Honor's Robot Phone is a smartphone with an articulating arm

Chinese electronics company Honor has previewed a smartphone with an articulating robot arm at this week's Mobile World Congress.

Described by Honor as "a new species of smartphone", the Robot Phone was reimagined to take advantage of new AI capabilities. The company likened it to "packing a robot into a smartphone".

Shown as a concept at previous events but now said to be launching in late 2026, the phone features a small robotic arm topped with a gimbal-based 200-megapixel camera.

The motorised gimbal system enables the phone to record more professional-looking video that pans, tilts and stays level despite movement.

Honor's vision for the functionality of the robot arm does not stop at content creation, however, as the company suggests that it will also form the basis for a more "human", expressive style of interaction with the phone.

A video previewing the Robot Phone showed the camera module gazing around in awestruck wonder, dancing at a party, and shaking its head and nodding as a woman tries on outfits.

Honor referred to this as a kind of "embodied AI interaction", where the phone's AI assistant can perform actions and express personality through a physical body, like a robot.

"Rather than reacting solely through screens and voice commands, Honor is, figuratively, giving its next generation of devices not only a brain, but also hands and feet, combining AI with more physical, expressive interaction through motion and camera movement," said the company.

The AI will be able to identify sounds, track motion and maintain visual awareness.

When it comes to filming, this translates to video calls that can follow a user as they move around the room, steady recordings and cinematic rotating shots that it would usually take a professional rig to achieve.

Honor refers to the gimbal system as 4DoF (four degrees of freedom), combining the three axes of the gimbal with additional positioning from the robotic arm.

The Robot Phone's arm is concealed within a raised compartment at the back of the phone when not in use, in an area these days associated with the "phone bump".

A sliding cover with a transparent window protects the camera and allows it to take photos in the retracted position.

Honor said the Robot Phone is part of its vision for "Augmented Human Intelligence (AHI)", a human-centric approach to AI. The company also featured a humanoid robot as part of its keynote, although for now that is only a concept.

Formed in 2013 and formerly a subsidiary of Huawei, Honor is best known outside of China for its folding phones.

The brand said that the knowhow it had developed for foldables had directly translated to the engineering for the Robot Phone, which incorporates an innovative compact motor in order to fit a gimbal into a device the size of a standard smartphone.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC), Honor also launched the Magic V6, an update to its ultra-thin folding phone.

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