Smartphones have plateaued. There’s barely any innovation left in phones. Bring back the old days when phones had character. I am sure you may have heard that modern smartphones are losing their sense of innovation, with changes becoming increasingly incremental while phone prices are shooting through the roof. However, there are still some exceptions – not from America or South Korea, but surprisingly, from China. A brand named Honor is taking a risky bet on a smartphone with a pop-out camera gimbal. It’s nicknamed the “Robot Phone.” After months of teasing and first showing off the prototype at CES in Las Vegas in January, the smartphone debuted in China last week and is already making a lot of noise in tech circles, and for all the right reasons.Honor calls the Robot Phone a “new species” of smartphone that combines “embodied AI interaction with robot-grade motion and cinematic imaging capabilities.” Curious to know more about the Robot Phone?Here are five things you need to know about this China-exclusive Android phone, which features a pop-out motorised gimbal camera designed to replace your action camera.A phone with a gimbalFrom the front, the 6.3-inch OLED screen could make it like any other Android smartphone. Flip it over, and that’s where things start to change. The claim to fame behind Honor’s Robot Phone, and the reason it’s trending on social media, is its robotic arm that springs out from the back, carrying a 200-megapixel camera with it. Once extended, the arm functions as a gimbal, allowing the camera to move freely in all three dimensions. Honor claims that its gimbal mechanism required more than 60 manufacturing processes, over 100 precision components, and more than 100 patents. The company says the titanium gimbal system is much smaller than traditional handheld gimbals, while fitting inside the phone’s 9.6mm-thick body.Also read | Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 review: The ‘pocket phone’ that actually fits your jeansYour robotic personal assistantThe highlight, of course, is the robotic arm that swings out from the rear to reveal the camera. You can activate it in two ways either manually through the camera app or using gestures. If you choose the latter option, the Yoyo app opens automatically, instantly turning your phone into your robotic personal assistant. The Robot Phone can interpret the world around it through its camera and supports back-and-forth conversations, similar to Gemini Live. The Robot Phone features a three-axis gimbal camera that slides out on a robotic arm, making it unlike any other smartphone on the market. (Image credit: Honor)Creators’ dream phoneThe Robot Phone combines a gimbal-style camera with a smartphone, replacing the need to carry both a phone and a handheld camera. It features a 200MP main camera, 200MP telephoto, and 50MP ultrawide, with the main camera co-developed with ARRI. The device offers three smart-tracking modes and six dynamic camera modes. Its AI SpinShot feature, for example, let users rotate the gimbal 90 or 180 degrees at the press of a button while recording for creative shots. No wonder Honor’s partnership with ARRI gives the Robot Phone more credibility to be used as a filmmaking device. ARRI is widely regarded as a gold standard in cinematography, with its cameras used extensively in major Hollywood productions.Top-end specsThe Robot Phone features a 6.3-inch LTPO OLED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and up to 6,800 nits of peak brightness. It is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, with up to 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a 7,060mAh battery that supports 120W wired and 50W wireless charging. Its specifications are indeed impressive, putting it on par with flagship smartphones from other major phone makers.Story continues below this adAlso read | Could Apple make privacy-focused AI smart glasses a trend? The Robot Phone is currently exclusive to the Chinese market. (Image credit: Honor)A premium experienceThe Robot Phone is priced at 9,999 yuan ($1,483) for the 12GB RAM version and 12,999 yuan ($1,923) for the 16GB version. That puts it firmly in the high-end Android smartphone category, competing with the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra on price. However, no other phone on the market offers what the Robot Phone does: a robotic arm that swings out from the rear to reveal the camera.