News
HONOR reveals 1st images of Magic8 Pro, introduces new AI technologies
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-powered flagship launching in China next month
HONOR has revealed the first few images of the HONOR Magic8 Pro, which will launch next month in China.
The device comes in a light teal colorway that is somehow reminiscent of the Jade Cyan tone on the HONOR X9c.
In addition, the phone has a more squared look, especially its frame, with rounded corners. Meanwhile, the camera bump at the back is still very HONOR-looking.
But very noticeable is an extra button on the right side, which is reminiscent of the camera control button first introduced on the iPhone 16 series.
The HONOR Magic8 series will be powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform.
The phone will debut new groundbreaking on-device AI innovations, including Low-bit Quantization Technology for AI Models and Next-Generation Hybrid Retrieval Technology.
HONOR’s agentic AI capabilities and Qualcomm’s mobile platforms will make it possible for the upcoming phone to be even more efficient and packed with computing power. These advancements will also be available on the HONOR MagicPad 3 Pro.
High-efficiency on-device AI modeling
The Low-Bit Quantization Technology addresses computing power, memory, and energy consumption, which HONOR believes are the three biggest challenges of on-device AI.
Thanks to the new Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, this technology will help the HONOR Magic8 series deliver up to a 15% increase in modeling computing, 20% lower model consumption, and 30% less storage space compared to the previous HONOR device.
On top of that, Next-Generation Hybrid Retrieval Technology is designed to dramatically improve the way devices process and surface information.
By encoding text, images, and audio/video data into dense vectors and constructing high-efficiency semantic-level indexes, the system achieves millisecond-level similarity matching and boosts retrieval performance by up to 400%.
The breakthrough not only accelerates multimodal semantic search but also strengthens the foundation for intelligent agents. In turn, responses across a wide-range of real-world scenarios become faster and more accurate.
Magic Color
At the 2025 Snapdragon Summit China, HONOR also unveiled the first agent-powered Magic Color.
This innovation allows users to transform and restyle images or videos with simplicity, completing tasks such as locating an image, extracting key color tones, and applying those tones to a new target.
All the steps in the process are done through intuitive, one-sentence commands. That’s as Magic Color combines efficient on-device AI models and advanced semantic understanding to lower the barriers to complex image editing.
This shall enable everyday users and creators to achieve professional-grade results with ease. Looking ahead, HONOR plans to extend agent-driven capabilities across more than 200 vertical scenarios and 3,000 general scenarios, covering the top 100 applications.
AI Super Sampling for Gaming
Lastly, HONOR introduced its industry-leading Hyper-Fusion Core Architecture in collaboration with Qualcomm.
This deeply integrates HONOR Turbo X’s multiple core performance engines with Qualcomm Oryon CPU architecture.
By dynamically scheduling resources across cores, this architecture maximizes energy efficiency and performance for smoother and more responsive user experiences.
Along with this is the first GPU-NPU Heterogeneous AI Super Sampling Technology based on Snapdragon platforms.
This is designed to transform low-resolution, low-frame rate gameplay into high-resolution, high-frame rate experiences.
Similar to DLSS technology on PC, it leverages AI to reconstruct details, motion features, and lighting effects in real-time.
In practice, this enables demanding open-world titles to achieve 1080p at 120fps from 60fps, delivering both super-resolution and ultra-high frame rates.
Compared to traditional GPU-based upscaling, the combination of GPU-NPU computing reduces latency and jitter.
All the aforementioned advancements highlight HONOR’s vision for the Dual-Engine Era, where AI agent and performance optimizations converge to redefine the user experience and accelerate the arrival of general-purpose intelligent agent era.
Entertainment
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 premieres in April
The animated series is set between seasons two and three.
Stranger Things is over. After years of success, the long-running series finally reached its definitive conclusion. But if you thought Netflix would easily let its biggest cash cow go, then you’d be mistaken. Barely a month after the final episode, the franchise is back with an animated spinoff called Stranger Things: Tales from ’85.
The animated series, which oddly features a new cast to voice the characters, is not a continuation of the concluded story. Rather, it’s a midquel set during the winter between the second and third seasons. Despite closing off a gate to the Upside Down, Eleven and the gang discover that some monsters are still lurking around in their world.
Because we already know what happens up until the very end, there’s hardly any tension. That said, and based on the show’s subtitle, the animated series might be a creature-of-the-week adventure. However, Eric Robles, who will run the series, says that saving Hawkins is still a major plot point.
The Duffer Brothers, who will be executive producers, says that it was a challenge to feature monsters after the events of the main show’s second season. The show will still have a substantial story, though.
For now, we’ll have a bit of a reprieve from everything Stranger Things (or time to catch up with everything, if you prefer). Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 will premiere on April 23.
SEE ALSO: BTS returns with global live comeback event on Netflix this March
Accessories
Sony WF-1000XM6 was accidentally leaked online
The design suggests some interesting changes.
Despite how small they are, the unannounced Sony WF-1000XM6 has just made a huge appearance, albeit accidentally, in an online retail store. Though the leak doesn’t reveal all the technical details about the device, the scant photos and specs are enough to paint an interesting picture about Sony’s next earbuds.
Via The Walkman Blog, an online retailer called Power Buy accidentally released a store page for the WF-1000XM6. The page contains extensive photos and a few specs for the device. Now, the specs don’t reveal much. As we can already ascertain based on previous releases, the earbuds will have Active Noise Cancelation and IPX4-rated water resistance.
The photos, however, are telling. For one, the WF-1000XM6 will return to a completely matte texture after a brief switch to a glossy texture for the current generation. The overall design is more elongated or pill-shaped, too. Previous earbuds feature a more circular or compact design.
Conversely, the charging case switches from a pill-shaped design to a more angular one, featuring flat bases. The flatter design should make the case stabler while on a surface but might make it clunkier when inside a pocket.
The leak caps it all off by including a price: THB 11,990 (or roughly US$ 381), which is a lot higher than the current generation. Either Sony went crazy with the price increase, or this is just a placeholder price. Only time (and an official launch) will tell. The leak, unfortunately, doesn’t reveal a launch date, so it might still be quite a wait.
SEE ALSO: Sony WH-1000XM6: Master of sound quality and noise cancellation
News
Apple is reportedly considering a clamshell iPhone
They will likely wait if the first foldable will be popular.
Apple’s current foldable strategy is just one guy going “wouldn’t it be nice if we had a foldable phone” and everyone else nodding along. For years, Apple has constantly teased the development of its own entry into the market but failing to produce anything other than rumors. Now, while we’re still missing the mythical foldable, the company is reportedly considering a second foldable already: a clamshell iPhone.
Currently, all the previous rumors pointed to a traditional book-style foldable phone from Apple. The forecast says that the device might finally launch this year, but they do say that every year. In the meantime, according to Bloomberg, a clamshell version is already “under consideration.”
It hardly needs reminding that “under consideration” doesn’t mean anything other than “it might happen.” In contrast, the traditional foldable is probably in a “we’re just making sure everything is perfect” phase.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is likely evaluating whether there is enough demand for the first foldable. If, as the company predicts, it takes off, the company will want to capitalize on the hype immediately.
There’s a lot of expectations riding on Apple’s mythical foldable. Sometimes, it even feels like the unreleased phone has reached a point where it can’t possibly meet everyone’s standards. But, at the very least, we hope it does launch this year.
SEE ALSO: An analyst has revealed the iPhone Fold’s price, and it’s insane
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