American science fiction writer and aerospace engineer Robert A. Heinlein once said: “One person’s ‘magic’ is another person’s engineering.” When I think of this sentence, I can’t help but think of the Honor MagicBook Art 14 . Why, oh why, can’t America buy this laptop when it has good stuff?
The Emerald Green laptop is definitely made from aerospace-grade magnesium alloy. Finally, a laptop that isn’t black, grey, white or blue. OEM manufacturers please take note. Color aside, this laptop is a definite eye-catcher due to its ultra-light and slim dimensions. When I first picked up the 2.3-pound, 12.5 x 8.8 x 0.45-inch device, I thought it was a prototype, but then the 14.6-inch, 3120 x 2080 OLED touch screen suddenly came to life. Now I really need to review this laptop; region lock be damned.
But what really caught my attention was the MagicBook’s webcam, or lack thereof. I looked at the center of the laptop’s top bezel for the shooter, but there was none there, nothing, zero. Seeing my confusion, the Honor representative pressed me against the left back corner of the laptop. This action shows a thin green plate with black modules. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this is a 1080p webcam. The sales rep glues it to the top of the monitor, which automatically launches the camera app. While that was cool in and of itself, things got even cooler when the rep turned his camera to capture everyone behind us. Connected by a fairly strong magnet, you have to apply a little force to disconnect the module.
But pay attention to the specifications. Honor offers consumers multiple configurations such as 1.2 GHz Intel Core Ultra 5 processor 125H or 1.4 GHz Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 155H, up to 32GB LPDDR5X 7467MH RAM, 1TB SSD and integrated Intel Arc Graphics. This puts it on par with the Dell XPS 13, Asus ZenBook 14 OLED, and Acer Swift 14. In short, I wanted to review this laptop and had to get it to the US as soon as possible.
