We love the Honor MagicBook Art 14 – it’s slim and feather-light, and has a beautiful OLED display with a Goldilocks 14.6-inch diagonal and 3:2 aspect ratio. And now we finally get it with the ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processor.
When we reviewed its Intel Core 7 Ultra 155H-powered sibling, we concluded that it’s a great laptop, but it could be better in Snapdragon, mainly for its improved battery life. Well, it’s been a few months, but the wait is over and we finally get to test that hypothesis.
We got a starry gray model this time (not green) but it ships with the same 65W charger and USB-C cable. At the time of this article, the Snapdragon model with a single 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD configuration is €1,700 but you can claim a €200 discount with a coupon on Honor’s website, making it a very attractive €1,500. You also get Honor Pad 9 8/256GB and Honor Earbuds X6 White for free.
Half the story with the MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon is the processor (heck, it’s in the name). It is Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 with 12 physical cores, 42 MB of total cache, 3.4GHz multi-core frequency and 4.0GHz peak clock speed. Only two configurations of the X Elite are more powerful – the X1E-84-100 and X1E-00-1DE – but that’s mostly because the difference in peak clock speeds – one is 4.2GHz, and the other is 4.3GHz – isn’t that significant.
The starry gray model has a silky-smooth texture – as opposed to the tactile and grippy emerald green Intel-powered model we reviewed. Here’s the Snapdragon model pictured next to the Morandi Blue MateBook X Pro 2024 with Intel Core Ultra 9 185H.
Honor has the upper hand in screen size – 14.6-inches versus 14.2-inches on the Huawei.
The Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon and Huawei MateBook X Pro 2024
Another big thing about the Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon is the body. The laptop weighs only 1.02kg with a 15-inch OLED display. For perspective, the 13-inch MacBook Air is 1.24kg and the 15-inch is 1.51kg.
The MagicBook Art 14’s OLED display is exceptional – 3120x2080px, touchscreen, support for 100% DCI-P3, and an advertised peak brightness of 700 nits.
Honor has moved the camera away and achieved slim bezels around the screen. It sits in its own magnetic holster on the left side of the laptop and snaps on top when needed.
We’ll be back in January with a full MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon review!