Honor unveils Robot Phone and moonwalking humanoid robot as embodied AI takes physical form

I Danced With Honor's Robot Phone and It Complimented My 'Shiny' Hair

Katie is a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand. After a day of traversing the Mobile World Congress show floor, I was feeling more than a little disheveled. I was about to film a video, and was worried that I wasn't putting my best foot forward, but Honor's Robot Phone disagreed. "What do you think of my hair?" I asked it. The pop-up camera perched atop the device swivelled on its axis, looking me up and down. "Your long flowing blonde hair looks soft and shiny," it told me. "It pairs really well with your black outfit, giving you a warm and vibrant feel, which is great for this tech event!" I'm still not sure I believed it, but it was certainly the confidence boost I needed in the moment. I'll hold my hands up and admit that when Honor first said it was making a robot phone, I didn't necessarily think it would ever see the light of day. But all credit to the Chinese tech company -- it's actually delivered. At CES back in January, I saw an early non-working version of the phone, and this week at Mobile World Congress, I finally saw it in action. Inside the back of the phone, hidden by a sliding cover, is a robot arm with a gimbal and a camera. To lure the camera from its shell, you simply hold your palm up to the front-facing camera, turn that same hand around, and out it comes. The camera has AI object tracking and can lock onto you as you're filming or interacting with it, following you even if you turn the phone around. This is how it was able to look me up and down and tell me my hair and outfit were working so well for me. For several years, we've seen an influx of AI come to smartphones, but so far, that's resulted primarily in changes to software - not to hardware. The Robot Phone flips that trend on its head by switching up the entire design of a phone in order to imbue it with physical AI capabilities. AI evolves fast, Honor's Robot Phone Product Expert Thomas Bai told me as he demoed the device at the company booth. Now, he added, it's time for the phone's body to catch up with its brain. I'm not the only one who thought Honor might be trying to achieve the impossible by putting a robot inside of a phone. The company also wasn't sure it would work. It went to a micro motor company, which told Honor it couldn't help, said Bai. Instead, Honor had to go it alone. It realized the motor would need to meet two standards, said Bai. "One is extreme lightness, and the second is extreme strength." That rung a bell, he added, "because it's exactly the same challenge that we faced when we build the foldable hinges." In that sense, Honor's folding phones, such as the brand new Magic V6 walked so that the Robot Phone could run - or at least swivel around on a three-axis gimbal. The same material Honor uses for its folding hinges - super steel and a titanium alloy - is now inside the micro motor, which is 70% smaller than anything currently available on the market. This wasn't even the most difficult part of building the Robot Phone. "Space is the ultimate challenge, because inside a flagship smartphone, every millimeter counts," said Bai. In spite of this, Honor hasn't had to make any compromises, he added. "Everybody says, if you want to put a gimbal in the phone, then you have to sacrifice battery life," said Bai. Again, the expertise Honor has garnered building very thin, very power-hungry foldables has come into play here. The same silicon-carbon battery tech that powers the V6 is inside the Robot Phone. The target market for the Robot Phone, which Honor wants to start selling in the second half of this year, is clearly content creators - the kind of people who currently use a DJI Osmo Pocket. It's sure to capture their attention - no one wants to carry two devices when one will do - but people who own Osmos tend to have high standards for image quality. Will the Robot Phone be able to match up to the Osmo? "Definitely," said Bai. "We are quite confident about our video quality." He points to Honor's newly announced partnership with Arria camera company, beloved by cinematographers for its pro-level shooting, as well as the company's existing phone camera capabilities. "This will be all implemented inside the Robot Phone," he said. The 200-megapixel sensor, combined with stabilization and what Honor is calling AI Spinshot (intelligent 90- and 180-degree rotational movement for fluid, cinematic transitions) does sound promising, but we'll have to put it to the test ourselves to be sure. In my short demo time with the phone, I can say that it definitely managed to swivel fast enough to keep up with me as I moved, and I definitely appreciated the compliments it gave me on not just my hair, but my outfit, which it declared ideal for a slightly chilly and overcast Barcelona day. By the end of my demo, as the Robot Phone and I danced side by side to Believers by Imagine Dragons, I almost felt like we were pals. It would never have been my first choice of song, but that's the thing about true friendship - you sometimes have to embrace each other's bad taste in music in order to bond.

Honor's new humanoid robot pulls off flawless moonwalk, backflip

With the introduction of several products across different categories, Honor plans to push itself as a AI+robotics ecosystem for the future, envisioning an AI hardware civilization where devices, think, move, interact, and work together. The three pillars of the Alpha Plan involve an Alpha Phone, which is the Robot Phone that was unveiled along with the humanoid. It can has AI embedded for physical movement, multimodal perception, and embodied interaction. The second pillar is an Alpha Store, an AI ecosystem platform where AI assistants, connected devices, and smart experiences can connect and interact as a single system. The deep tech layer forms the third pillar, focusing on advanced battery tech, new hardware materials, robotics, and future device architectures. Honor has referred to this as silicon-carbon civilization. "With Human-centric as our lighthouse, we navigate the growth of AI through the two beams of IQ and EQ, bringing three forms of intelligence together," said James Li. "We are exploring the new paradigm of AI devices with Alpha Phone; hosting the new paradigm of AI ecosystem with Alpha Store; and building the new paradigm of a silicon-carbon civilization with Alpha Lab. With three waves of the Alpha Plan, we now have all the components in place and we are driving this journey at full warp speed," he added.

A moonwalking robot, the Magic V6, and Honor's Alpha era set the tone for MWC

Steven holds a BA in English and an MA in journalism and new media. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). Honor served as the unofficial opener for MWC 2026, showing off a vision for "embodied AI" that moves beyond basic hardware into the world of robotics and integrated intelligence. To see this in action, the company brought out a humanoid robot, the Magic V6 foldable, and the latest version of its "Robot Phone." This trio is part of the "Alpha Plan," a move to push AI out of the cloud and into physical devices through three pillars: Alpha Phone, Alpha Store, and Alpha Lab. Honor is also growing its footprint of Alpha Stores around the world, giving people a place where they can actually see this AI future up close. Related The Robot Phone is here and it's part Wall-E, part Grogu, and all kinds of silly It will see everything. EVERYTHING Posts By Andy Boxall A dancing robot The robot was the clear highlight. It danced with human performers (to Imagine Dragons' Believer, which felt pretty cringe -- but the robot didn't pick the playlist), pulled off a clean backflip, and shook hands with CEO James Li. Honor built its humanoid robot for companionship, shopping help, and workplace checks. It can also collect information about the way you interact with its phone, and even from its sensors, to bridge the gap from automaton to something more lifelike. And while the humanoid robot is just a concept now, its much smaller sibling will make its debut later this year. Robot Phone The Robot Phone was teased last year, but this 2026 model is what Honor calls a "new species" of smartphone. It packs a 200MP sensor on a compact 4DoF gimbal with three-axis stabilization, making it able to nod, shake its head, or dance on cue. This "body language," is joined by what can best be described as grunts in a childlike lilt that come off as whimsical and curious with a dash of Uncanny Valley. They worked with ARRI to embed the company's image science -- natural colors, soft highlights -- straight into the phone's processing for proper pro post-production work. It's hard to believe the Honor Magic V6 would be the most vanilla of its mobile offerings in 2026, but here we are. That's not to say that the Magic V6 is boring or uninspired, as neither could be further from the truth. The Honor Magic V6 looks similar to its predecessor at first glance, but when it's in your hand, you realize nothing could be further from the truth. For starters, it sets a new thinness record: 8.75mm closed, 4.0mm open. For reference, the iPhone 17 Pro series is 8.75mm. It carries a 6,660mAh battery built with fifth-gen silicon-carbon tech from ATL, the first to reach 25% silicon content. It's also the first foldable with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, plus a 7.95-inch inner screen that peaks at 5,000 nits. The MagicPad 6 joins Honors MWC mobile lineup. The tablet sports a 12.3-inch 3K OLED at 165Hz that includes a "Linux Lab" for running the OpenClaw AI assistant. The tablet is a direct competitor to Apple's iPad Pro lineup that can handle just about anything thrown its way -- see: OpenClaw AI assistant -- and handles multitasking more intuitively than iPadOS 26. Honor's MagicBook Pro 14, is its latest play for the high-end laptop market. It's powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, meaning it's built to handle sustained creative workloads without breaking a sweat. The real draw here is the 14.6-inch OLED display, which is color-accurate enough for professional work but light enough to be portable. Like the rest of the 2026 lineup, it plays well with Apple's ecosystem, making a serious case for creatives who need the convenience of features like AirDrop but want to work on Windows laptops and workstations. Honor is a tough act to follow up, but there's plenty of competition willing to take a shot. From Motorola's Razr Fold to the transition from 5G to 6G, major mobile brands across the globe will show off their latest products and concepts at MWC 2026.

MWC 2026: Honor's Humanoid Robot and Robot Phone Signal Embodied AI Push

Honor Unveils Humanoid Robot and Robot Phone at MWC 2026, Signalling a Bold Shift Toward Embodied AI Honor has unveiled two products at MWC 2026 in Barcelona that have attracted all the limelight. The first surprising innovation is the Honor Humanoid Robot, followed by the Honor Robot Phone. This announcement reflects the company's aim of expanding beyond smartphones. The introduction of a physical robot and a motion-enabled smartphone indicates that Honor's strategy is going far beyond traditional mobile devices. The reveal has attracted attention and become one of the event's highlights. Industry observers see this as Honor's attempt to position itself at the centre of the next wave of AI innovation. The next wave of AI innovation would not only process information but also interact physically with users.