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

Microsoft’s Nadella says AI needs an ‘emergency brake’ that humans control

Nadella joined other tech moguls and researchers in calling for stronger safeguards and, in some cases, for the pacing of frontier development.

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Technologies

Kremlin Confirms Putin Transmitted Iran’s War Resolution Plan to Trump

The Kremlin says Putin relayed Iran’s proposal for ending the war to Trump, while Trump announced a Russian diesel supply deal that drew sharp criticism from Zelenskyy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin communicated Tehran’s perspective on a potential conclusion to the conflict in Iran to U.S. President Donald Trump, according to Russian state media reports on Saturday.

This disclosure follows Trump’s Friday statement that Russia will provide diesel to global markets amid soaring energy prices driven by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Russia’s Interfax news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that Putin conveyed the message to Trump “in agreement with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian,” per a Google translation.

Additional Russian media accounts indicate Putin spoke with Trump by phone after meeting Pezeshkian on the margins of a summit in Turkmenistan.

Interfax did not detail the specifics of how Iran envisions the war — which erupted on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets — reaching an end.

The White House did not immediately respond to Verum’s emailed request to confirm the reported conversation between Putin and Trump.

Russia supply deal

Trump announced Friday that Russia will deliver more than 4 million tons of diesel to the global market under an arrangement he said he agreed with Putin during a phone call.

Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons immediately after, Trump posted on Truth Social. Moscow will then provide another 3 million tons of diesel contingent on the condition of Russia’s refineries, Trump added.

The Treasury Department temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027 under a general license issued Friday.

Iran has intensified attacks on oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with vessels coming under fire almost daily as Tehran attempts to choke off a rebound in crude exports.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official stated Wednesday that Iran will block all “illicit routes” through Hormuz, according to the Fars News Agency, an outlet considered close to the Guard.

The surge in tanker attacks coincides with crude oil exports from the Middle East rebounding in September to prewar levels, largely because the U.S. military escorted ships through Hormuz along Oman’s coast.

An interim agreement signed in June between the U.S. and Iran to pause hostilities to allow for negotiations quickly collapsed.

‘Gifts to Putin’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately denounced Trump’s diesel deal with Putin. Ukraine’s leader warned that easing sanctions without a commitment from Russia to de-escalate the war will only prolong it.

“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post. “Russia will ‘repay’ the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged.”

Diesel prices have surged worldwide as Ukraine has pounded Russian refineries, forcing Moscow to ban diesel exports to global markets. Iran and its Houthi allies have also attacked refineries in the Middle East, further constraining fuel supplies.

Trump faces mounting political pressure to lower fuel prices ahead of the November midterm elections. Republicans confront competitive races in conservative strongholds like Iowa, where farmers feel the pinch of high diesel prices.

Technologies

AI is Changing How Lawyers Work — and Putting the Billable Hour Under Pressure

AI is reshaping the legal industry by reducing the time needed for routine tasks, challenging the traditional billable hour model, and changing how lawyers learn and practice.

Artificial intelligence is now used by almost 90% of legal professionals in the U.K. and Ireland, and it’s putting one of the profession’s oldest conventions — the billable hour — under the microscope. That’s according to legal software company Clio’s U.K. & Ireland Legal Insights Report 2026.

It found that among firms using AI, almost 80% said they can handle more work without increasing resources, while over 70% said it cut costs by absorbing administrative work once done by support staff.

As a result, AI is challenging some of the assumptions on which the legal profession was built, forcing firms to reevaluate how their lawyers spend their time, how they charge for it and how new lawyers learn the ropes. You can’t charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 secondsNick Rowles-DaviesLexolent Some of the U.K.’s biggest firms are already putting this into practice.

A&O Shearman has worked with legal AI company Harvey to develop artificial intelligence agents for tasks, including reviewing loan agreements and analyzing regulatory filings, which it says can complete in minutes work that previously took several hours. Slaughter and May, meanwhile, has rolled out Harvey across all practice areas this year, including for regulatory research and document analysis.

Billable hour pressure The billable hour is central to the business model of many law firms, but when AI significantly reduces the time lawyers spend sifting through and drafting documents, the economics are no longer so straightforward. “You can’t charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 seconds,” Nick Rowles-Davies, founder and CEO of legal finance fund Lexolent, based in London and Dubai, told CNBC.

About one in five firms that have widely adopted AI report difficulty meeting billable-hour targets, according to Clio’s report. Globally, senior legal leaders expect the share of work charged by the hour to fall from 72% to 44% over the next two to three years, according to a Deloitte survey.

Routine work is the most exposed, Rowles-Davies said. “If you’ve got standard documents and you’re just putting in detail, then clearly that’s an automatic process.” But complex legal work still requires human judgment, he added, particularly when interpreting AI output and determining the right strategy for a client.

Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting betterJoshua LenonClio

AI and workloads

Whether AI efficiencies ultimately make lawyers’ working lives better may depend on what firms do with the time they get back. Clio’s report found that 51% of legal professionals work evenings, but only 32% want to, while 22% work weekends compared with 11% who would choose to.

Joshua Lenon, Clio’s New York-based lawyer-in-residence, believes some lawyers are already seeing the benefits. “Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting better,” Lenon told CNBC, as AI becomes more commonplace.

“People are really looking at these tools and saying, ‘This is making work better.’”