Technologies

I Tested the Honor 400 Pro Phone and This Feature Blew My Mind

Review: The phone is packed with great tech but it’s the AI skills that really surprised me

The Honor 400 Pro phone stood out to me for one big reason during my testing time. It has an AI-powered tool that turns still images into moving video clips. The AI created videos felt at times like magic and took me on an emotional journey that I didn’t expect. But this phone has plenty going for it beyond its AI skills.

Its screen is bright and vibrant, it’s packed with power and at £700 in the UK, it’s relatively affordable and offers some serious competition to both Samsung’s $650 Galaxy S24 FE and arguably even Google’s $1,000 Pixel 9 Pro. The downside for many of you is that the Honor 400 Pro won’t be officially on sale in the US. And that’s a pity because at a time when nearly every phone release comes with AI features (most of which feel like gimmicks), Honor proves that it’s possible for phone AI to really capture your attention. The 400 Pro’s £700 price converts to $938.

There’s also the base Honor 400, which uses a lower-end processor, has a smaller display but still packs the same AI skills. It’ll cost only £400 in the UK, or $537, converted.

I’ve been testing the phone for the past week so here’s what’s good — and not so good — about the Honor 400 Pro.

A vibrant screen, plenty of power

The 400 Pro has a 6.7-inch screen that offers tons of room to do your favorite mobile games or YouTube videos justice. It’s bright enough to counter midday sun and its colors are vibrant. It’s got a maximum 120Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling around look nice and smooth.

The phone runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor that was a mainstay on most 2024 flagship Android phones and which put in some decent scores on our benchmark tests, considering the price. Its scores are in line with last year’s Galaxy S24 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which is no surprise as all three phones use the same chip. It’s got more than enough power to handle all of your everyday needs while tackling demanding games like Genshin Impact and PUBG at max settings without breaking a sweat.

Navigating around the Android 15 interface is a breeze. Honor’s skin of the UI is pretty standard, though I’m irked by the number of preinstalled apps the phone comes with. Temu, TikTok, LinkedIn, Booking.com, Amazon and something called ReelShort are all on the phone — along with various others — as soon as you turn it on making it feel quite cluttered from the off. I get that Honor probably makes a healthy bit of cash from these companies by forcing their apps on customers by default, but I’d like to see the phone be even cheaper given that it’s essentially ad-supported. You can uninstall these apps and I advise you to have an immediate clear-out once you get it out of the box.

Honor says the phone will receive six years of software and security support, which is quite good, though it’s a year behind the seven years of security support offered by both Samsung and Google. I’d like to see Honor (and other mobile companies) continue to battle to see who can support their phones for longer — it’s better for your wallet and it’s better for the planet.

AI. Lots of AI

No phone worth its salt in 2025 would launch without some form of AI, and the Honor 400 Pro is no exception. You’ll find a variety of the usual AI tools that range from a speech-to-text tool that transcribes dialogue in real time and a real-time language translation tool to a function that can rephrase, expand or summarise blocks of text.

Most of these are things you’ll find on most AI-enabled phones these days. They work about as well as the ones I’ve tried elsewhere. Google’s Gemini Advanced is also built in, another standard part of the Android experience.

The one feature that took me by surprise though was the image to video tool which creates a 5-second video out of a photo you provide. It’s simple: Open the Image to Video tool in the gallery, choose your source image from your camera roll and hit go. It takes around a minute but then you’ll be presented with an animated version of your still photo.

It uses Google’s VEO-2 AI model, and it seems essentially random in how it decides to bring your image to life as there are no options to provide prompts in what you want to see. Some results are quite bland while others have a lot more going on. The results can be hit and miss in their quality but it’s fun to play around with, though it’s arguably pointless beyond the sheer novelty of it. That said, I was conflicted when I fed it an image of my dad who died when I was a young child.

Right now the tool is available as part of a «free trial» although Honor has yet to confirm how long this trial lasts or how much it will eventually cost. AI is clearly a big part of the phone and while you can use it without using any of the AI tools, it feels like you’d be missing out on a big part of the equation if you chose to.

Hit and miss cameras, middling battery

On the back is a triple camera setup consisting of a 200-megapixel main camera (yes, I did mean to put two zeroes there), a 50-megapixel telephoto camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. Shots from all three cameras can look solid, with decent overall exposure (if sometimes a little on the bright side for my taste) and plenty of detail. I say «can» as while I have taken plenty of good images with the phone, I’ve also taken various ones that have disappointed me.

The 6x telephoto camera seems to struggle with exposure at times, with blown-out highlights visible in multiple test images I took. It doesn’t happen all the time though and there have been various occasions in my testing when its results look great. I can best describe it as «hit and miss.»

The cameras certainly aren’t the best around — you’ll need to splash more cash for the S25 Ultra or the iPhone 16 Pro if you want that — but they’re good enough for those of you looking for quick snaps on your travels to share with family and friends over WhatsApp or Instagram.

Inside the phone is a 5,300-mAh battery which should see you through most of a day of mixed use. It didn’t do great on our demanding battery drain test, but I’ve certainly seen worse. It does support 100W wired charging though so getting the juice back in is a speedy business.

Honor 400 Pro: Is it worth buying?

The phone’s vibrant display, powerful processor and solid camera setup make it a decent overall option if you’re looking for a phone that’s more affordable than today’s flagships. The AI skills are the cherry on the top, especially the image to video tool which I found genuinely fascinating to use. Will the novelty wear off? Yes, absolutely, but it’s certainly fun to play with for a while.

Technologies

Google Discover Gains Follow Button and Expands Content Sources

Google’s personalized news feed will feature a wider variety of content in the coming weeks.

Google Discover, Google’s personalized news feed, has largely remained the same since its introduction in 2018, but it’s now receiving some new and helpful features.

On Wednesday, Google announced that Discover will soon expand the type of content found within the feed and allow you to follow publications and creators. You can find Google Discover in the Google app, and it will be built into the home screens of some Android phones.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Instead of just seeing a list of web pages to visit on your feed, you’ll soon see a mix of web articles, YouTube videos and social media posts from X and Instagram, effectively widening the net of content shown in Discover.

Along with expanding content from more sources, Google Discover is allowing users to follow specific publishers and content creators using a «follow» button at the top right of each content card.

Google says that tapping the publication’s or creator’s name will open a new page previewing the content that’s typically shared before you choose to follow the outlet. From our testing across multiple phones so far, it appears the feature is still rolling out.

Your Google Discover feed should now allow you to follow content creators. A more diversified mix of content will roll out over the coming weeks.

Technologies

New Bill Aims to Block Both Online Adult Content and VPNs: How Your VPN Could Be Affected

A proposed bill in Michigan has a broad reach that covers everything from adult AI content to manga and even depictions of transgender people. It includes a VPN ban to avoid workarounds.

If you live in Michigan, you might not be able to legally use a VPN soon if a new bill is passed into law. On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

VPNs, or virtual private networks, are software suites often used as workarounds to avoid similar content bans that have passed in states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and the UK. VPNs can be purchased with subscriptions or downloaded and are also built into some browsers and Wi-Fi routers.

But Michigan’s bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state. Associated fines would be up to $500,000.

What the ban could mean for VPNs

Unlike some laws banning access to adult content, this Michigan bill is comprehensive. It applies to all residents of Michigan, adults or children, targets an extensive range of content and includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.

That could spell trouble for VPN owners and other internet users who leverage these tools to improve their privacy, protect their identities online, prevent ISPs from gathering data about them or increase their device safety when browsing on public Wi-Fi.

Read more: CNET Survey: 47% of Americans Use VPNs for Privacy. That Number Could Rise. Here’s Why

Bills like these could have unintended side effects. John Perrino, Senior Policy and Advocacy Expert for the nonprofit Internet Society, mentioned to CNET that adult content laws like this could interfere with what kind of music people can stream, the sexual health forums and articles they can access and even important news involving sexual topics that they may want to read.

«Additionally, state age verification laws are difficult for smaller services to comply with, hurting competition and an open internet,» Perrino said.

The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee or been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it’s not clear how much support the bill has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it. As we’ve seen with state legislation in the past, sometimes bills like these can serve as templates for other representatives who may want to propose similar laws in their own states.

Could VPNs still get around bans like these?

Could VPNs still get around this type of ban? That’s a complex question that this bill doesn’t really address.

«From a technical standpoint, ISPs can attempt to distinguish VPN traffic using deep packet inspection, or they can block known VPN IP addresses,» said NordVPN privacy advocate Laura Tyrylyte. «However, deploying them effectively requires big investments and ongoing maintenance, making large-scale VPN blocking both costly and complex.»

Also, VPNs have ways around deep packet inspection and other methods.

«Some VPNs offer obfuscation — which tries to disguise VPN traffic as standard web traffic — using dedicated servers or custom VPN protocols, like NordVPN’s NordWhisper or Proton VPN’s Stealth,» said CNET senior editor Moe Long. «But note that obfuscation isn’t foolproof.»

There are also no-log features offered by many VPNs to guarantee they don’t keep a record of your activity, and no-log audits from third parties like Deloitte that — well, try to guarantee the guarantee. VPNs can even use server tricks, such as RAM-only servers that automatically reboot to erase data after every browsing session.

If you’re seriously concerned about your data privacy, you can look for features like these in a VPN and see if they are right for you. Changes like these, even on the state level, are one reason we pay close attention to how specific VPNs work during our testing, and recommend the right VPNs for the job, from speedy browsing to privacy while traveling.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Sept. 19 #565

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Sept. 19, No. 565.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Do you drink your coffee black? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be a puzzler. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Pour it on.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Wow, no cow.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

NONE, CONE, RICER, SHEW, FAIR, FAIRY, DRAY, YARD, MILK, CASH, DONE, DRAM, MADAM

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: