JerryRigEverything disassembled the Honor Robot Phone down to screws: the body survived bending and fire, but the robotic arm didn't

The phone where a small robot arm with a camera slides out from the back is exactly the kind of device that makes everyone ask first: How long will it last? The answer was provided now by Zack Nelson, the author of the JerryRigEverything channel, who put the Honor Robot Phone through his usual durability test and then disassembled it down to the last tiny motor. The results are mixed. The body is surprisingly solid, but the arm has one weak spot that every owner should keep in mind.

Video from JerryRigEverything

In the video, Zack expressed hope that the Honor Robot Phone is only the first in a long line of robotic devices. You can watch the full durability test and disassembly here:

Honor Robot Phone: The phone that a robot comes out of

For those who haven’t read our announcement article: Honor Robot Phone hides a fold-out arm made of a titanium alloy in the back of the body. At its end there’s a 200 MPx main camera on a motorized gimbal that can track the movement of a person in front of the lens, or you can film it remotely using a controller. Honor claims it reduced the motors by 70% compared to conventional stabilizers so the entire mechanism fits inside the phone body.

During unboxing, Zack pointed out that besides the cable and a rubber cover, the box also includes a 120 W charger. The sliding-out of the arm is, according to him, surprisingly quiet—you can hardly hear the motor. What’s also interesting is how the arm behaves under resistance: when he put his finger in its way, the arm immediately gave way and didn’t even try to push back with force. It behaved the same way with the closed glass window: the camera rotated, “looked” at the obstacle, and stopped.

The arm heats up and it won’t pinch your fingers

He wasn’t as pleased with the temperature figure. After about five minutes from unboxing, Zack’s thermal camera measured around 49 °C on the top of the camera head. The explanation is logical. In a regular phone, the sensor sits in the vapor chamber or within the cooling system, but here it’s located right at the end of the arm, with nowhere for heat to go except the metal frame of the arm. During the teardown, it turned out Honor already knew this: the back part of the camera housing is milled like a small heatsink, and the sensor is connected to it with thermally conductive paste.

The safety lock for the arm is set in a truly conservative way. The arm can lift a phone lying on the table when the arm is being slid out, but not the other way around. When the phone is lying on its back and the arm is supposed to extend, it can’t lift it. Zack sees this as intentional: the motors are software-limited so no one gets their finger pinched or their pocket damaged.

Glass, fire, and bending: The body passed

The classic part of the test went well for Honor. On the 6.31-inch display, the first fine scratches appeared at Mohs step 6, and deeper at step 7 — the level of the latest protective glass. The OLED panel with up to 6,800 nits brightness handled a direct flame for 26 seconds without any visible damage. The frame is aluminum with a knurled surface, and the buttons are metal.

What surprised Zack the most was the bending test. Despite the antenna bands around the buttons, the phone didn’t even move when bent. In his opinion, the added structure around the arm’s mounting likely increases the strength. In terms of body durability, the Honor Robot Phone passed without any reservations.

On the bottom edge, you’ll find a USB-C 3.2 port and a dual-sided tray for two SIM cards with a red rubber seal. The phone doesn’t support a memory card, and the official rating is IP54, meaning protection against dust and splashing water—not against submersion.

Sand is number one enemy of the robot

And right at IP54 protection is the most important finding from the whole video. Zack poured sand into the hollow inside the arm, and the result was bad. After that, the arm barely slid out; it managed only a few jerks. After blowing it out with compressed air, it did extend again, but even after repeated cleaning, it never fully slid back in. Most likely, a single grain got stuck somewhere in the joints, confusing the safety sensors.

Oddly enough, it’s the very same trait Zack praised just a few minutes earlier. The small motors are intentionally weak so they won’t hurt your finger, which also means they don’t have enough power to overcome even a tiny grain in a precisely machined joint. His advice is simple: don’t take the Honor Robot Phone to the beach. The IP54 rating applies to the phone, but the arm’s mechanics aren’t prepared for dust and sand.

View from the inside: braided wires instead of flex cables

When disassembling it, Zack concluded that the phone’s construction at first glance looks like an iPhone 17 Pro. Behind the back plastic panel there’s a 50 W wireless charging coil, the display could be separated by heating it and using a thin pry tool. A special detail is where the vapor chamber is placed. Honor stuck it to the back of the display, from where, through a graphite film, it transfers heat from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor out through the OLED panel.

The biggest surprise, however, came with the arm. Instead of the flat flex cables we know from older phones with a sliding camera, the arm uses separate braided wires—for the motors and for transferring data from the sensor. Flat cables would eventually crack over time due to constant twisting, while a bundle of wires lasts much longer.

The battery has a capacity of 7,060 mAh and charges at 120 W. Good news for repairers: it can be removed fairly easily, and technically you don’t even need to uninstall the display because of it. Just use isopropyl alcohol to loosen the adhesive.

What the robotic arm looks like from the inside

Getting to the arm is the hardest part of the whole repair. You need to choose the mainboard, the earpiece speaker module, and even a 200 MPx periscope telephoto lens, and then, under the glass of the photo module, find four hidden screws. The wires inside the arm are color-coded depending on which motor they power: the blue and yellow ones go to the lower segments, the silver wires run up to the sensor, and the green ones go to the stepper motor that tilts the arm.

Honor says the arm parts are manufactured with a tolerance of 0.005 mm. Besides the stepper motor, there are three rotary actuators in the segments, each weighing just 2.5 g, shaped like flat "donuts". The 200 MPx camera itself, according to Zack, is basically a standard module we already know from other phones. What’s exceptional is what it sits on. Next to it, inside the body, there’s also a 200 MPx periscope and a 50 MPx ultra-wide-angle sensor.

What it means for buyers here

The Honor Robot Phone is officially sold only in China, and the European version hasn’t been confirmed yet. If you want it, you’ll have to go through import: we recently found the Chinese version on sale. JerryRigEverything’s test, however, is a good reason to think about how you’ll use the phone: with the kind of mechanics that a single grain of sand can jam, importing without local service makes every repair more complicated than with a regular phone.

Follow the China Planet website, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, and be sure to check out our Facebook page, the China Planet group, and join our Telegram, where we add the best offers and coupons from China every single day.