Honor’s second laptop for the Malaysian market, the Honor MagicBook 14, will be available for pre-order locally from tomorrow onwards on 7 July. Retailing at RM2,499, it’s a reasonably inexpensive productivity laptop. On top of that, those who place their pre-orders early will also receive a number of freebies worth RM817.

Those who pre-order the MagicBook 14 between 7 to 13 July on Shopee or Honor’s online store will get a complimentary laptop sleeve – it’s said to be limited edition Honor-branded sleeve – a Bluetooth mouse, a backpack, and an Honor Watch Magic. Collectively, these items are worth RM966; a pretty good deal.

If you don’t fancy pre-ordering the laptop online, you can place your pre-order with physical retailers instead from 7 to 16 July. You get about the same items as the online pre-order – except for the laptop sleeve, which seems to be online-exclusive – though the Watch Magic is interchangeable with an Honor Band 5i. These freebies are worth up to RM817, and naturally, they are only available while stocks last.

As for the MagicBook 14 itself, it’s a reasonably good productivity laptop. Granted, it actually costs RM200 more than the first MagicBook despite the fact that both laptops have identical hardware. In fact, the newer MagicBook 14 actually comes with half the internal storage of its predecessor. That’s right, the former only has a 256GB SSD.

So why does the new MagicBook 14 cost more despite offering less storage? Well, for one, it’s a much sleeker, modern-looking laptop. It has noticeably smaller bezels surrounding the screen, which also reduces the overall dimensions of the machine. So not only does it look better, it’s a more compact laptop as well.

Besides that, the MagicBook 14 weighs less than its predecessor as well. It tips the scales at 1.38kg, making it ever so slightly lighter than the first MagicBook’s 1.45kg chassis. While this doesn’t sound like a huge difference, it does give the MagicBook 14 an edge when it comes to portability.

Other specifications of the MagicBook 14 include a 14-inch 1080p IPS screen, an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor paired with 8GB of RAM, an integrated Radeon Vega 8 GPU, and a webcam hidden underneath the keyboard.

To recap, the Honor MagicBook 14 will be available for pre-order in Malaysia from tomorrow onwards on Shopee and Honor’s online store. For RM2,499, its value for money isn’t quite as good as the first MagicBook, but you do get a sleeker-looking laptop.