Honor MagicBook Pro review - Mac-inspired, wallet friendly - Android

The Honor MagicBook Pro costs a third of Apple's MacBook Pro, but does it provide enough value to tempt a purchase?

Back at IFA 2020, Honor announced a series of new products in its MagicBook laptop line. The range blurs the lines between premium features and more affordable price tags, offering sleek designs and powerful hardware for less than €900/£1000. The Honor MagicBook Pro carries the torch at the higher end of the range.

We’ve had the Honor MagicBook Pro in-house for the last week, and I’ve been using it as my daily workstation during that time. So, let’s find out what this laptop has to offer and whether it’s a worthwhile purchase. This is Android Authority’s Honor MagicBook Pro review

See more: The best laptops from IFA 2020

What is the Honor MagicBook Pro?

There’s no fancy 4G or 5G connectivity, Windows on Arm processor, or gimmicks here. The Honor MagicBook Pro simply aims to offer the quintessential high-end laptop experience while undercutting the competition on price. The similarity with Apple’s MacBook Pro moniker is no coincidence after all. However, Honor’s €900 offering comes in at a third of the price.

Honor kicks off the premium angle with an aluminum chassis in a slim form factor. The MagicBook Pro measures approximately 1.6cm when closed. The company claims this 16-inch laptop has the profile of a 15.6-inch device, but the 1.7kg weight breaks that illusion. The laptop is quite hefty to haul around.

There’s a fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button, positioned above the rightmost of the dual front-facing speakers. 65W fast charging, a dual-fan, dual-heat pipe cooling setup, and multi-screen collaboration for Honor and Huawei smartphone owners round out a feature set that’s definitely above and beyond your average laptop.

Display

Next up in our Honor MagicBook Pro review is the display. At 16.1 inches, the panel is a true workhorse. You won’t be short of space for multi-window multitasking. The matte finish ensures minimal glare and wide viewing angles, but that’s where the accolades end.

1080p is good enough at this size, but 1440p and a refresh rate above 60Hz would be more fitting for a truly premium product. But I guess we can’t have everything at this price. The display is limited to just 300 nits of brightness, which flirts with the limits of visibility in bright outdoor environments. There’s also a 100% sRGB color space that looks great, but it is more limited than the DCI-P3 or AdobeRBG options that creative types rely on.

Overall, the display is very nice to look at. It offers enough quality for most use cases and a great size, given how slim the design is. But it’s not a media creator’s best option. These littles compromises make it clear that the Honor MagicBook Pro isn’t quite the fully premium product the name wants to imply.

Keyboard and ports

A quality keyboard is the beating heart of any laptop, and I’m quite fond of this one. The key profile is quite low for fast travel times, but it offers enough feedback to placate demanding typers. I’m definitely not worried about the keys sticking either. The touchpad is not as nice, owing to the awkward integrated mouse buttons. Nevertheless, the buttons are forgiving and the trackpad is large enough to zip around applications.