Wanne be careful about banning Huawei the lads, you might miss out on some good cheap kit.
The Honor MagicBook Pro looks nice, runs like a dream, and isn't too expensive either. What more could you want?
With its lucrative mobile business being decimated outside of Mainland China, Huawei's youth-focused sub-brand Honor has shifted towards laptops and other personal tech kit. Its latest machine is the MagicBook Pro, which touts a 16.1-inch display and a brisk Ryzen 5 processor. It's a curious beast, with Honor explicitly …
COMMENTS
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Monday 7th September 2020 09:49 GMT Charlie Clark
How much does it weigh?
If you want to make a notebook expensive, try and make it light. 16" screen at only FHD is certainly usable but will also tax the battery, though maybe a bit less than a 4k one does. But, in any case, a 16" is likely to be too heavy to want to lug around a lot. I generally recommend something smaller and lighter that you can easily connect to a larger external screen when its on your desk. And if you don't need mobility, don't buy a notebook.
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Monday 7th September 2020 14:42 GMT Blackjack
Re: How much does it weigh?
Dude we are in the pandemic era. People no longer want light laptops with long battery time, they want power laptops that can run every heavy program they need to work at home... and to play games at home.
And working from home won't disappeared even after we get a vaccine, at least a third of the office workforce will continue to work from home as it saves companies money.
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Monday 7th September 2020 15:45 GMT doublelayer
Re: How much does it weigh?
Businesses want that, but personal machines often are purchased with different requirements in mind. For one thing, you don't need a big screen or keyboard if you're going to be using it as a desktop with a battery backup, and in fact size is probably not helpful as it makes it harder to put the computer away while using the full-sized peripherals. Meanwhile, people still have a need for a laptop which is portable and runs for long enough because there are times when we have to wait elsewhere. Parents, for example, may need to wait for their children and may wish to be productive while doing so. Or you could be in a queue at somewhere which has a long wait because of pandemic restrictions. For use cases like this, battery life is quite important as are the quality and size of the internal display and keyboard.
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Monday 7th September 2020 16:18 GMT 20TC
New requirements / brandname
A reasonable 16" screen sitting next to (or propped up next to) an external 24" monitor is a good dual-screen setup for many who are forcible working at home.
As they start to go back to the office for 2 or 3 days a week, it is acceptable to take a 16" 1.7Kg laptop back and forward.
It isn't suitable as a road warriors PC or power user, of course. But there is (for the next couple of years) this new category of part-home, part-office workers and this is quite an interesting product for that class.
The bigger question for an average IT manager: would you buy a fleet of Honor "Huawei" PCs? I'm not suggesting they are likely to spy on you more than the operating system itself but is it worth trying to explain that to the MD or just buying another brand?
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Monday 7th September 2020 19:25 GMT doublelayer
Re: New requirements / brandname
Probably. It depends on repairability, compatibility with existing docks, and a reliability calculation that might not yet be available, but otherwise it's just a different model. Companies already routinely consider at least five brands, so adding another one shouldn't be that difficult.
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 18:33 GMT Onen hag Oll
Re: New requirements / brandname
Meanwhile, people still have a need for a laptop which is portable and runs for long enough because there are times when we have to wait elsewhere. Parents, for example, may need to wait for their children and may wish to be productive while doing so
If it's anything like my children; no battery lasts that long
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 01:21 GMT doublelayer
Re: Or you could be in a queue
Depends on the location and style of queues. I'm in an urban place so I see the typical types, but I've been informed by people who live in more open places of queues of cars, sometimes very long ones. If you have to sit in a car for two hours (this happened to a friend of mine), you can type on a laptop. Especially if you're not the one driving.
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Wednesday 9th September 2020 11:39 GMT GiantKiwi
Re: MagicBook
Honor don't sell in the US to avoid this problem. Only US Law allows companies to sue for a likeness of an existing trademark or patent, most other countries will only allow chasing for infringement if it were literally called the "Honor Macbook".
They, like the true Huawei macbook-esque laptops, will continue to remain safe from Apple lawyer trolling whilst they remain outside of the US market, as nothing has been broken.
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 23:12 GMT Dave559
Re: MagicBook
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. It has to be said that this looks like it would make (in theory) an excellent Hackintosh, and somewhat ironic that it seems to have rather more accessible/upgradeable components than the real thing!
Annoying that they have mimicked the design to such an extent that it's also missing proper Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDown/etc keys. That's something that makes me really wish Apple would introduce a size 14 laptop (16 is too big to be portable, let alone the cost), which would have plenty room for that additional column of keys (13 could also do it, if they shifted the keyboard leftwards slightly).
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Monday 7th September 2020 10:28 GMT IGotOut
Re: Decimated
One day the pedants will learn to use a dictionary.
Collins:
To decimate something such as a group of people or animals means to destroy a very large number of them.
Mirriam-Webster
3a: to reduce drastically especially in number
b: to cause great destruction or harm to
Lexico.com (Oxford Dictionary)
1Kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.
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Monday 7th September 2020 11:23 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Decimated
You're correct, meaning is use. Latin roots don't determine modern sense - nobody expects a dilapidated garden shed to have stones falling off it.
The problem is that deci isn't just a random Latin root, but a prefix with a mathematical meaning. A made-up unit such as a decihelen is clearly the level of beauty required to launch 100 ships.
So decimate will always cause cognitive dissonance, not least because its meaning has been inverted. Best to avoid it altogether and use a synonym.
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Monday 7th September 2020 15:49 GMT doublelayer
Re: Decimated
Deci does mean one tenth, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any word using the root means to reduce by one tenth. It could also mean to reduce to one tenth, to reduce by tenths until the desired outcome, to divide into ten even sections without reducing any of them, or any other mathematical operation you want to create where 0.1 is an important factor.
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Monday 7th September 2020 21:43 GMT FIA
Re: Decimated
December used to be the 10th month (with November the 9th, October the 8th, and September the 7th).
After this year I’m really looking forward to intermission.
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Monday 7th September 2020 14:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Decimated
Are you aware some words have more than one meaning?
The bits you conveniently didn't copy:
Collins:
[British]
2. (esp in the ancient Roman army) to kill every tenth man of (a mutinous section)
[American]
3. Obsolete [ok, fair enough you skipped this one]
to take a tenth part of; tithe
Mirriam Webster [the first two you skipped over!]
1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of decimate a regiment
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from poor as a decimated Cavalier— John Dryden
Lexico:
2 historical Kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group.
‘the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers’
Usage
Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people)’. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of’, as in the virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English
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Monday 7th September 2020 15:52 GMT doublelayer
Re: Decimated
I'm afraid you may have shot your argument in the foot there. You said:
"Are you aware some words have more than one meaning?"
Yes, they seem to be. The original argument about decimate only applied to one of the meanings, and they proved that there are additional meanings which were used in this situation. You have only proved that the original meaning is still one of the options, not that it is the only option. By asking that question, I think you are also admitting the validity of their definitions, and thus the article's usage.
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Monday 7th September 2020 20:02 GMT Robigus
Re: Decimated
Fair enough. The joke icon was perhaps a too subtle indicator of not entirely pedantic intent.
I was referring to its original meaning (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army) ). In a world of righteousness and relativism; anything can mean anything you want it too.
More importantly, other websites report that this laptop runs Linux very well.
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 16:17 GMT eromana
Re: Decimated
Accordig to wikipedia: Plutarch describes the process in his work Life of Antony.[7] After a defeat in Media:
Antony was furious and employed the punishment known as "decimation" on those who had lost their nerve. What he did was divide the whole lot of them into groups of ten, and then he killed one from each group, who was chosen by lot; the rest, on his orders were given barley rations instead of wheat.[8]
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Thursday 10th September 2020 17:10 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: And the software?
In my limited experience, you can install Linux on anything. I suspect that you may forego some features present in an OEM Windows build, such as:
- optimizations that extend battery life
- switching between a discrete graphics processor and a lower-powered on-chip one
- fingerprint recognition
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Friday 11th September 2020 14:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: And the software?
In my limited experience, you can install Linux on anything.
Not quite. Microsoft is rumoured to run a nice scam (all the while whilst making cute supportive noises for Linux) where they offer OEMs a discount on their mandatory installs of Win 10 if they lock UEFI so no other OS can be installed.
This is why a test would be helpful, preferably with Debian so we could be sure the distro wasn't paying a tithe to Microsoft to be allowed in anyway.
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Monday 7th September 2020 10:45 GMT Dave 126
People's preference for 16:9 over 16:10 or 3:2 is up to them. Huawei offer 3:2 screens on their Matebook series.
A second charge-capable USB C socket would be nice, since it adds reduncy should one fail (though I get the impression USBC sockets are more reliable than some laptops' barrel connectors).
Being AMD, I don't suppose it supports Thunderbolt, though for many people that's no big deal. Being able to use an external GPU is a nice concept, but it still appears to be niche.
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Monday 7th September 2020 10:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Intrigued
I was intrigued. So I went to take a look and sure enough it says keyboard is Chinese. As for value at £1700 it's probably cheaper than a apple but since Donald Trump so fond of saying you should learn to speak Chinese.
I've seen worse. A bean counter ordered a number of laptop's thinking they were good value. One problem was imminently obvious the all came with US keyboards. This is why IT budgets should left in the hands of IT people not in the hands of bean counters.
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Monday 7th September 2020 11:00 GMT GlenP
Re: Intrigued
IT budgets should left in the hands of IT people not in the hands of bean counters
And definitely not senior managers. Had an MD of a company I dealt with many years ago buy a flashy Sony Vaio from Dixons/PC World/... instead of sticking to the corporate recommendations. 13 months later I had to scrap it due to total unavailability of drivers or support. They'd been bought as a job lot by Dixons direct from Japan so Sony UK weren't interested, the supplier wouldn't help as it was out of warranty and the components must have come from either the obsolete bin or some very obscure supplier.
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Monday 7th September 2020 15:52 GMT J. Cook
Re: Intrigued
No, that's SOP for Sony VAIOs, at least their notebooks. I had one a number of years ago that had a tendency to BSOD due to a fault in the video driver; problem is, I couldn't use the standard ATI Radeon driver kits, because Sony did something to the GPU's firmware that made the Radeon drivers refuse to install, so I was stuck with the crappy, buggy driver that Sony had for it. Shame, it was an otherwise decent laptop, too.
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Monday 7th September 2020 16:47 GMT Muscleguy
Re: Intrigued
I run a mid 2010 15” Macbook Pro, the one with the dodgy motherboard & supposedly nifty auto switching between the graphics card and the integrated graphics chipset. Only it BSOD’s if it does and there is no cure. Except for the excellent gfxCardStatus which lets me set things at Integrated Only. Thunderbird locks that in place nicely. So everything is nice and stable unless I need to restart T’bird then I hover of the gfx icon ready to pounce if necessary since T’bird will also lock in one of the ‘wrong’ settings.
Running Sierra, cannot upgrade to High Sierra since gfx doesn’t run in it. Over a decade old and it still works like new. New battery, new HD, more RAM up to max. Still has some stuff my bioinformaticist daughter put on it when it was hers. I’m slowly getting to grips with R for eg.
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 11:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Intrigued
I used to leave my IT budget in the hands of the IT team, and we rarely got past 9 months before it was overcommitted. Enthusiasm and entirely reasonable anxiety to get the best first doesn’t always add up to budgetary realism. The trick is not to succumb to name-calling and prejudgment (‘bean-counters’? - grow up, chaps) but to get a team of committed and knowledgeable people together and use their skills coherently. They will need to value each other’s skills, btw, and rely on each other’s integrity where each has gaps in their knowledge that others can fill - rather than assuming that everything this side of the door is my domain.
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Monday 7th September 2020 11:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "What more could you want?"
Does this answer your query?. Laptops will run Linux however NVIDIA display cards can cause kernel panics. Research,Research,Research.....
Description:
HUAWEI Honor MagicBook Pro 2020 16.1 inch 90% Ratio Display Intel i5 / i7-10210U MX350 16GB 512GB SSD 100% sRGB Fingerprint Notebook
The 2020 latest HUAWEI Honor MagicBook Pro Laptop is more powerful and larger than ever before.
Featuring the Intel 10th generation i5 / i7-10210U and the popular NVIDIA Geforce MX350 is easier to handle more multitasking progress and graphics shaping. Adopted in 16.1 inch 100% sRGB color gamut with more than 90% ratio full view screen for capturing wider horizons and more vivid color while gaming or watching. Large in 16GB RAM 512GB SSD, safe with fingerprint technique and amazing on 56Wh Battery, the brand new HUAWEI MagicBook Pro 2020 will be in your budget to offer more performance.
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Monday 7th September 2020 22:39 GMT Dave 126
Re: "What more could you want?"
I really don't believe there isn't a website somewhere tests - or least collects users' experiences of - laptops for Linux as their raisin d'etre... so I'm always confused when poor penguins pitch their questions here and not there.
For sure, occasionally the Reg will take a stab at installing Linux, but it isn't their MO to go super in-depth on any machine on any OS.
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Monday 7th September 2020 11:03 GMT Steve Kerr
Fruity look
Looks very similar to a fruity based laptop
I for one will be looking at for any lawsuits from said fruity company about copying looks with interest to see how that progresses.
Saying that, it does look really good based on the specs and looks like they're trying to undercut everyone else in the market
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 07:24 GMT NeilPost
Re: Fruity look
It looks like a thin laptop on as much as BMX Z4 looks a bit similar to a Mercedes SLK or a Whopper Cheese is a bit like a 1/4 Pounder with cheese or Tesco Chicken and Bacon sandwich is a bit like a Morrison’s one.
There is no patent, trademark or ‘prior art’ to breach there.
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Monday 7th September 2020 16:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Trademark violation?
If it looks like a Macbook, then it's not about trademarks, but registered designs/design rights (in the UK. In the US these are called "design patents" which causes no end of confusion). Unless Apple have trademarked "aluminium-chassis laptops".
They might well struggle to win, as long as Honor don't put a fruity logo on the back.
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Monday 7th September 2020 16:00 GMT doublelayer
Re: Gaming...
A cursory check says probably not. Thunderbolt is more an Intel thing. AMD processors can support it, but usually only with one of only a few boards, and all the ones I found are for desktops. This laptop's may be customized to support it, but more likely they haven't considered it as it doesn't appear in marketing for the device.
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Monday 7th September 2020 12:44 GMT nautica
It's in The Book.
Finally. A manufacturer with some sense (Lenovo seems to be headed off the rails).
The only thing I can do is engage in that most popular of pastimes: second-guessing.
The only thingS (different; that I would want) I can think of are (1) a 14" screen (I travel, and being able to easily carry it around is vital), and (2) a 4:3 aspect ratio--that's what God intended; it's in The Bible, somewhere. Trust me.
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Monday 7th September 2020 16:27 GMT Buzzword
Order early to get free gifts
If you order early, they throw in a free Honor watch and router. As I have no need of either device, I think I'll just wait until the pre-sale is over.
The cynic in me thinks it's just a ploy to get their router hardware installed in lots of people's houses, all the better to spy on us.
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Monday 7th September 2020 17:16 GMT Steve 39
On their UK website, in the specs section under "Excellent Performance Across Different Apps", we have "Adobe After Effects - Video Rendering speed increases by 20%". Fair enough, that may be true. Awkwardly worded but ok.
But under "Microsoft Visual Studio", we have "Programming speed increases by 90%". I'm trying to work that one out. They are a huge company, they should really make a bit more sense with some of their marketing or translation.
Still, it seems excellent value.
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Tuesday 8th September 2020 11:51 GMT Ashto5
Bean Counters & IT Managers
A while ago ..
We had a need to replace ALL the laptops and desktops (full upgrade cycle)
I.T. listed the specs and placed the order £70k
Bean counter objected
I.T. Manager jumped in and altered the specs to fit the "new" budget.
Kit arrived with 5,400 rpm hard drives and processors 2 levels lower than we requested.
Supplier refused to take them back.
They sat in the corner for years as they were slower than the kit we already had.
"A camel is a horse designed by committee"