The Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon is a hard laptop to come by — available only in Europe for €1,699 (roughly $1,800). But in testing it, I’m realizing that the U.S. is really missing out, because this is a true gem that gives you a glimpse at the future of notebooks.
And it all comes down to three key things: the CPU, the webcam and the design. Typically, these aren’t the most interesting things about a laptop, but here, they’re a crucial looking glass into the laptops of 2025.
Let me tell you about my three weeks with the MagicBook Art 14, and share the interesting backstory to Honor's stellar new system, which I believe could be better than the M3 MacBook Air.
This looks familiar…
Remember the Huawei MateBook X Pro? Back on May 7, I fell in love with this ultraportable that was on the precipice of being an ultimate foe to MacBook Air.
The hardware feels amazing in the hand with stellar ergonomics, the display is superb and while it was first gen Intel Core Ultra, the performance potential and power efficiency is impressive. In fact, the only gripe I had was that this could’ve been a dream device if the company had opted for the Snapdragon X Elite.
But on the very day that this laptop was announced — literally the very moment that the presenter uttered the words “MateBook X Pro,” the news dropped of the U.S. Government’s crackdown on Huawei — blocking the tech giant from receiving semiconductors from Intel and Qualcomm.
What followed was a rather awkward evening of “no comment” responses and a whole lot of confusion over what happens next for the Chinese company. And now, we’ve got a couple of answers to that question.
First, it’s looking likely that Huawei is hard at work on a foldable display laptop with haptics on the bottom panel to recreate the feeling of a keyboard. And the second answer arrived via a FedEx courier two weeks ago. Holding the Honor MagicBook Art 14 in my hand, my first reaction was one of suspicion, because this machine looks very familiar.
And I know that technically, Honor is a separate company from Huawei — being sold to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology back in 2020. But it was a subsidiary of the larger corporation, and has a way of bringing Huawei’s phones to more people.
So I’m honestly pretty happy to see the MagicBook be almost like a MateBook in spirit. Not only that, but Honor has put in the hard graft to make this not just a MacBook Air killer, but the Air of the future.
Snap happy without compromising the display
Let’s talk about the headline feature here that feels like the future of laptop design. Up top, you’ll find a stunning 14.6-inch 3.1K OLED panel with multi-touch capabilities. The bezel is super slim around all the edges which raises the question — where’s the webcam?
For the MacBook Air, the answer is that notch cutout atop the screen. It’s fine, but it can be distracting and actually hide toolbar functionality if you’re like me and have several things running up there. Honor’s answer, however, is a beauty — a magnetically-attached camera that is stowed in the body of the laptop.
Not only does this 1080p snapper give you a pretty decent picture in my testing (courtesy of some AI trickery), but this is also a nifty workaround of the whole webcam privacy shutter thing, while also giving you an uninterrupted display.
It’s so small, I know. But eliminating the bezels almost entirely feels so freeing of your content, and means Honor is able to cram a massive panel with a productivity-friendly 3:2 aspect ratio into an equivalent 13-inch laptop shell.
Oh Snap(dragon)
I wanted the Snapdragon X Elite in the MateBook X Pro. Of course, Huawei is banned from doing that now, so Honor has swooped in and saved the day with the MagicBook Art 14.
This is the top-tier Snapdragon X Elite chip in here (the catchily-named X1E80100), and you already know the name of the game here. CPU processing is on a different level in Arm compared to x86 — pairing performance with power efficiency. Graphically, Intel and AMD do pull ahead, but for all the day-to-day tasks, this is definitely the chief option
Plus, with the updates coming to the prism translation layer in Windows 11, that pesky app compatibility problem Snapdragon-powered laptops face is becoming less of a problem.
Next-level ergonomics
And finally, I can’t go any further without talking about how thin and light this machine is. Machined magnesium gives it an unmistakably premium aesthetic, which is even more impressive when you realize this machine is half-a-pound lighter than the MacBook Air.
But none of this comes at the sacrifice of the ergonomics. That keyboard feels great with plenty of depth, and the trackpad really comes alive here. Matching the MateBook’s usability, this is a haptic engine-driven pad, but elevating itself further with edge controls.
Yes, they are coming to more and more Windows laptops, but the smoothness of the haptic response here gives you a seriously impressive tactile response to any adjustment of volume, brightness, or scrubbing through video timelines.
A vision of the future
Like I always say when it comes to facing off against the MacBook Air, if you come for the king, you best not miss. Instead of aiming at it, Honor has essentially stepped over it to be one of the best laptops I’ve used all year. It’s a crying shame that this will only be available in select territories across Europe and the East.
So, as you know, CES 2025 is just around the corner. Big things are coming for laptops — not just gaming laptops (thanks to Nvidia) but notebooks as a whole. Testing the Honor MagicBook Art 14 gives me a serious vibe that I just caught a preview of what I can expect to see on the show floor from the likes of Asus, Acer and more.
