I saw HONOR’s Robot Phone, and it’s unlike any Android phone before

One of the coolest things we saw at CES earlier this year was the HONOR Robot Phone — HONOR’s Android handset with a built-in camera gimbal on the back. At the time, the Robot Phone was a nonfunctional prototype.

Just a couple of months later, at MWC 2026, I got to see the Robot Phone in action for the very first time. And I have to admit, I came away pretty impressed.

The design of the Robot Phone hasn’t changed since we first saw it at CES. After sliding a cover on the rear camera housing, the 200MP camera on the back swivels out to the top of the phone and then freely moves around using its three-axis gimbal system. To activate the camera during my demo, I held my hand up, palm facing the Robot Phone, then turned my hand around. Almost immediately, the Robot Phone’s camera revealed itself and started tracking me around the show floor.

HONOR’s big pitch for the Robot Phone and its camera is that the whole thing acts as a sort of AI/robot companion. The Robot Phone can interpret the world around it via its camera and supports back-and-forth conversations similar to Gemini Live. More importantly, if you play music on the Robot Phone, the camera moves around and dances to the beat. I didn’t think I’d ever see an Android phone dancing to an Imagine Dragons song, but that’s exactly what happened during my demo.

While I’m not completely sold on the companion aspect of the Robot Phone, that doesn’t make the camera gimbal design any less impressive. Even if you ignore all of the AI trimmings, you’re still left with what’s effectively an action camera built into a flagship Android phone. Not only should the 200MP sensor deliver good-looking photos/videos, but the Robot Phone also supports locked object tracking and an AI SpinShot feature that enables “intelligent 90° and 180° rotational movement for fluid, cinematic transitions.”

As you’d expect from a camera gimbal, the Robot Phone also offers really good stabilization. HONOR had a demo with the Robot Phone and an iPhone recording video side-by-side, with both phones moving wildly on a contraption that moved them back and forth and through various rotations. Looking at the viewfinders on both phones, the Robot Phone’s video almost looked like it wasn’t moving at all, whereas the iPhone’s video was noticeably shaky.

Even as a semi-casual photographer, this is what excites me the most about the Robot Phone. It was the most promising aspect when HONOR first announced the device, and now that I’ve seen it in action, I’m even more impressed.

HONOR says the Robot Phone will be released sometime in the second half of 2026, but we still don’t know the specs, pricing, or whether it’ll launch in any other countries outside China. Even if the Robot Phone does get a global release, as with other HONOR phones, it almost certainly won’t come to the US.

Is the HONOR Robot Phone the most practical Android smartphone I’ve ever seen? Absolutely not. Is it likely going to be very expensive whenever and wherever it launches? Absolutely yes. Even if I’m not sold on HONOR’s AI ambitions for the Robot Phone, I still love that it exists — and that I got to see it working with my own eyes. The world needs more weird Android phones, and without a doubt, that’s exactly what the HONOR Robot Phone is.