So the Honor MagicBook Art 14 just got announced, and I’ve been testing it for a few weeks. However, looking at our audience stats, roughly 75% of you lovely people won’t even be able to buy it — given the fact it's not being sold in the U.S.
I won’t go hard on the reasons why, as it’s a complex situation. Instead, I’ll just mention that Huawei was cut off from using chipsets from the likes of Qualcomm and Intel by the U.S. Government, and that while Honor was set up as a spin-off company to dodge these bans, the public perception is still there.
Instead, I want to talk about a laptop you can buy — the M4 MacBook Air — and what Apple should be taking note of from this overseas Air killer. Because there are five key changes that the Cupertino crew should make to its ultra-thin notebook, in order to challenge what the MagicBook Art 14 offers.
Give me OLED
Let’s start with the obvious — the laptop market has slowly but surely started shifting towards OLED, and it's turned me into a display snob. The inky contrast ratio and the flash flood of color, all of it really brings anything you’re working on/watching to life.
And Honor is packing a real monster here — a 14.6-inch OLED touch display that reaches a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. It’s super crispy at 3,120 x 2,080 pixels, packs a 120Hz refresh rate and has super advanced flicker-free dimming that ensures it won’t strain your eyes.
That’s not to say the MacBook Air’s 13.6-inch Liquid Retina LED screen is bad, but it is far outshone here. Given how mesmerizing the Tandem OLED panel is on the M4 iPad Pro, seeing OLED make it to the Air would be the number one item on my checklist.
Ditch the notch
You may also notice that the screen has tiny bezels — like, really tiny bezels without a notch needed for the webcam. This is because the 1080p webcam is actually not housed above the screen, but rather on an additional module that connects magnetically atop the display.
This eliminates any notch-based distractions and allows for a fully uninterrupted 3:2 aspect ratio screen in this smaller body, which is a perfect size for getting stuff done.
More ports, please!
I know, I know. Asking for more ports on an Apple computer is kind of like asking a cat to do your taxes — technically possible, but you know it’s not happening. And neither would I ask for USB-A, as someone who has moved fully into the USB-C crew.
But that HDMI port has come in clutch on the MagicBook Art 14, just as it does on my MacBook Pro. And Honor has managed to do it on a laptop that is barely 0.1 inches thicker. Please, Apple, let me ditch my dongle life with the next Air.
Surface-level love
This is split into two parts. First, a little part of me misses the wedge shape of the original MacBook Air — something I was happy to have back with the new MagicBook Art 14. I know there are levels to Apple’s decision, like more room for battery.
But there’s just something about that improved thinness heading towards the front that just makes it feel nicer to pick up and carry.
And second is the material actually used. The machined magnesium alloy feels so great to hold in your hands. Moving your fingers across it almost feels like you’re touching a piece of paper, and it's fingerprint-resistant. Contrast that to the MacBook Air, which does look seriously premium with its aluminum unibody, but just feels a little dated in its aesthetic, and to the touch, it’s a pretty standard slab of metal.
Sometimes, making something feel new is literally in the feel of the gadget itself. A material change would be the answer to that.
An ocean of a touchpad
I stand by my opinion that MacBooks have some of the best trackpads you can use. That haptic engine has been tuned to give you a satisfying snap to every tap, and the large, smooth surface is great for both sweeping multitouch gestures and small precision movements.
But Honor is crashing the party. Its touchpad is huge, feels awesome to use, and also has built-in haptics to simulate crispy clicks. In fact, it comes all the way down to the edge of the laptop, and on top of that, they’ve added edge gestures that have haptic responses all of their own.
You can feel the brightness going up and down in clicks as you move your finger up and down the left side, same with volume on the right, or scrubbing video across the top.
Not without its flaws
Let me be clear, there are still many valid reasons to get a MacBook Air over this. The M4 chip is an absolute screamer that the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H chipset in the MagicBook Art 14 can’t hold a candle to. It requires an active fan to cool, while the Air is whisper-quiet with passive cooling. Plus, to power that fan, the 60Wh battery in here doesn’t last as long as Apple’s laptop in my books.
Oh, and did I mention it's £1,499? For the specs you get (that Core Ultra 7, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD), that’s undercutting a higher-specced MacBook Air for sure, but there are far lower-cost options from Apple, too!
But any of the best laptops we’ve tested all come with priorities and trade-offs, and all I’m saying here is that if Apple did take note of some of the awesome work coming out of Honor, that would be a bona fide five-star notebook in my books.
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