Honor's latest lightweight laptop brings NVIDIA RTX graphics

HONOR has offered its Magicbook line of laptops for a few years now, and this hasn’t changed since the company was spun off from parent brand Huawei in 2020. Now, the company has used IFA 2022 to introduce several new products, including the Magicbook 14 2022.

Honor’s latest notebook brings a 14-inch display with 2,160 x 1,440 resolution and a 3:2 screen ratio, differing from the previous model’s FHD resolution and 16:9 ratio. This panel also gets Gorilla Glass Victus, so it should fare well in terms of durability. Otherwise, the 1.5kg (3.4 pounds) weight makes it slightly heavier than last year’s model and heavier than the M2 Macbook Air (1.24kg).

In terms of key specs, the Magicbook 14 comes with Intel’s 12th generation Core i5 12500H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The laptop is also available with either integrated Iris Xe graphics or NVIDIA’s RTX2050 GPU. Don’t expect performance close to other RTX GPUs for laptops, but it still delivers much-improved performance on paper over most of NVIDIA’s MX integrated solutions as well as ray-tracing support. In fact, you should be able to play some AAA games just fine with this setup, while DLSS tech means you can enjoy higher resolutions without a massive hit to performance.

HONOR says you should expect a 75Wh battery capable of delivering a claimed 10.5 hours of work use and 15 hours of 1080p local video playback. Once you’ve exhausted the battery, you’ll be glad to know that it supports 135W fast charging via an included USB-C charger.

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Expect the laptop to go from zero to full in 80 minutes, while a 15-minute charge can deliver a claimed 3.5 hours of work. The zero-to-full figure isn’t exactly groundbreaking when Apple’s latest Macbook Air delivers similar results via 67W charging (showing that wattage isn’t everything), but it’s still pretty brisk nonetheless. The Magicbook charger also works with other HONOR phones and tablets, although it’s unclear what kind of speeds you should expect for third-party devices.

The Magicbook 14 2022 also brings the expected HONOR Share functionality for seamless sharing between the laptop and an HONOR phone. Other notable features include multi-screen collaboration tech, two USB-C ports (albeit with the charger occupying one port), a full-sized USB port, HDMI out, 3.5mm port, a fingerprint scanner, a 720p webcam, Bluetooth 5.2, and Wi-Fi 6.

There’s no word on pricing for the Magicbook 14 2022 just yet, although its predecessor was available for £799.99 (~$924).

HONOR 70 and HONOR Pad 8

The Chinese manufacturer launched the HONOR 70 in China earlier this year, and it’s now brought the device to Europe as well. You’re getting an upper mid-range offering here, highlighted by the Snapdragon 778G Plus SoC, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage.

Honor’s phone also brings a 6.67-inch FHD+ 120Hz OLED screen, a 4,800mAh battery, and 66W wired charging. Look at the back and you’ll find a triple rear camera system, featuring a 54MP IMX800 main camera (1/1.49-inch), a 50MP ultrawide shooter with autofocus (enabling macro shots), and a 2MP depth sensor. A 32MP camera is on tap for selfies and video calls.

Like the idea of this handset? Then the HONOR 70 is available in the UK for £479.99 (~$555).

The company also announced the HONOR Pad 8’s release for European markets. Expect to pay £269.99 (~$312) for the budget slate, so what do you get for the price?

Well, the Pad 8 brings a 12-inch 2,000 x 1,200 LCD panel, metal unibody design, and eight speakers. Other core specs include a budget-tier Snapdragon 680 SoC, 128GB of storage, a 7,250mAh battery, and a 5MP camera on each side.

You’re also getting Bluetooth 5.1, Wi-Fi 5, Android 12, multi-screen collaboration integration with HONOR smartphones, and vocal enhancement algorithms for video/audio calls.