Last week’s poll shows that people are interested in the Honor Robot Phone for its camera and AI capabilities – but mostly the camera. For the purposes of the poll, we put aside issues of availability (for now the phone is only available in China), but the issue of price is harder to ignore.
Indeed, if Honor chooses to pursue this form factor for future development, a hypothetical future model might win over new fans. As for the current model, it did its main job – draw attention – but many of the onlookers aren’t willing to spend that much money on it.
Honor Robot Phone’s gimbal in action
Among those that might buy an Honor Robot Phone, most would do it for the camera – the gimbal opens up possibilities that a typical phone can’t match. Content creators might find it valuable to have this capability built into their phone.
There is a modicum of interest in the AI features that try to turn the phone into an AI-powered robot, but that is more of a curiosity at this point.
There are plenty of people who didn’t see the value in this concept. Some of them are concerned about the fragility of moving parts – if the gimbal breaks, it will be an expensive repair. Again, the price is a major issue too. And there is the usual anti-AI sentiment as well.
There is some good news – Honor teased that the Magic9 series (coming next month) will have the same Arri features as the Robot Phone. These include native Log-C3 video encoding, LUT color grading and a dedicated cinema mode that replicates the look and feel of Arri cinema cameras.
The Magic9 phones won’t have gimbals, obviously, but that is easy enough to fix with something like a DJI Osmo Mobile.
