Honor adds ARRI-powered cinema mode to Robot Phone

Honor has revealed another camera feature for its upcoming Robot Phone, confirming a new Master Cinema shooting mode ahead of the device’s August launch.

According to the company, the mode was developed using image-processing technology from ARRI, one of the best-known makers of professional cinema cameras. Guan Haitao, Honor’s global marketing director, showed the smartphone camera interface and confirmed the feature.

Honor says Master Cinema is designed to mimic the behavior of a professional movie camera. The mode will support:

• shallow depth-of-field effects with blurred backgrounds
• automatic focus shifts between subjects in the frame
• cinematic frame rates such as 25 fps
• post-capture changes to the focus point and blur intensity

The company still has not disclosed the camera system in full, but it has previously said the Robot Phone was built primarily for mobile video shooting. Honor also says the handset will be the world’s first mass-produced smartphone with a mechanical gimbal mount for the camera. That system will be able to rotate the lens for automatic subject tracking and perform various movements while recording.

Preliminary details point to a rear camera setup with a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, and a 200-megapixel periscope module.

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Honor said that on the first day of preorders, the Robot Phone drew more applications than any of the company’s previous flagship smartphones. Preorders are already open, sales begin next month, and the starting price is expected to be $2,200.