Honor's been bandying about its Robot Phone for a little while now, and gave it plenty of airtime during its keynote presentation at MWC 2026 in Barcelona today, but also shifted one big label off the phone's back. It's previously been pretty much a concept device, but now it will seemingly actually hit the market.
During his presentation, Jian Li (Honor's CEO) confirmed that the Robot Phone will be available to buy in the second half of 2026, raising some genuinely curious questions about how much it'll cost and when exactly it'll be up for pre-order.
Until now, I've assumed that we'd eventually get a toned-down version of the phone, perhaps in 2027, but it would seem that Honor has had different ideas. Its presentation emphasised that the phone has gone from an idea to a physical product in an impressively quick span of time.
That said, while demonstrations at the event made it clear how it could be useful for filming content, thanks to intelligent subject-tracking and a really stable gimbal system, nobody could actually go hands-on. That suggests the versions being shown off right now aren't quite ready for public dissection.
The phone's main attraction is that bundled-in gimbal, something that leaves it looking a lot like a high-end Android handset with a DJI Osmo built into it. The camera can flip up from its storage pod on the phone's back when you want it, and it seems to be activated by sliding open that pod where a traditional camera bump would sit.
It's a neat idea, but there are some big questions about durability, since it involves more than one micro-motor to make its folding arm work. Plus, of course, that additional manufacturing and development cost will surely make for a handset that's far more expensive than your average flagship.
Still, that'll remain speculation until Honor has more to say about the device, which I suspect won't happen for at least a couple of months. It has other fish to fry, after all, in the form of the now-unveiled Magic v6 and other devices shown off during its presentation.
