The attention turns to smartphones with the start of MWC Barcelona today. ARRI has a surprising new collab with Honor while Leica's new Leitzphone has been produced with Xiaomi.
To be honest, CP +2026 was a bit of a surprise. None of the strongly rumoured camera announcements landed, with only Canon’s unveiling of its waist-level concept camera catching the attention. Plenty of lenses and other accessories, but the headline news was much quieter than anyone expected.
It's a sign of the topsy-turvy times we're living in therefore that there is more interesting camera news from MWC Barcelona 2026 already (the trade formerly known as a Mobile World Congress). And not just from the usual suspects either, with ARRI and Leica both announcing collaborations with established smartphone manufacturers Honor and Xiaomi.
“Honor and ARRI are proud to announce a strategic technical collaboration — merging legendary cinema craftsmanship with pioneering innovation. Together, we will integrate ARRI’s Image Science into future consumer devices, bringing professional filmmaking capabilities for the new generation of creators.”
There’s a suitably overblown corporate video below that introduces the partnership, and the phone in question.
It is, of course, the Honor Robot Phone that first broke cover back in October last year. Adding a 360-degree multi-axis rotating gimbal into the smartphone form factor and then giving it a major amount of AI ‘personality’ seemed like a bit of a curiosity at the time. Add ARRI camera technology to the equation though and it becomes probably even more surprising.
A few more details about the phone have emerged in Barcelona. The main camera will have a 200-megapixel sensor, that 4DoF gimbal system is reputed to be the smallest in the industry, and it should appear in the latter half of the year. Rumors suggest it might be China only, but that might depend on the reaction it gets at places such as MWC.
This is all about image processing and using ARRI Image Science rather than any physical camera technology, all of which will allow Honor to market this and future models under a ‘cinematic’ banner. It’s definitely a landmark. As ARRI says, “For the first time ever core elements of ARRI Image Science are being integrated directly into a consumer device.”
You can’t help feeling though that the true payout for ARRI from the deal will come from future phones with a more conventional form factor.
This debuted a physical Master Zoom Ring around the rear camera island, which allows users to manually adjust zoom, exposure, and other imaging parameters with full haptic feedback.
It’s an interesting innovation. However, it was also a China-only release…up till now. The phone is now getting a global release, and has been rebadged the Leitzphone, given a smaller battery for some reason (6000 mAh rather than the 6800 mAh of the Chinese model), and given some cosmetic tweaks.
Apart from that though it’s the same unit, and will give you a Leica triple-camera system headed by a 50 MP Type 1 LOFIC primary sensor, a 200 MP telephoto with a Leica APO 75–100 mm lens, and a 50 MP ultrawide. This is coupled with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB storage, a 6.9-inch AMOLED display, and a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset.
Apart from the dedicated camera innovations and additions, the main difference between the Leitzphone and the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a small matter of $300. That brings it in at $1999. It will not be officially available in the US, but those who import it should be able to use it without any issues (though we suspect prices will be a bit more).