Sharp RoboHon Robot Smartphone Sparks Cuteness Overload, Debuts Next Month For $1,800
A few months back, we brought you news of Sharp’s RoboHon, which played up Japan’s fascination with robots on a much smaller scale. The RoboHon is capable of walking, standing up, sitting down and dancing among its other many talents (like understanding voice commands).
Robohon also doubles as a smartphone complete with an LTE radio, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11n Wi-Fi, GPS and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor (with 2GB RAM). The cute little robot has 16GB of onboard storage, a 1700mAh battery and a minuscule 2-inch QVGA display. Other features include an 8MP CMOS camera, a 720p pico-projector, and it runs Android 5.0.
We were told back in October that RoboHon would be available in Japan at the start of 2016. That release wasn’t quite accurate, as RoboHon has now been confirmed for a May 26th launch. And although we knew that RoboHon would likely carry with it an exorbitant price tag, we were not prepared for the final asking price: 198,000 yen which translated in to just over $1,800. Yikes!
According to Engadget, yet another gut-puncher is the fact that the RoboHon features two modes of the aforementioned voice recognition. The first works offline using commands that are pre-programmed for the device. However, if you want online voice recognition, which is supplied by Nuance, you will have to fork over another $6 a month for service.
The nearly 8-inch tall RoboHon weighs in at 13.4 ounces and will be available initially from Japan’s largest wireless carrier, NTT Docomo. It’s possible that the RoboHon’s availability will be extended to other MVNOs in the future, but there are absolutely no plans to bring it stateside (just in case you were wondering).
We must say, RoboHon is definitely an interesting device from afar, but it seems like it would be ridiculous to talk into a smartphone shaped like a robot on a continual basis. And that’s before we even get to the subject of its wallet-busting price tag.
