Honor MagicBook View 14

The MagicBook View 14 is an interesting laptop in more ways than one: Intel Evo certified with a 2.5K display, thin borders and a neat construction, it has almost everything to please.

 

Presentation

After the rather successful MagicBook 14 2021, both in AMD and Intel versions, Honor is back at it again as 2022 approaches with the MagicBook View 14, a decidedly high-end model sold at a very competitive price ($1149). At this price, the manufacturer does not seem to have made any concessions. The PC is Intel Evo certified and therefore guarantees an 11th generation processor, a battery life of more than 9 hours, Wi-Fi 6, a screen with thin borders and Thunderbolt 4 ports. We obviously checked all of this out and here is our full review...

 

Construction

We find the usual Honor design, with an aluminum chassis and a look very similar to that of Huawei's MateBook and Apple's MacBook. The whole thing looks very solid and neat, especially since the screen borders are particularly thin. The tilt angle of the screen is strangely limited, whereas the trend is towards very tiltable models, sometimes up to 180°. No problem to report in normal use, but it could be a bit annoying in some specific cases (PC on the lap, for example).

Some disappointments are to be noted on the side of the keyboard, whose cushioning is consequent and the typing slightly sluggish. On the other hand, it is really quiet in use. The backlighting - adjustable on 3 levels - is not very powerful, even when pushed to the maximum; it can be seen well in the dark, but not really during the day, even indoors. At the top right of the keyboard, there is a fingerprint reader to unlock the computer quickly, which is very practical.

The webcam is also equipped with an infrared module and can therefore also use facial recognition via Windows Hello. It films up to an impressive 1440p and the image quality is clearly good in full light. Under limited lighting, the image is certainly more noisy, but still usable.

For a small 14.2-inch PC, the Honor does well in terms of connectivity since there is an HDMI port in addition to a USB-A 3.2 port, a USB-C 3.2 port, a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port and a mini-jack socket. Too bad the two USB-C ports aren't Thunderbolt, but both handle charging in any case. In addition, Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6 provide fast connectivity to various networks.

To access the components, you have to remove 10 Torx screws from under the chassis, but the scalability is in the middle: the RAM is soldered, but the M.2 SSD is removable. The battery can also be replaced by simply removing a few screws.

The heating of the PC remains very contained. We noticed a peak of 42°C at the air outlet, while the center of the keyboard barely reaches 35°C. The dual ventilation is therefore very efficient, but it can be heard as soon as heavy applications are launched. With 38.5 dB, the noise level under full computing is obviously not at the level of PCs with dedicated graphics cards, but it can be annoying in the long run. Under a lesser load, in office use for example, the ventilation is perfectly silent.

 

 

Performance

The Honor MagiBook View 14 packs an Intel Core i7-11390H processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This H-series CPU benefits from a relatively high thermal envelope of 35W, extended by Honor to 45W by activating Performance Mode (available only when the laptop is plugged into the mains and pressing Fn + P). This Intel CPU is clocked at 3.4 GHz, with a turbo at 5 GHz. We found an average of 3.9 GHz in video processing on HandBrake. So the low core count (4 in total) of the processor is partly compensated by high operating speeds.

Strangely enough, activating the Performance mode did not change the performance of the processor and the operating frequencies remained the same. It's hard to say if this is a software problem that can be corrected by an update or if Honor has badly optimized the chip...

Its CPU rating of 101 is still very good, below that of a Core i7-11800H or a Ryzen 7 5800H, but better than the classic Core i7-1165G7 that equips many ultraportables. In practice, we can use photo processing software without any problem, or even do some video editing, although the lack of a dedicated GPU will be felt in this case.

In games, the integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics chip doesn't usually work miracles, but it still does well. On Diablo III for example, with the graphics set to "high", the PC averaged 45 fps. On Overwatch, set to the minimum details, it went up to 108 fps. So you can easily enjoy some old or undemanding titles.

 

Screen

Honor has clearly bet on the 14.2-inch screen of its MagicBook. Tactile and in 3:2 format (2520 x 1680 px), it leaves a higher working space than the 16:9 and its thin borders are very appreciable, especially since the occupancy rate of the slab is high (85%). In addition, the manufacturer has chosen a 90 Hz refreshed slab, which can be lowered to 60 or 48 Hz by pressing Fn + R. While 90 Hz is supposed to offer a smoother experience, it's hard to really perceive a difference in office use, and this is usually at the expense of battery life.

The colorimetry of the panel is also a good surprise. The Delta E of 1.2 and an average temperature of 6530 K are simply perfect. The measured contrast ratio (1800:1) is excellent and the maximum brightness (400 cd/m²) slightly exceeds that announced by the manufacturer. The PC loses a star in this area because of a high remanence (22 ms), which will not have any impact in office use, but above all because of an average reflectance of 54%, which is very high, as is often the case with touchscreens.

 

 

Audio

Honor has made an original choice for the speakers of its PC: two woofers are located under the PC and two tweeters have been placed in front of the keyboard on either side. The idea is interesting and the sound quality is better than on many computers. If the lack of bass is still felt, the mids and highs are intelligible and rather well balanced. Enough to help you out if you don't have headphones or a speaker.

The headphone output is also very correct. The output level of 140 mVRMS is not enough to feed a monitor or hi-fi headphone, but the distortion is low (0,01 %), the crosstalk is inaudible (-69 dB) and the dynamic range is rather high (101 dB).

 

Autonomy

With its 14.2-inch diagonal and measurements of 15.8 x 310.28 x 226.6 mm, the MagicBook View is a very compact computer that can be easily carried around. It weighs 1.48 kg, to which we must add just 200 g for the charger.

In our battery life test, the PC lasted 9 hours and 43 minutes of video playback on Netflix via the Chrome browser, with the screen set to 200 cd/m² and the volume set to 50 percent with headphones connected. A good result that allows you to stay away from an outlet for a while.

 

Conclusion

Honor's MagicBook View 14 is close to excellence. Its screen is almost perfect, its processor is efficient, its autonomy is more than correct, its webcam is good and its audio is honorable. However, a few shortcomings stop it one step short of the top mark, such as its imperfect keyboard, a very reflective touch screen and a Performance mode that doesn't really help. However, this PC is a very good value for money considering the performance it delivers.