Honor’s IFA 2020 press conference was notable for the number of new hardware announcements. The Huawei sub-brand revealed a sleek new laptop, the Honor MagicBook Pro, a new Honor Pad 6 tablet, as well as updates to the existing Honor MagicBook laptop series.
Here’s what you need to know…
Honor has built the MagicBook Pro with creators in mind. The MagicBook Pro features a 100 percent sRGB display for one of the best full-color displays on the market, with Flick-Free Display tech to protect your eyes over long use periods.
Furthermore, the 16.1-inch FHD FullView Display uses minute bezel to give a 90 percent screen to body display. The bezels are only 4.9mm thick, allowing a super slimline design. Incredibly, the 16.1-inch laptop fits inside the form factor of several prominent 15.6-inch laptops, meaning you get heaps more screen real-estate for a slightly smaller package.
Other reductions in bezel space come from the pop-up camera hidden under the F7 key, which is a nice touch.
Powering the Honor MagicBook Pro is an AMD Ryzen 5 4600H processor (that uses AMD’s latest 7nm chipset), a 512GB SSD, as well as 16GB DDR4 RAM. Honor puts the MagicBook Pro at around 11 hours of battery life. The 56W battery also comes with an ultra-fast charger that delivers a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes. The MagicBook pro weighs just 1.7kg and is only 16.9mm thick.
Sound-wise, the MagicBook Pro uses symmetrical dual speakers to create an immersive surround sound experience, simulating 5.1 or 7.1 surround from your laptop.
One cool feature is Honor’s multi-screen collaboration tool that connects a MagicBook laptop to an Honor smartphone, creating a unified working environment. You can connect the two devices, then use your mouse on your smartphone.
The press conference made some fairly substantial claims about the video games you can play on the MagicBook Pro’s integrated graphics. The MagicBook Pro does not feature a discrete graphics card option. The AMD Ryzen 4600H processor is equipped with an integrated Vega GPU, but the quality of this is somewhat middling.
Other reports on the MagicBook Pro indicate that while some gaming is absolutely possible, you won’t fire up Grand Theft Auto V in Full HD at 60 frames per second.
The Honor MagicBook Pro will release to European markets in September 2020, with a launch price of €900 ($1,060).
Honor’s MagicBook series is six months old, yet it’s already receiving a substantial hardware update. Specifically, Honor will upgrade the MagicBook 14 and 15 processors from its existing AMD Ryzen 5 3500U to the latest AMD Ryzen 4600H, bringing them in line with the MagicBook Pro.
The MagicBook 14 and 15 will also receive larger standard storage, bumping up to a 512GB SSD.
These models don’t feature the same 100 percent sRGB screen as the MagicBook Pro, but both have FHD screens.
The updated Honor MagicBook 14 is releasing to European markets in late-September 2020 and will cost €750 ($880). The MagicBook 15 will hit the market in early October 2020, with a launch price of €700 ($825).
Rounding up the Honor hardware launch was the Honor Pad 6. The new Honor tablet features a 10.1-inch screen with an 80 percent screen to body ratio. Weighing in at just 460g and with the sturdy aluminum body, the Honor Pad 6 looks like a handy addition to Honor’s product line.
The Honor Pad 6 features a Kirin 710A processor with 3GB RAM with 32GB storage. There is also a 4GB and 64GB storage configuration. You’ll also be able to pick up a version with 4G/LTE support, and one that is Wi-Fi connection-only.
Other notable features include an easy switch to dedicated ebook mode, which changes the tablet to a different color scheme and overall style more suitable for reading.
It’s no wonder we see Honor laptops ranked so highly across retail outlets around the world. The US, the UK, and across Europe and Asia, Honor laptops continue to sell well. Its IFA 2020 additions will likely continue that upward trend.