HONOR has turned the camera gimbal — until now a separate accessory you clip a phone into — into a moving part of the phone itself. The company launched the HONOR Robot Phone in China on August 12, and its headline feature is a 200MP main camera mounted on a motorized titanium gimbal that folds out of the camera bump, then pans, tilts, and tracks subjects on its own. Sales in China begin on August 18, GSMArena reports, and HONOR Philippines has confirmed the phone is coming to the country, with local pricing and pre-order details expected soon.
A camera that moves by itself
The gimbal is the part that makes this phone different from every other flagship this year. A gimbal is a motorized mount that keeps a camera steady while it moves. On the Robot Phone, that mount is built from titanium, driven by a 2.6-gram motor only 6mm thin — about 65 percent smaller than a regular gimbal mechanism — and it moves the camera across four degrees of freedom (up-down, left-right, and rotation axes).
In New Atlas's coverage, the arm extends from the rear camera bump and positions the camera above the phone's screen, where it can spin, pan to follow a subject, and keep the tilt level locked. It also responds to hand gestures, so you can frame a shot without touching the phone.
The camera riding on that arm is a 200MP sensor with a large 1/1.28-inch size and a bright f/1.6 aperture, paired with HONOR's own H1 imaging chip. It records 4K video with AI subject tracking and automatic framing. Behind it sit a 200MP periscope telephoto with 2.7x optical zoom and a 50MP ultrawide that doubles as a macro camera. The front camera is 50MP.
The ARRI partnership, explained
HONOR built the video side with ARRI, the German cinema camera maker whose hardware shoots many Hollywood productions. The Robot Phone records in ARRI's Log-C3 profile — a "flat" video format that preserves more detail in bright and dark areas so editors can adjust colors later — plus ARRI's Wide Gamut 3 color space and AI noise reduction that HONOR says enables up to 14 stops of dynamic range. A dedicated cinema mode replicates the look of ARRI's cameras out of the box.
The rest is a full flagship
- Display: 6.31-inch LTPO AMOLED, 2,640 x 1,216 resolution, 1–120Hz adaptive refresh, and a very bright 6,800-nit peak
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 — the same flagship chip at the center of Qualcomm's September price increase
- Memory: 12GB RAM with 512GB storage, or 16GB with 1TB
- Battery: 7,060mAh with 120W wired and 50W wireless charging
- Software: MagicOS 10 on Android 16, with HONOR's Yoyo AI assistant, which reacts with facial expressions, nods, and even dances
- Weight: 248 grams, in Silver and Gray
Price in China, and the peso math
The 12GB+512GB model costs CNY 9,999 (around ₱91,100), while the 16GB+1TB version goes for CNY 12,999 (around ₱118,400). Both figures are conversions, not official Philippine prices — HONOR has not announced a local SRP yet.
When can Filipinos get it?
HONOR's Philippine arm says the Robot Phone is coming soon to the local market, with pricing and pre-order details to follow. That is unusual: experimental flagships like this often stay China-only, so a confirmed Philippine release puts the country in an early wave. Based on the China pricing, expect it to land in premium territory above ₱90,000 if the conversion holds — though the official SRP could differ once HONOR announces it. As of publication, there is no Philippine launch date.
