HONOR-Robot-Phone-Hands-On-in-Dubai-My-First-Impressions
Key Takeaways
- The HONOR Robot Phone features a moving camera that enhances the user experience compared to traditional smartphones.
- During a one-hour hands-on session, I noticed the gimbal’s tracking can follow subjects efficiently, though it needs refinement.
- The Robot Phone supports unique camera movements like controlled SpinShots, making it appealing for content creators.
- Working with ARRI, HONOR aims to improve video quality and expand filmmaking potential beyond standard smartphone capabilities.
- Although impressive, questions remain about durability, heat performance, and practical applications that require thorough testing.
I had already watched videos and read quite a lot about the HONOR Robot Phone before seeing it in person. Still, I was curious about one thing: does a moving camera actually change the smartphone experience, or is it simply something that looks impressive in a demonstration?
I recently got the opportunity to find out.
HONOR invited me to its office in Dubai Festival City, where I spent around one hour with the Robot Phone. This wasn’t a full review, and I didn’t take the phone outside for my usual UAE testing.
Instead, consider this my first hands-on experience with one of the more unusual smartphones I have used in recent years.
HONOR showed us two colour variants, and the units available during my session were pre-sale devices. That distinction matters because software, features, and behaviour can still change before a commercial device reaches customers.
And within a few minutes, one thing became obvious.
The Robot Phone is not really about specifications. It is about what happens when the camera starts moving.
It looks like a phone — until the camera moves
Pick up the Robot Phone without activating its gimbal, and it initially feels like another premium flagship.
It does feel slightly heavier than a conventional smartphone, which is understandable considering the mechanical camera system inside.
Then you open the gimbal safety screen and activate the gimbal from the camera screen.
The camera physically rises from the rear housing, moves and begins following its subject.
That changes the experience completely.
I have tested many smartphones where AI tracking keeps a person within the frame digitally. This feels different because you can actually see the camera reposition itself.
That physical movement makes the Robot Phone feel less like a normal smartphone camera and more like a tiny camera operator sitting inside the phone.
I deliberately tried to confuse the tracking
Rather than simply watching HONOR’s demonstration, I wanted to see how the tracking behaved.
I walked away from the demonstration area while the camera was tracking a person. Then another person moved between the camera and the original subject, temporarily blocking its view.
The gimbal continued trying to track the subject.
Once the obstruction moved away, it found the face again surprisingly quickly.
This was one of the features that impressed me most during my short session.
HONOR says the motor can reach rotation speeds of up to 360 degrees per second in supported scenarios. It also offers a much wider physical movement range than a fixed smartphone camera.
Numbers aside, what mattered during my hands-on session was that the camera could physically react to movement around it.
It wasn’t perfect, though.
I occasionally felt that the follow or tracking response could have been a little quicker. Since I was using a pre-sale unit, I would rather wait for the commercial version before judging this properly.
The 90-degree and 180-degree SpinShot is genuinely interesting
Another feature I enjoyed trying was the camera’s rotational movement.
The Robot Phone can perform controlled 90-degree and 180-degree SpinShot movements.
Normally, achieving that type of camera motion requires a handheld gimbal, careful movement or some editing afterwards.
Here, the phone handles the physical rotation itself.
For vloggers, social-media creators and people shooting short-form video, I can already see some interesting possibilities.
More importantly, it isn’t just another filter.
The camera is physically moving to create the shot.
That difference matters.
ARRI could be more important than the Robot Phone name
HONOR’s collaboration with ARRI was another part of the demonstration that caught my attention.
ARRI is deeply associated with professional cinema cameras and filmmaking workflows. The Robot Phone brings elements of ARRI Image Science into its imaging system.
For creators, this could potentially be more meaningful than simply having another “cinematic” filter inside a camera application.
The idea is to provide more control over how footage is captured and processed, bringing smartphone video closer to established filmmaking workflows.
I did not have enough time during my one-hour session to properly test this side of the phone.
That needs footage shot under different lighting conditions, outdoor testing and time spent editing the files afterwards.
So I will leave any judgement about its real filmmaking potential for a full review.
But it is certainly one of the areas I want to explore further.
Surprisingly normal when the gimbal is closed
Before using the Robot Phone, I expected the moving hardware to make it bulky or awkward.
That wasn’t really my experience.
The integrated metal body feels solid, and the rounded edges make the phone comfortable enough to hold despite the extra hardware.
Its 6.31-inch OLED display also keeps the overall device relatively manageable.
However, testing a display inside an office tells me very little about how it will perform outdoors in Dubai.
Peak brightness figures are useful on a specification sheet. What matters to me is whether I can comfortably use the screen outside under UAE sunlight.
That will have to wait for a proper review.
The AI becomes interesting when it takes action
The Robot Phone isn’t only about the gimbal.
HONOR is also using AI to make the device more proactive.
Instead of AI simply answering a question, the idea is that the phone can understand a natural-language request and perform actions across the device.
That direction interests me more than having another chatbot inside a smartphone.
However, this is also an area where one hour in a controlled environment isn’t enough.
Agentic AI becomes useful only when it can understand imperfect instructions, handle unexpected situations, and complete tasks reliably.
That is something I would want to test with deliberately messy requests before depending on it.
One thing I noticed: heat around the gimbal
One observation from my session I particularly want to revisit.
After roughly 15 minutes of continuous gimbal use, I could feel warmth around the upper section of the phone, particularly just below the gimbal mechanism.
It was a pre-sale device; I ran a mechanical camera system continuously, and I tested it indoors.
This does not mean the phone has a heating problem.
But I noticed it, so I want to test it again.
For me, UAE conditions will make this particularly interesting.
I would like to see how the gimbal behaves during extended outdoor recording, especially during warmer weather.
HONOR lists the Robot Phone as IP54-rated. That provides protection against dust and splashes, but this isn’t the type of phone I would deliberately expose to water just to prove a point.
With a mechanical gimbal physically moving out of the body, I also want to understand long-term durability.
The feature I really want to test: audio following the camera
One Robot Phone feature that interests me personally is related to my own work.
The phone uses a four-microphone array, and HONOR describes an AI zone audio system that coordinates audio pickup with the gimbal’s camera movement.
Think about an interview.
Imagine four people sitting around a table. Instead of positioning multiple phones or constantly moving one camera, the Robot Phone could potentially follow whoever is speaking while adjusting its visual and audio focus.
For someone like me who regularly conducts interviews at launches, exhibitions and media events, that could be genuinely useful.
This is the kind of AI feature I want.
Not AI simply because the word looks good on a specification sheet, but AI and hardware working together to solve an actual problem.
I couldn’t properly test that scenario during my one-hour session, so it is high on my list when I get a retail unit.
Underneath the robot, it is still a flagship phone
The unusual camera naturally receives most of the attention, but HONOR has also given the Robot Phone flagship hardware.
It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform and carries a 7,060mAh silicon-carbon battery.
HONOR supports up to 120W wired SuperCharge and 50W wireless charging.
The camera system itself is also serious. HONOR uses a 200MP gimbal main camera, a 200MP periscope telephoto camera, and a 50MP ultra-wide camera.
Those are impressive specifications.
But I don’t want to judge it on specs after an hour.
Battery life, charging, camera consistency, gaming performance, thermal behaviour, and everyday usability require days of testing, not minutes.
My first impression after one hour
The feature I remembered after leaving HONOR’s Dubai office wasn’t the processor or battery capacity.
It was watching the camera move.
Smartphone cameras have improved dramatically over the years, but their physical relationship with the user has remained mostly unchanged. You point the phone towards something, and the camera looks in that direction.
The Robot Phone challenges that idea.
Its camera can move, reposition itself and follow a subject independently of the phone’s fixed position.
Whether that becomes genuinely useful or remains something people demonstrate to their friends will depend on how well the commercial hardware and software work over time.
I also want answers to some very practical questions.
How does the gimbal handle extended use in UAE temperatures? How durable is the moving mechanism? How quickly does tracking respond in unpredictable situations? And can its audio-following capabilities actually help me conduct interviews?
Those questions need a proper review.
For now, after around one hour with the HONOR Robot Phone, I came away interested rather than convinced — and I think that is exactly where a hands-on experience should leave me.
The Robot Phone gave me enough to want more time with it.
When I eventually receive the retail unit, I know exactly what I want to test first: the camera, the gimbal, the heat, and whether this moving hardware can become genuinely useful rather than simply impressive.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
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