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It's bizarre to think that, on the same day Honor announced its most ambitious foldable phone yet, I was drawn to a different device.
At Mobile World Congress, the Chinese electronics maker reintroduced its Robot Phone: first unveiled at CES, now on the Barcelona show floor with working features to please the crowd.
Also: Best of MWC 2026: Live updates on phones, concepts, and robots we're seeing
It was apparent from the oohs and ahhs of the weekend audience (and larger crowds now that the showfloor has opened) that this pocketable robot may be even more appealing than the back-flipping humanoid ones that brands continue to pitch as slow-paced housekeepers and pet sitters. It certainly was for me.
That's because the Honor Robot Phone is built with more practicality than I expected, though some features may raise more privacy and security concerns than anything else. Let's break it all down.
A familiar gimmick
The Robot Phone's highlight is its gimbal-stabilized camera that pops out from the back of the device. Perhaps I'm a believer in such a feature because I've long been using gimbal-stabilized webcams for work meetings. They're ideal for keeping subjects in frame, recordings steady, and portable in size.
Integrating one into a phone offers those same benefits, but can now be leveraged for more powerful use cases like recording 4K videos with the 200MP sensor and capturing smooth-panning panoramic shots (though limited to 90° and 180°, according to Honor).
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