Skip to main content

Honor MagicBook Pro 14 beats the new MacBook Air in one striking way

The lid of the Honor MagicBook Pro 14 in green
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
MWC 2025
Read our complete coverage of Mobile World Congress

Although its name may suggest otherwise, Mobile World Congress (MWC) is not just a show for mobile devices. The business side touches every facet of the consumer technology industry, and many of the biggest companies unveil new products for the European and wider global markets.

The latest edition — MWC Barcelona 2025 — did oversee a return to form, with more mobile devices launched than in recent years, but one of the non-mobile devices that stood out for me was the Honor MagicBook Pro 14.

Recommended Videos

Why? Inside and out, it packs a big punch and won’t break the bank, but it does so in one of the most unique colorways I’ve seen on a laptop. Here are the key features, the color in question, and why it’s even more unique than the new Apple MacBook Air.

Flagship specs that you can customize

The Honor MagicBook Pro 14 in green and white
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

The Honor MagicBook Pro 14 costs the equivalent of $800, and you get a lot of choices for that price. It comes with a choice of two processors — the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H or Core Ultra 9 285H — and 1TB of storage. It comes with 16, 24, or 32GB of RAM depending on the processor and weighs just under 3 pounds.

Then there’s the choice of display, with the same 14.6-inch OLED display found across the touchscreen and non-touchscreen versions of the laptop. Whichever you choose, you’ll get a panel with excellent color accuracy that covers the entire DCI-P3 color space, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 700 nits.

The USB-C, HDMI and headphone jack ports on the Honor MagicBook Pro 14 in white
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

There are also two USB 3.2 Type-C ports and two USB-A ports. The former support data speeds up to 10 Gbit/s and can be used to charge the device, but they are both on the left side of the machine next to the headphone jack and HDMI 2.1 port. On the other side, the two USB-C ports support data speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, while there is also a full-HD webcam, a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button, two speakers, and three microphones.

The package is powered by a 92Wh battery that should deliver up to 12 hours of battery life but likely won’t match the new MacBook Air’s record 18-hour battery life. The Honor MagicBook Pro 14 isn’t the slimmest or lightest, but it is one of the most unique and striking laptops in one key way.

The most unique laptop color

The Honor MagicBook Pro 14 in green
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

The majority of technology looks boring. Most smartphone makers offer devices in a small subset of the color spectrum, and while some phone makers also offer colorful choices, laptops, in particular, haven’t really followed.

Apple chose to take a step in this direction this week with the launch of the new MacBook Air, which swaps out the Space Gray model in favor of a lovely Sky Blue, but that’s still a version of a standardized color.

Honor chose the new MagicBook Pro 14 to debut a beautiful light green colorway that is one of the most striking. We’ve seen green in laptops before, but these have often been much darker hues that look almost black — I’ve never seen a company adopt such a light hue. Of course, light green won’t be for everyone, so there’s also a shiny white version that isn’t anywhere near as unique.

More laptops need to be colorful

The Honor MagicBook Pro 14 in green and white
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

When Apple replaced Space Gray with Sky Blue in its new MacBook Air lineup, I was shocked. The company makes a range of beautiful and colorful iMacs, which are designed to be statement pieces in the home, but it hasn’t strayed from its core color values in the laptop space.

Many have waited for Apple to bring its iMac colors to more of its lineup, but even when doing so, the company has stuck to a core color choice. Yes, the new Sky Blue is absolutely stunning, but it’s not as out-there as bringing the yellow, purple, or pink iMac colors to the MacBook Air.

I hope that we see Apple launch more colorful laptops in the future, but until we do, the Honor MagicBook Pro 14 will remain one of the most unique color choices that you can buy. I also hope that more companies engage with color choices as laptops can be quite homogeneous, and I would love to see more colorful choices.

Nirave Gondhia
Nirave is a creator, evangelist, and founder of House of Tech. A heart attack at 33 inspired him to publish the Impact of…
If you’re considering a Sky Blue MacBook Air, you might want to act quickly
M4 MacBook Air

Apple has announced two iPad models, the Mac Studio, and the MacBook Air so far this year, and out of all of these products, the Sky Blue MacBook Air is expected to sell the most. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple is expecting high demand for all the latest devices but the new color option for the budget MacBook is expected to be particularly hot.

https://x.com/markgurman/status/1898825550028013879

Read more
10 years ago today, Apple launched a revolutionary MacBook that failed spectacularly
An Apple 12-inch MacBook on a desk.

Ten years ago today, Apple unveiled the 12-inch MacBook to the world, claiming it had “reinvented the notebook” for the better. The laptop almost instantly divided opinion, with fans and detractors at each other’s throats from the start. And sure, it was by no means perfect, but look a little closer and I think you’ll find a device that has had a monumental impact on the world of computing -- not just on Apple, but on the industry as a whole.

The 12-inch MacBook is often seen as a flop and as a product emblematic of the excesses of Apple’s Jony Ive era, where the design guru’s penchant for thinness and lightness ruled all. The fact that this MacBook was discontinued after just four years is seen as proof of this idea.

Read more
The new MacBook Air has got a small, but significant keyboard update
M4 MacBook Air

This week, Apple introduced three new products: a fresh MacBook Air, iPad Air, and iPad. One thing each of these devices has in common is that they basically look the same as the models they are replacing—except for one tiny detail on the new MacBook.

As iCulture’s noted first, the new laptop addresses a design flaw that Apple has had for the past 26 years. Since the launch of the PowerBook G3 ‘Lombard’ in 1999, the mute key on every Apple laptop has featured a speaker icon. However, this design does not clearly indicate that the button can both mute and unmute the computer’s audio. With the introduction of the new MacBook Air, the keyboard now displays a speaker icon with a strike-through, clearly signaling its full function. For those keeping score at home, the button in question is the F10 key.

Read more