This Snapdragon chipset is going to power some of 2025's top mid-range phones
Qualcomm has revealed its latest upcoming phone tech for 2025. The new Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset is designed to power a new wave of phones that don't cost flagship money, but still want to deliver slick performance and AI features straight from the 8-series playbook. It's a step-down from this year's Snapdragon 8 Elite, but still promises plenty of oomph.
Compared to last year's Snapdragon 7-series chip, this is a big step up. The Gen 4 sees a 27% CPU boost, 30% faster graphics, and a 65% jump in AI performance. Qualcomm's also brought over some welcome features from its top-tier chip, like Stable Diffusion image generation and on-device support for large language models. On the gaming front, it's shaping up well too. Snapdragon Game Super Resolution is here to keep visuals sharp, and there's a new Adaptive Performance Engine that reacts to in-game scenes in real time to balance power and performance.
Cameras also get a bump thanks to a triple 12-bit ISP. That means support for 200MP photo capture, new AI-powered auto settings, and real-time video enhancements like zoomed-in super resolution. It's also the first Snapdragon 7-series chip with hardware-level image stabilisation for videos.
Connectivity has been beefed up too. Expect download speeds of up to 4.2Gbps on sub-6GHz 5G, plus full Wi-Fi 7 support, and new Bluetooth features like device-finding tech. Snapdragon Sound is also onboard, with XPAN wireless coverage that stretches across entire buildings and lossless music support.
This chip is set to debut in a range of mid-range smartphones coming out throughout the rest of 2025. Expect the first devices to come from Honor and Vivo, with announcements later this month.
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Stuff.tv
29-05-2025
- Stuff.tv
I tried Garmin's Forerunner 570 smartwatch on launch day at its HQ in Kansas City
When it comes to running watches, Garmin's Forerunner range is a bit of a legend. The series has been the trusty training sidekick for runners of all levels for years – whether that's beginners just getting going with 5Ks or those going deep into marathon training. I was at the brand's massive global HQ in Olathe, Kansas City, this week for the official launch of its brand new watches in this series, where it not only unveiled the flagship Forerunner 970, but also a fresh mid-range model, the Forerunner 570. We'd already seen a few leaks of the flagship leading up to launch, so that was kind of expected, but the 570 was a total surprise. Garmin's Forerunner 570 is now available with a retail price starting from $549.99/£459.99/AU$999. While that's not exactly budget territory, it's still well below the Forerunner 970 and Fenix range while bringing over a lot of the most useful features. Not just a cosmetic refresh, the Forerunner 570 boasts a beefier update that quietly replaces the Forerunner 265 and, in doing so, ends the 200-series moniker altogether. Something Garmin's VP of fitness and outdoor said was necessary because there was 'too much of a jump' between the 100 and 200 series watches. Taking the mid-range Forerunner into the 500s helps users understand the difference between the different series, he said, where the 100 Series is for beginners, the 500 Series for enthusiasts, and the 900 Series for professionals. It's also ditched the old 'S' naming convention, which is a relief. So what's it like on the wrist? Let's break down what's stood out during my early testing and why I reckon this will be one to watch from Garmin. Stunningly vibrant I've only had a few hours with the Forerunner 570 so far, but it was enough time to get a solid feel for the upgrades – and there are quite a few. Coming in two sizes of 42mm and 47mm, the refresh isn't just a small bump up in spec – it boasts some snazzy new colour ways never-before-seen in the series, a slew of new training tools, but – most notably – a much better screen. I've been testing out the 42mm model, which sports a 1.2-inch display with a 390×390 resolution, and the first thing I noticed was just how bright and sharp it is. I'd say it's more vibrant than anything Garmin's done before – it's super easy to read in bright sunlight, and it's simply a pleasure to look at. If you're coming from a Forerunner 255 or 265, you'll notice this improvement right away. Somewhere else Garmin has switched things up for this launch is the Forerunner's new colour options. Things are much more loud and playful this time 'round. While my test model is the straight-up black for those who want to keep things minimal, there are some fruitier options to choose from, such as a raspberry with a translucent bone/mango band, a yellow with a translucent whitestone/turquoise combo, or indigo paired with purple. They're pretty out there, and I can imagine they'll divide opinion among potential customers, but from what Garmin has said, that's the point. As Collin Murray, the company's senior industrial designer, put it: 'We're looking forward to the polarising feedback about the colours [ …] If you hate them, there's a black watch.' In classic Garmin style, the 570's design is solid, well-built in all the right places and feels like it'll stand the test of time. It's also super comfortable on the wrist, which will be good news for those who prefer long distance running. Training smarter Looks aside, the Forerunner 570 packs in plenty of proper upgrades under the hood. One of the standout additions is the new training readiness score, which checks your sleep, recovery and training load each morning and tells you whether it's a good day to push or take it easy. This is handy if, like me, you don't always trust your own judgment when planning a workout. Another new, noteworthy feature is auto-lap. This means you can load the official course into the watch during races and it'll trigger laps based on real mile or kilometre markers, not just GPS. If you've ever had your watch beep '1 mile' long before you hit the race sign, you'll know how useful that'll be. The 570 series is also bringing wrist-based running power in the form of training effect, VO2 max, and daily workouts that adapt based on how you've been running. Multi-band GPS and SatIQ are here too, giving better tracking without rinsing your battery. Speaking of, Garmin says it'll last up to 11 days in smartwatch mode. While I've not yet had a chance to test it out, that's a little lower than the 265's quoted 13 days, but since you're getting a much nicer display and some new tech in the mix, it's not a bad trade. On the smarter side of things, you've now got a speaker and mic for calls and voice control, plus music downloads (Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music), Garmin Pay, safety features like incident detection, and wellness tracking for sleep and stress. Basically, all the useful bits. Garmin Forerunner 570 early verdict The launch of the 570 feels like the Forerunner range is coming into its own again. The brighter screen is a joy to look at during use, GPS accuracy seems top-notch, and the design feels like it has more personality than ever. You're also getting proper performance insights, smart features that should genuinely help, and the lots of new features across different areas of fitness and health that makes it more than just a running watch. Based on my early impressions here in Kansas City, the Forerunner 570 is shaping up to be one of Garmin's best ever mid-range releases.
Stuff.tv
22-05-2025
- Stuff.tv
My test found the Honor 400 Pro's image to video AI a bit freaky, but I still think it's a fantastic mid-ranger
Stuff Verdict An exceptionally capable all-rounder. The Honor 400 Pro might not have the same mainstream appeal as its Big Three rivals, but it easily competes with them on cameras, battery and software smarts. Pros Long-lasting battery with rapid wired and wireless charging Colourful, engaging photos in almost all conditions Extensive AI toolbox and upper-tier performance for everything else Cons Some might find all the AI photography features a little creepy A little less pre-installed bloat should be standard at this price Introduction Honor's mid-season smartphone launches have been blurring the line between mid-range and flagship for a while now. The formula is largely the same: show up roughly six months after the firm's tip-tier Magic model, packing the sort of spec you'd usually expect to pay a lot more for. The Honor 400 series also continues the firm's trend for starting with a cut-price Lite version, before following it up with a more potent bigger brother. The Honor 400 Pro feels like a very different proposition to the Honor 400 Lite, though. The iPhone-imitating styling is gone, replaced with more a bespoke look; photography is even more of a focus, with an extra-large helping of AI; and the price has put it closer to big-name rivals – while still staying the right side of affordable. At £699 (there's no US release planned, as is usual for Honor) it undercuts the Google Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25, and slips between the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16. With hardware that has all three beat in places, could it be 2025's first genuine upper-midrange model surprise? How we test smartphones Every phone reviewed on Stuff is used as our main device throughout the testing process. We use industry standard benchmarks and tests, as well as our own years of experience, to judge general performance, battery life, display, sound and camera image quality. Manufacturers have no visibility on reviews before they appear online, and we never accept payment to feature products. Find out more about how we test and rate products. Design & build: much more personality My first thoughts after taking the Honor 400 Pro out of its box? 'Now this is more like it.' I'd been disappointed by the 400 Lite's 'Me too' styling, which tried way too hard to be an iPhone at pocket money pricing; the Pro feels far more unique, with a slightly rounded frame, subtle quad-curved glass up front, and a distinctive rear camera housing. There really are three sensors underneath the three lenses this time, and it's glass on the rear rather than polycarbonate, which wraps neatly into the frame. OK, Lunar Grey and Midnight Black aren't the most exciting two colour choices, especially compared to some of Honor's more out-there offerings lately, but the materials feel suitably luxe for the money. Honor hasn't included the AI camera button found on the 400 Lite, which only further highlights how different the two phones are, despite sharing a name. I feel it would've made a lot of sense to bring it back here, given the better camera setup; maybe next year. At 8.1mm it's not the slimmest mid-ranger around; nor is it the lightest, tipping the scales at 205g. But it sits very comfortably in the hand and those subtly protruding camera lenses mean it slips easily in and out of a trouser pocket. It's also impressively durable, with both IP68 and IP69 resistance ratings. Protection from high pressure water jets probably isn't something you'll need on the regular, but it's still nice to have in a phone that doesn't cost four figures. Honor has brought back its secure face recognition, via an iPhone-esque pill-shaped screen cutout, and also offers fingerprint biometrics from an under-display sensor. I liked having both configured, so I could quickly skip the lock screen regardless of lighting conditions or the angle I was holding the phone. Both worked quickly and accurately enough. Screen & sound: easy on the eyes The 400 Pro's bright and colourful AMOLED screen isn't a huge step down from the flagship Magic 7 Pro's. It's ever-so-slightly smaller at 6.7in, but has the same 2800×1280 resolution, and Honor has carried over the subtle 2.5D glass as well. This doesn't reflect light anywhere near as much as a properly curved-edge screen would, yet feels more in keeping with modern phone design trends – without being a carbon copy of any flat-screened rivals. Viewing angles in general are fantastic, and given its an OLED panel underneath contrast is understandably rather brilliant. Black levels are suitably deep and inky, and the 120Hz refresh rate ensures scrolling is as smooth as silk. Streaming content was a pleasure to kick back with, particularly shows shot in HDR. Those really let the 400 Pro's extreme peak brightness shine. 5000nits is about as good as it gets in the phone world, although that figure only counts a tiny portion of the screen at a time. The phone doesn't get anywhere near as bright in everyday use, but I couldn't fault it for outdoor visibility. Even on especially sunny days, I could clearly see what was onscreen. It fared well against the impressively potent Google Pixel 9 XL, which costs considerably more. It's great to see all of Honor's usual eye comfort tech included here. As well as dialling out extra blue light, the phone supports high frequency dimming and automatically adjusts its colour temperature to lower eye fatigue. The defocusing mode softens the screen edges to help here too, which is something you won't find on rival Androids. I liked how dark the extra dim settings gets for night-time reading, too. The Honor 400 Pro's speakers put in a strong showing, with the earpiece tweeter and down-firing main driver delivering more than enough volume for headphone-free listening. Sound is generally clean and clear, with the usual lack of bass I expect from any phone speaker setup. Cameras: AI video arrives On pixel count alone, the Honor 400 Pro looks formidable. There's a 200MP lead snapper (with optical image stabilisation, naturally), backed up by a 50MP telephoto (also with OIS) equipped for 3x optical zoom. The 12MP ultrawide leans more mid-range, but also doubles as a macro shooter with a very short 2.5cm focus distance. A 50MP selfie can up front completes the set. Sensor cropping expands the camera's reach from 0.6x to 6x before digital zoom properly comes into play, and you're offered a trio of colour modes. These either give your snaps authentic, natural-looking hues, more vivid and highly saturated shots, or an analogue film-style treatment that ups the vignetting and strips out a little warmth. I liked experimenting with them on the Magic 7 Pro at the start of 2025, so it's great to see them return here – even if a lot of owners are likely to pick one of the three and rarely stray from it. Most of my shots were taken in Vibrant mode, which is selected by default. Honor's partnership with Studio Harcourt has also returned for the portrait mode, for moody black-and-white snaps that do a pretty decent job of preserving loose hairs and finer edge details. Algorithms are just as important as pixels, of course, and for the most part the Honor 400 Pro delivers. The lead lens captures a glorious amount of detail as you'd expect, along with convincing and vibrant colours. Colour and exposure consistency between it and the other two lenses is rather great too, if not quite up there with the class leaders. Dynamic range isn't quite as wide as some rivals can manage, leaving some of my most brightly-lit scenes looking a bit washed out as HDR processing exposed for both highlights and shadow detail. Outside of extremes, though, it held up rather well across all three lenses. The ultrawide definitely shows a detail drop-off compared to the other two, and the edges of the frame aren't super-sharp, but its narrow minimum focus distance meant I got some rather tidy close-up shots. I was genuinely impressed with the clarity of the zoom at 6x, too. In some cases I thought the colours were more convincing and the contrast more true-to-life than 3x shots taken from the same spot, despite cropping the sensor to achieve them. It quickly became my favourite 'lens' for travel snaps, so long as my subjects were far enough away from me. I'd sooner reach for this than a Galaxy S25. Honor's AI Super Zoom can take over beyond 30x, as it could on the Magic 7 Pro flagship. Your shots are optionally sent to the Cloud for processing, and come back either looking like someone took a decent stab at adding detail the sensor couldn't capture, or more like a poster illustrated version of what you saw in the viewfinder. Even without AI, there's clearly a lot of smoothing and noise reduction going on to create a usable image. There's still a bit of work to do in low light, where the colour disparity between lenses seems stronger and the ultrawide quickly runs out of pixels to preserve fine detail. The other two hold up well for contrast and exposure, though, and aren't far off the class leaders. Honor is also all-in on AI image editing at this point, and is first in line to bake support for Google's Leo Cloud processing straight into its gallery app. On top of the generation image expansion, smart subject cutouts, reflection and background object removal it could do previously, you now get AI image to video. There are a few limitations, like using single subjects and it rejecting blurry snaps, but it needs just a few minutes to turn a single static image into five seconds of video. These aren't basic clips, either: as well as animating your subject, it adds camera pans, zooms, and drone-like aerial climbs. Naturally you'll have to pay for this functionality at some point – it's labelled as a 'free trial' on my review unit. Honestly, it's freaky stuff at times: some of my test snaps looked incredibly convincing. A few were clearly AI slop, with nonsense creations and artifacts appearing mid-scene. You've also got no input over the camera movement or what your subjects are animated to perform. There's a fun side to it, but I can't ever imagine forking over cash to be able to use it. Software experience: that's magic Honor usually saves big updates to its Android skin for flagship phones, so the 400 Pro arrives running the same MagicOS 9 software as the 400 Lite and Magic 7 Pro I tested at the start of 2025. It's based on Android 15, though a lot of the styling feels very iOS-inspired. All your apps get spread over multiple home screens by default, notifications and quick settings are on separate pull-down menus, and a few of the icons look pretty familiar. There's the usual extensive selection of own-brand apps, with dupes for most of Google's defaults (which are hidden away in a folder). I was also a little disappointed my review unit had so much pre-installed third-party bloat; it's a pretty common move on budget models, and was excusable on the sub-£250 Honor 400 Lite, but less so on a phone that costs a fair bit more. Your mileage may vary as the phone will be set up differently for different regions, admittedly, and it's only the work of a minute or two to erase them if you're not a fan. With a whopping 512GB of onboard storage, it's not like you're short on space right out of the box either. Magic Portal is quickly becoming an Honor standout, letting you drag images or text to the side of the screen to bring up contextual actions and relevant apps. Highlight an address and Google Maps shows up at the top of the sidebar that appears. It's a handy way for opening two apps in multi-window, too. I'm in two minds about the Apple-like Magic Capsule, which puts music controls, call timers and alarms around the pill-shaped camera cutout. Yup, it's Dynamic Island – except far more limiting, with no third-party app support. I'd love Honor to open up the API to app developers, or at least integrate more of its stock apps. The firm gets a thumbs up for its long-term update support, though. Honor flagships get seven years of Android versions and seven years of security updates now. The 400 Pro isn't quite a flagship, but six years of each is still a great showing, and puts it just behind the likes of Google's Pixel 9 and the Samsung Galaxy A56. Of course it's all the AI additions that Honor is putting the biggest emphasis on this year – and why not, given everyone else is doign the same. A lot of the various tools use Google Gemini, so of course you get Circle to Search, the Gemini voice assistant, and Gemini Live conversational AI. The writing tools, live language translation, voice transcription and subtitles are all par for the course, too.I wouldn't say they're better or worse than any rival offering, currently. Performance & battery life: what more do you want? The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside the Honor 400 Pro isn't quite cutting edge today, but you don't have to go too far back in time to the point where it was Qualcomm's class-leading silicon. Paired with a healthy 12GB of RAM, it means this phone feels every bit the high-end hero, with a near-unflappable Android experience for the most part. Apps open in a blink, multitasking is no sweat, and even demanding apps run smoothly. It's not quite so fast in synthetic benchmarks, as single- and multi-core scores of 2046 and 6463 in Geekbench 6 show; flagship rivals with Snapdragon 8 Elites are some 2000 points quicker on the multi-core test. Single-core grunt is greater than Razr 60 Ultra flip phone, though – showing what a difference effective cooling can make on performance. At no point in real-world use did I feel like I needed any extra oomph. Gaming was a similar story. The 3Dmark Solar Bay test churned out a score of 7665, again putting it some distance behind the fastest phones on sale today – but not so much that games from the Play Store weren't nigh-on flawless. Horror fishing adventure Dredge isn't asking an awful lot of the GPU, so it was no surprise I saw perfectly smooth gameplay, but Genshin Impact was also stutter-free. You're in no way getting a sub-par processor for your money here. I like that the 400 Pro continues Honor's streak of offering plenty of on-board storage, too. You get 512GB as standard here, while rivals only offer 256GB – or in some cases just 128GB. Honor also puts its competition on blast when it comes to battery capacity. Admittedly the Pixel 9 and Galaxy S25 are both physically smaller phones, but there's a big gulf between their meagre cells and the 400 Pro's 5300mAh unit. Chinese brands have been quick to adopt silicon-carbon tech, and it has made a big difference to this phone's staying power. I comfortably lasted through full days of heavy use without having to plug in, and two days was achievable with lighter use. That's an excellent showing for a phone that's otherwise so capable everywhere else. I was never waiting around for the phone to charge, either. The 400 Pro supports 100W top-ups from a compatible power brick, so I could complete a full refuel in under ah hour. Wireless charging is impressively speedy at 50W, too, though compatible charging plates are a little rarer. Honor 400 Pro verdict In just a few short years, Honor has transformed its upper-midrange phones into true mainstream flagships. The 400 Pro can comfortably rub shoulders with Google and Samsung's mass market models, thanks to its capable rear camera trio, high capacity battery, and impressively wide-reaching software smarts. Not everyone wants their photo galleries filled with AI-adjusted images, and Honor still needs to remember customers paying this sort of cash have a lower tolerance for pre-installed bloat. But the colourful screen, modern (yet still unique) styling and slightly more affordable price make it a genuine alternative for those who aren't obsessed over brand names. Stuff Says… Score: 4/5 An exceptionally capable all-rounder. The Honor 400 Pro might not have the same mainstream appeal as its Big Three rivals, but it easily competes with them on cameras, battery and software smarts. Pros Long-lasting battery with rapid wired and wireless charging Colourful, engaging photos in almost all conditions Extensive AI toolbox and upper-tier performance for everything else Cons Some might find all the AI photography features a little creepy A little less pre-installed bloat should be standard at this price Honor 400 Pro technical specifications Screen 6.7in, 2800×1280 120Hz AMOLED CPU Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Memory 12GB RAM Cameras 200MP + 50MP + 12MP rear 50MP front Storage 512GB on-board Operating system Android 15 w/ MagicOS 9 Battery 5300mAh w/ 100W wired, 50W wireless charging Dimensions 8.1mm thick 205g
Stuff.tv
20-05-2025
- Stuff.tv
You won't believe how much battery HP squeezes into this $799 laptop
While the best laptops are insanely powerful these days, battery life is becoming one of the limiting factors. Even with perfected silicon chipsets, there's still only so long a laptop can last. But HP's new OmniBook 5 series offers the longest battery life I've ever seen in a laptop. HP reckons its new OmniBook 5 series laptops can keep chugging for 34 hours on a single charge. That's an incredible amount of time. But that's not even the best part. You get all of this for a starting price of $799. The OmniBook 5 series is clearly HP's shot at snapping up every traveller, student, and creative who's ever rolled their eyes at a battery warning. With two models – the 14-inch OmniBook 5 14 and the 16-inch OmniBook 5 16 – you're looking at laptops with OLED screens, Snapdragon X chips, and a build that's thinner than most excuses for not doing work. While these laptops aren't out in the wild yet, if HP's 34-hour battery claim is even remotely true, that puts it in a completely different league. For context, the reigning battery life champion is the Dell XPS 13 with the Snapdragon X Elite. But in tests, that laptop doesn't last longer than 20 hours. So whatever HP has done with the OmniBook 5 series, it'll be interesting to see. It's not just about stamina though. You're getting up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which is plenty for your any productivity task. And, of course, these laptops are also AI machines. Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X chips are ready to handle all the 'on-device AI' buzzwords you could possibly imagine. There's even AI-powered noise cancelling, which could actually come in handy. Design-wise, HP's clearly targeting the MacBook Air with a slim and lightweight offering. At just 1.27kg and 12.7mm thick, the OmniBook 5 14 is giving serious ultraportable energy. Plus, that 2K OLED screen is probably the best-looking panel you'll find in a laptop at this price, unless you enjoy staring into backlit sadness. The HP OmniBook 5 14 starts at $799 and will land sometime in June at Amazon, with HP and Costco getting stock in July. The larger OmniBook 5 16 arrives in July too, starting at $849.
