Honor Announces a Surprisingly Capable Gimbal-Equipped ‘Robot Phone’
On Wednesday, Chinese smartphone brand Honor announced the Honor Robot Phone, which features a built-in motorized camera. The camera rotates, tilts, and stabilizes video footage regardless of the handset’s orientation, mimicking a gimbal.
The phone’s primary rear camera uses a 200MP sensor with an f/1.6 aperture and optical image stabilization. A second 200-megapixel periscope camera gives 2.7x optical zoom, and a 50MP ultra-wide camera completes the rear camera setup. Honor says the phone records 4K video at up to 120 FPS and supports 10-bit ARRI LogC3 capture.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t follow the industry standard of offering a 6.5-inch or larger screen; instead, it comes with a compact 6.31-inch LTPO OLED display. Under the hood, there’s Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and a 7,060mAh battery. Honor lists 120W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
Credit: Honor
The Robot Phone’s retractable gimbal can move in four ways—pan, tilt, roll, and flip—to stabilize video in progress. Honor calls this setup its Titanium Agile Gimbal. Early tests indicate that the gimbal is actually pretty effective, earning it surprisingly positive reviews from Forbes, Android Authority, Tom’s Guide, and other publications.
The handset runs Honor’s YOYO assistant, which controls Robot Mode through voice or text commands. Honor says this mode can track a chosen subject and adjust framing. It can also use the gimbal to pan or tilt during video calls and recording.
Unfortunately, Honor is only planning to sell the Robot Phone in its home market beginning August 18. Prices start at RMB 9,999 ($1,480) for 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and reach RMB 12,999 ($1,930) for 16GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.
