Honor Announces MagicBook 14 & 15: AMD Ryzen Inside
by Anton Shilov on December 3, 2019 5:00 PM EST
Right on the heels of the MateBook D announcement, Huawei’s daughter company Honor has introduced its own MagicBook 14 and MagicBook 15 notebooks. The eye-catching machines look very similar to Huawei's machines, however they exclusively use AMD's Ryzen APUs.
Honor often favors stylish designs for their products, and MagicBook 14 and MagicBook 15 laptops are no exception. Both machines come in similar aluminum chassis with Mystic Silver or Space Gray finish as well as blue accents on the edges. As the names of the notebooks suggest, the systems feature 14-inch and 15.6-inch IPS display panels, with both panels offering Full-HD (1920x1080) resolutions. Meanwhile, since the bodies of the new MagicBooks are very similar to the chassis used by Huawei’s MateBook Ds, the dimensions of the machines actually end up being the same: the 14-inch model is 15.9 mm thick, whereas the 15-inch model is 16.9 mm thick. As for the weight, the MagicBook 14 weighs 1.38 kilograms, while the MagicBook 15 weighs 1.53 kilograms.
Inside the new laptops from Honor are AMD’s quad-core Ryzen 5 3500U and Ryzen 7 3700U APUs. The processors are paired with 8 GB or 16 GB of DDR4 DRAM, as well as a 256 GB or 512 GB PCIe SSD. As far as connectivity is concerned, the new MagicBooks are equipped with Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, one USB 3.0 Type-C port, two USB 2.0/3.0 Type-A ports, an HDMI output, and a 3.5-mm jack for headsets. Just like the more expensive Huawei-branded analogues, these notebooks also have a fingerprint reader, a webcam that hides in a key, stereo speakers and a microphone array.
For some awkward reason, Honor decided to equip the MagicBook 14 with a 56 Wh battery, but install a lower-capacity 42 Wh battery into the larger MagicBook 15. In case of Huawei’s MateBook D15 the tradeoff was explained (in part) by the presence of a 1 TB HDD inside the machine; but in case of the MagicBook 15 the design decision is a complete mystery at lease for now.
| Honor's 2019 MagicBook 14 & 15 | |||
| MagicBook 14 | MagicBook 15 | ||
| Display | 14-inch 1920×1080 | 15.6-inch 1920×1080 | |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 3700U - 4C/8T, 6 MB, 2.3 - 4.0 GHz, 15 W AMD Ryzen 5 3500U - 4C/8T, 6 MB, 2.1 - 3.7 GHz, 15 W |
||
| Graphics | AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 - 640 SPs at 1400 MHz AMD Radeon Vega 8 - 512 SPs at 1200 MHz |
||
| RAM | 8 GB or 16 GB | ||
| SSD | 256 GB or 512 GB PCIe SSD | ||
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) | ||
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 | ||
| USB | 1 × USB 2.0 Type-A 1 × USB 3.0 Type-A 1 × USB 3.0 Type-C |
||
| GbE | - | ||
| Card Reader | - | ||
| Other I/O | HDMI, microphone, stereo speakers, audio jack | ||
| Battery | 56 Wh | 42 Wh | |
| Dimensions | Width: 322.5 mm Depth: 214.8 mm Thickness: 15.9 mm |
Width: 357.8 mm Depth: 229.9 mm Thickness: 16.9 mm |
|
| Weight | 1.38 kilograms | 1.53 kilograms | |
| Additional Information | ? | ? | |
| Price | ? | ? | |
Honor did not reveal pricing or availability dates for its 2019 MagicBook laptops, but it is safe to say that they will hit Chinese stores first and will cost less than Huawei’s MateBook D notebooks featuring similar configurations.
Related Reading:
- Huawei Unveils MateBook D14 & D15 Laptops: AMD Ryzen or Intel Comet Lake Inside
- Honor Announces MagicBook Pro with 16.1-Inch Display
- Honor’s Thin-and-Light MagicBook with AMD Ryzen Mobile Listed
Source: Honor
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samuraipai - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
sorry, does the 14" laptop have a larger battery than the 15"? Or was that just a copy error?GreenReaper - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
We've seen this before, haven't we? The bigger one is more likely to be used docked or going desk to desk, while the smaller one is for on the move, so it needs a bigger battery.Xajel - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
The engineers seems to be high. Smaller battery on the larger one? And they seem to use the HDD as an excuse. It better to not have it and have have a larger battery at least as an option. Or better, just have a second M.2 slot...And why no Wifi 6? It seems AMD hasn't yet pushed for it from it's partners. Almost all AMD laptops are WiFi 5.
And please please. No more 8GB minimum RAM.
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
It would be nice to have better WiFi, but let's be honest - does it make any real difference?nandnandnand - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
It has a number of improvements. Even if you don't care about multi-gigabit speeds, it should improve reliability at longer ranges:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax#Techni...
Skipping from a 802.11n to 802.11ax router should offer a better experience. At this point, I would probably not buy a new laptop without 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5 with the optional long-range mode, and AV1 hardware decode.
PeachNCream - Thursday, December 5, 2019 - link
Agreed that the absence of WiFi 6 is not really a significant problem. It's especially lacking in relevance for people that ride whatever junk wireless happens to be provided by their ISP's equipment or what happens to be available while out and about. There just isnt a lot of benefit at this point unless you're shuffling huge files over WiFi locally or happen to be among the fortunate few with a very fast connection to the Internet.PeachNCream - Thursday, December 5, 2019 - link
16GB would be a nice baseline, but OEMs will cling to what they feel is the lowest minimum possible for as long as possible. That's okay if its easy to upgrade but in the case of a lot of modern hardware with soldered RAM and no expansion slots it can be a problem. At this point I wouldn't wnat to purchase a new laptop with less than 16GB just to ensure it has some longevity.Alistair - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
wow those are some small batteriesVepsa - Wednesday, December 4, 2019 - link
If only it was easy to get one of these in the US. I'd love the 14" one.ballsystemlord - Thursday, December 5, 2019 - link
Spelling error:"...but in case of the MagicBook 15 the design decision is a complete mystery at lease for now."
"least" no "lease":
"...but in case of the MagicBook 15 the design decision is a complete mystery at least for now."