Honor MagicBook Pro 14 vs. Apple MacBook Pro 14 M5 - Who offers the best multimedia laptop?

Both models use aluminum cases with a very high quality, but Apple still has the edge with its unibody design. However, Honor offers better maintenance options (SSD can be upgraded) and also a wider opening angle of the display. Both devices feature Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI, but USB-A is only available on the Honor, whereas the MacBook can be charged from both sides. Both models are also limited to Wi-Fi 6E.

The keyboard and the haptic trackpad are pretty equal. Apple has a larger touchpad, while Honor offers more key travel. However, Honor also offers a touchscreen, which is not available in the MacBook Pro.

The two manufacturers use different display technologies - OLED in the Honor MagicBook and Mini-LED in the Macbook Pro. First of all, both devices offer great subjective image quality with full P3 color gamut, accurate color profiles for P3 as well as sRGB and 120 Hz. Honor offers a touchscreen, while Apple also offers a matte version.

In terms of brightness, the easy winner is Apple. It can reach up to 1,000 nits in SDR mode with activated brightness sensor, while the Honor is limited to 500 nits. Apple's panel is also superior with HDR contents, where it reaches up to 1,600 nits (Honor ~770 nits) and we just have to say that Apple's HDR handling is still so much better compared to Windows. Advantages of the OLED screen are faster response times (the Mini-LED screen is just a regular IPS panel after all) and there is also no blooming.

The performance is an interesting point, because the difference between the M5 and the Core Ultra 5 338H with the fast Arc B370 GPU is not huge, even though Apple's chip is much more efficient, as we have clearly seen in our Panther Lake analysis. Both systems are very fast in everyday situations and the M5 is clearly superior in terms of CPU performance. Especially the single-core performance of the M5 is currently the fastest processor you can get in a laptop (it does not matter which size or performance class). The Arc B370 is a bit more powerful than the M5 GPU and the optional Arc B390 would be even faster. In native games, the MacBook also performs well and both models are pretty much on par, but the MagicBook Pro 14 is not limited to a handful of games. Both models are limited to PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

Apple always uses very defensive fan curves, so the devices are always very quiet in everyday scenarios and even short peak load is usually covered without the use of the fans. However, the MacBook Pro 14 M5 only gets a reduced cooling unit with just one fan, so the MacBook Pro 14 actually gets much louder (up to 48 dB(A)) under high loads compared to the Honor (up to 43 dB(A)). The Honor also convinces with a quiet cooling solution in everyday scenarios. In terms of speakers, the MagicBook Pro 14 is not bad, but the MacBook is superior and sounds better. The situation is not clear in terms of battery runtime, even though the Honor also uses a larger battery. Apple manages 16.7 hours in our Wi-Fi test at 150 nits compared to 14.9 hours for Honor, but the latter is better at full SDR brightness with 8.8 hours compared to just 5.6 hours on the MacBook Pro (to be fair though, the SDR brightness on the Honor is a bit lower at 500 vs. 640 nits).

It is not an easy decision and small aspects and personal preferences will probably make the difference. Both devices are very good overall, which is why the price will play an important role as well. We are still waiting for official prices of the MagicBook Pro 14 2026, but we expect lower prices compared to Apple if you take the 1 TB version (currently starting at $1599 on Amazon). The cheapest MacBook Pro 14 M5 with a 512 GB SSD currently starts at $1549, while the SKU with 24 GB RAM will set you back at least $1845.

Please see our comprehensive review for more information on the new Honor MagicBook Pro 14 2026.