The Magic

Product Information

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the fastest non-workstation laptop we have tested to date, conceding defeat on compute benchmarks to the almighty and undisputed king of the hill, the 16-core XMG Apex 15. The difference is even more marked once you include the integrated GPU, a Radeon RX Vega 6, one of the beefiest on the block.

We are fans of physical buttons and this one didn’t have any; sure it was responsive and of good size, but beyond that, it did lack character. That said, the MBP achieved this with a 56WHr battery (8WHr per hour), making it less frugal than the Gram 14’s 73WHr (7WHr per hour). That said, we’d like to commend the LG Gram 17 which received our recommendation in July 2020 and a comment from our fellow reviewer, Bill Thomas, that this is a laptop that “can't actually be real”.It is mightily quick, has a good battery life and overall provides a very rounded and polished computing experience.

Honor says that six temperature sensors and a cooling-fan motor with higher spin rates helps cool the laptop more effectively.Now there’s a good reason why a hexa-core model was chosen and that has to do with the fact that the base MacBook Pro model has a 6-core CPU, the Intel Core i7-9750HF, a CPU launched last year with a comparable 45W TDP. The Type-C connector doubles up as a universal power port that is paired with the bundled Huawei-branded switching power adaptor.

The HD webcam - based on the Omnivision OV9734 - is a pop-up type that resides inside a key between F6 and F7 and don’t worry, it won’t damage your screen if you happen to close the display without remembering to push down the webcam. An audio connector and two full size USB ports are located on one side and a type-C USB, a full size HDMI 2. Note the Space Gray colour scheme paired with an aluminum chassis rather than a magnesium alloy one (lighter but also displaying more flex) and a frosted matte finish. While it is not bright enough when working in direct sunlight, the fact that it is matte reduces the glare that usually makes glossy screens almost unusable whenever it’s sunny.A memory card reader would also be appreciated as well as the inclusion of Thunderbolt 3 as a universal connector. Honor has quietly found its place alongside its parent company, Huawei, as the up-and-coming challenger brand. At the time of writing, the Honor Magic Book Pro is on sale direct from the manufacturer in the UK, France and Germany with other territories likely to follow.

While it does cost more than the Honor MBP, the Gram 17 has a bigger battery capacity, a higher screen resolution, Thunderbolt 3 ports and a numeric keypad. The base of the laptop contains two parallel rubber strips that act as raisers to allow air to cool the components inside via a perforated grill. On the whole though, the MagicBook Pro is a great laptop to use, very well built and with a solid pedigree as it is essentially a Huawei device. The design language of the MagicBook Pro shares common features with the Xiaomi Mi laptop brand, the Dell XPS 15 and, of course, the Apple MacBook Pro.The keyboard is likely to divide opinions as always; it has a much shorter travel which in turn impacts on the feedback, which feels sharper and less noisy. The latter costs almost three times as much but comes with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, a much bigger battery, a higher-resolution display, six speakers and a discrete GPU.