Laptop, News

This Is the Unreleased Honor MagicBook 14, and It’s Coming to Malaysia Soon

Honor will be unveiling a number of new products in China on 26 November, and one of them is this laptop right here: the new Honor MagicBook 14. That’s right, we managed to spend some time with the yet to be released laptop, and it’s set to arrive in Malaysia soon.

The unreleased MagicBook 14 was shown to the media at the launch event of the Honor 9X. Although a Honor representative did not specifically tell us it’s the new MagicBook 14, we’re quite confident it is based on the design and size of the display. In fact, we found a listing of the laptop on Tmall with various images of the upcoming product.

Unfortunately, we don’t have much info on what’s under the hood of the MagicBook 14, but we do know there will (at least) be a variant that comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 processor based on the sticker on the laptop. It remains to be seen if Honor will also use Intel processors for the MagicBook 14, though there’s a good chance it is.

What about the laptop itself? Well, we weren’t allowed to power on the MagicBook 14 to really test it out, but we did manage to try out other aspects of the machine. The display, for one, has a matte finish, and we were told that it is not a touch-enabled screen. Just like Huawei’s MateBook laptop, the webcam of the MagicBook 14 is also hidden underneath the keyboard in a pop-up mechanism. It’s a clever piece of engineering.

As for the keyboard itself, it’s decent. The keys don’t have an awful lot of travel, so the typing experience is decidedly shallow. As a matter of fact, it’s very similar to Apple’s flat butterfly switch keyboard found on older MacBook laptops, though the MagicBook 14’s keyboard does have slightly more travel in comparison.

Now, despite the short key travel, I reckon I’ll enjoy doing a lot of typing on the MagicBook 14’s keyboard. Yes, it feels shallow, but I love how “light” the keys feel. It doesn’t need a lot of force to actuate, tactile feedback is great, and the larger than usual key size makes it a lot easier to type accurately – for myself, anyway.

Right below the keyboard is a relatively big trackpad. I wasn’t able to try out the accuracy of the MagicBook 14’s trackpad – given that we weren’t allowed to switch it on – but it does have a smooth surface. This lets my fingers glide effortlessly on the trackpad, and it feels solid too when I press down on it.

Speaking of solid, the build quality of the MagicBook 14 is worth a mention as well. While the top lid flexes a bit with added pressure, the rest of the laptop feels very robust. Aside from the plastic bezel surrounding the display, other parts of the laptop are made out of metal.

When it comes to port selection, the MagicBook 14 is adequately equipped. There are two full-size USB-A ports, a single USB-C connection – this should double as the charging port – an HDMI output, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A decent connectivity option for a slim and light laptop.

At the moment, we still have no concrete release date for the new Honor MagicBook 14 in Malaysia, but we were told that the Chinese company is aiming to release the upcoming laptop locally sometime this year. We’ll learn more about the MagicBook 14 once it is released in China next week on 26 November.

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