): 226.6×310.2×14.5
Weight: approx. 1.48 kg
Colours: Twilight Blue and Space Grey
Operating system Windows 11
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-11370H Intel® Core™ i7-11390H Graphics: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
Memory 16 GB LPDDR4x Dual Channel
Hard Drive 512GB NVMe PCle SSD Toshiba KXG60ZN512G
Buttons and Ports • Power button with fingerprint reader
• 3.5mm headphone and microphone jack 2-in-1 x 1 (supports OMTP and CTIA)
• Full Featured USB-C x 2
• USB3.2 Gen 1 x 1
• HDMI x 1
Wi -Fi 2X2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth Bluetooth 5.1
Camera Front: 5 MP
Battery: 60W
Power adapter: 65W

 

Package

  • Notebook
  • USB-C cable
  • Network adapter
  • Instruction
  • Warranty card

 

Positioning

Huawei and Honor are in a life-and-death battle right now. Each of the vendors represents a certain product that should get ahead and win the hearts of potential buyers. And since the devices fly out from under the “conveyor” are approximately the same, Huawei and Honor are trying to endow them with some unique features. Somewhere it turns out quite successfully, for example, Honor 50 and Huawei nova 9 are completely different gadgets in terms of perception. Somewhere not at all, for example, Honor 50 Lite and Huawei nova 8i are one to one.

This time the companies harnessed themselves to the promotion of laptops. Huawei launched the MateBook 14s a month ago, and Honor now has a similar device called the MagicBook View 14.

At first glance, the laptops are the same, but upon closer examination, it turns out that Honor has a more modern design, a much cooler video conferencing camera, a different manufacturer of the screen matrix, and most importantly, the cost: it is $500 less!

So, today we will talk about the flagship laptop of Honor MagicBook View 14, which can be bought from $1,600.

It offers potential users modern hardware: a touch screen with a 2.5K resolution, an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal memory, a 5 MP wide-angle Ultra HD front camera for video conferencing (I can say in advance that the quality is stunning). Other things are not so interesting, in my opinion.

By the way, there is a version on the Intel Core i7-11390H for $1900. It’s also interesting that they give a Magic Watch 2 watch ($200) and Earbuds 2 lite headphones ($100) as a gift. That is, you can even save a little when buying a laptop of any configuration.

 

Appearance

As you know, Huawei and Honor have released their laptops with approximately the same design in recent years. Moreover, the models were similar to each other, even having different positioning.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

The Honor MagicBook View 14, of course, resembles the company’s previous generation of laptops, but some features have become much more thoughtful. Appearance has become stricter and more expensive.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

I don’t want to remember Apple again, but it seems to me that the new generation of Honor has become even more like a MacBook: the shape of the top of the lid, a flat front panel, a large recess for accessing the screen and keyboard. I’m generally silent about the names: MacBook, MateBook, MagicBook …

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

The dimensions of the novelty are as follows: 226 × 310 × 14.5 mm. In general, the usual data for such devices, but the thickness is really small. For example, the MateBook 14s is 16.7mm thick. There is a difference? Of course, and not in favor of the latter.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Honor weighs 1480 grams. Not a lot and not a little. Somehow typical. Personally, extra grams and millimeters do not bother me, because I use a voluminous backpack, in which something weighty already lies: a camera, microphones, a receiver / transmitter, and so on.

The device is made of plastic (a small insert on the back of the device) and aircraft-grade aluminum (the rest of the case).

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Two colors are available: Twilight Blue and Space Grey. However, according to the site, the first one refers to the assembly with the 11390H processor, and the second one to the 11320H. But it is immediately clear where what. I think blue is even a little more original.

 

Elements on the body

Recently, manufacturers have been following Apple’s lead and building a minimum of different ports into their devices. This is especially noticeable in the segment of expensive premium gadgets: I bought a laptop for $ 2,600 – if you please, buy a hub.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Honor MagicBook is equipped with two USB Type-C ports, one USB Type-A and one HDMI. There is also a 3.5mm headphone and microphone jack.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

On the right side there is a laptop battery indicator. There are 4 microphones on the front. The device also has 4 speakers: two on the top and two on the bottom.

 

Keyboard and touchpad

If you pull the top cover and access the keyboard/screen, the bottom of the case does not lift up. Conditional test for the balance of the two halves of the laptop.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

The keyboard is classic for a similar device plan: without PageUP/PageDown, Home, End and number keys. However, due to the small size of the case, these buttons would have nowhere to go, except perhaps by removing the navigation arrows.

The buttons have an average travel, pressing is quite firm. I like these buttons more than in previous generations of Honor MagicBook, for example, MB15 (2021).

And the manufacturer also talks about the hypoallergenic coating of the buttons with diamond coating, which protects the keyboard from dirt and abrasion.

At first, I thought that the keyboard was devoid of backlighting, since there is no backlight on / off on the function buttons on top. It turned out that activation is carried out by the Fn + Space combination. There are only two levels. Since the buttons are located quite high above the bottom platform, the backlight is very noticeable at an angle.

At the top right in the general row of keys you can see the power button (fingerprint scanner). It is slightly recessed into the case, it has a small frame and an image of a papillary pattern.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

The decision to place this button in such a place was perceived negatively by many potential buyers. Like, you can accidentally touch it when working with Backspace and Del. But it turned out that the power button only works when held for a long time. Therefore, there will be no problems with it.

For example, I have an HP wireless keyboard and there the power button locks the device even with a brief press. For me, this is critical, because in various photo and video editors, the combination of CTRL and “-” reduces the image. Once a month, I make sure to accidentally hit the power button and the PC locks up. I have to re-login to Windows with a password.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

By the way, this model does not have a camera, which used to be hidden in one of the buttons on the keyboard. Now the selfie module is above the screen. There’s also an IR sensor.

The touchpad is normal, mechanical – 120×73 mm. The surface is smooth, reminiscent of polished glass. The working area for pressing is approximately 50 mm in height. The touchpad does not play, the move is average, the “click” sound is audible.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

On the sides of the keyboard, you can see the meshes of two of the four speakers. Nicely decorated. The elements in MagicBook Pro are similarly made.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Total: a quite comfortable backlit keyboard (I can’t say that it is successful), a normal wide touchpad, but not the best.

 

Display

  • Size: 14.2 inches
  • Screen to body ratio: 90.5%
  • Resolution: 2520 x 1680, 213 PPI
  • Aspect ratio: 3:2
  • Field of View: approx. 178° (typical)
  • Colors: 100% sRGB (typical)
  • Contrast: 1500:1 (typical)
  • Max. brightness: 360 nits (typical) Touch layer: 10 simultaneous touches

In fact, the Honor MagicBook View 14 uses the same screen that we saw in the MateBook 14s. However, if Huawei has an MNE208ZA1-3 matrix, then Honor has a TL142GDXP10-0.

The maximum screen brightness is about 360 cd/m2. PWM is completely absent. And this matrix supports HDR. Of course, the brightness for this function is low, but the content can be viewed and looks great.

The viewing angles of the matrix are ​​maximum, the black depth is 5 out of 5 (in the photo I had to specifically choose the minimum shutter speed in order to somehow show the glow), there are no glare.

The touch layer fulfills up to 10 simultaneous touches. The sensor is accurate and fast. I almost did not use the “touch”, but the fact that it is here is already good – someday it will come in handy.

Bottom line: a cool display with support for 90 Hz, HDR, with excellent color reproduction, high pixel density, deepest blacks.

 

Battery life

Inside the laptop there is a battery model HB5881P1EEW-31A with a capacity of 5195 mAh, 60 W, 11.55 V. The device is divided into 4 sections. Such batteries are quite common and easy to find on the Internet for an average of $100.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Honor claims that the View 14 can run up to 15 hours of FullHD video at 150 nits (roughly 40%).

I think they will get such numbers on a “zero” device without Wi-Fi, without applications. In my case, watching FullHD video at 50% brightness drained the battery in 5 hours.

On average, the Honor MagicBook View 14 laptop works for about 6-7 hours: 50-70% brightness, Wi-Fi, browser, some YouTube, some text. I can not call this model a long-liver.

65W AC adapter included. Interestingly, for Huawei MateBook 14s they put a 90 W power supply.

 

Memory, processor, benchmarks

Dual-channel RAM 16 GB (LPDDR4x, 4266 MHz) is soldered on the board, as you understand, it will not be possible to add more. However, the motherboard itself supports up to 64 GB. Below is a cache and memory test.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?
Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

The drive is a Toshiba SSD: model KXG60ZN512G, NVMe memory access protocol, M.2 form factor. A similar “bar” can be bought for about $150.

The read speed is 3260MB/s and the write speed is 2930MB/s. Not bad, the level of top-end laptops.

In general, one can notice a trend towards standardization of equipment. We take different laptops, but they will have approximately the same hardware installed. Examples are all laptops from Honor and Huawei. In fact, only the processor differs, sometimes memory manufacturers, but the meaning does not change from this.

The layout on the Honor MagicBook View 14 motherboard is about the same as on the Huawei MateBook 14s: the shape of the coolers, the heat dissipation scheme of the tubes, the location of the SSD, and so on.

This View 14 model has a fresh Intel Core i7-11390H processor. It is designed for thin gaming laptops and workstations. Equipped with four cores with support for Hyper-Threading technology and belongs to the Tiger lake H35 family. Integrated into the chip is Iris Xe graphics with 96 compute units. The processor is built on a 10 nm process technology. The TDP of the chip is 35W. More details can be found on the official website.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

Let me remind you that the MateBook 14s uses an Intel Core i7-11370H processor. It was introduced at the beginning of the year. It has a slightly lower base and maximum frequency, and the frequency of the video core is slightly higher. In general, the performance increase of the Intel Core i7-11390H relative to the Intel Core i7-11370H is about 15%.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

I did not notice any obvious heating of the case even under high CPU load. Fans turned on only in cases when the device was clearly digesting content with great difficulty. The cooling works relatively quietly, the rustling is pleasant, similar to white noise.

The Fn+P key combination turns on the performance mode, which increases the TDP of the processor to 45W and provides additional processing power needed for multitasking. True, for this the battery must be charged by 20 percent or more.

 

About Sound

The Honor MagicBook View 14 uses 4 speakers: two speakers create conditionally low and medium frequencies, and the other two create high frequencies. Moreover, the tweeters “look” up, and the rest – down.

The sound is loud and clear. But I can’t call it the ultimate dream. Just good sound.

 

Camera

The module here has a resolution of 5 MP. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve encountered such cameras in laptops. The quality is very good, especially the wide angle without distortion.

Why do you need a cool camera in a laptop? First, for normal video conferencing. Secondly, for live broadcasts, for example, on YouTube. I needed to go live with my colleague, but there were laptops available with simple 720p cameras. The live picture looked bad. There would be View 14 – another matter.

The sound is recorded well even at a distance of 1.5 meters from the device.

 

Impression

As they say on your internets, Honor MagicBook View 14 is top for your money! This model offers almost all possible technologies:

  • 2.5K 90Hz display with HDR support. The screen surface is dark, and the frames are not visible when the device is off;
  • Very fast drive;
  • The keyboard is comfortable and backlit. There is a button with a fingerprint scanner;
  • There are 4 speakers and 4 microphones.

Separately, it should be said that the case is made of metal, durable, the lid opens without lifting the bottom of the laptop.

One of the important chips at the present time is a high-quality front camera. It is useful for FullHD – live broadcasts, for example, on YouTube.

Normal hours of operation are around 6 hours.

I wanted to complain, but there was nothing.

Let me remind you that a configuration with an Intel Core-i5-11320H processor costs $1,600.

Honor MagicBook View 14 review: Best choice under $1800?

In my subjective opinion, the Honor MagicBook View 14 is the best choice for a laptop under $1800.