Nexbit, a company formed by some veteran Android engineers and HTC’s ex-design lead Scott Croyle, today unveiled its first smartphone, the Nextbit Robin, which it describes as a “cloud storage powered smartphone”. Robin relies heavily on the cloud, which is integrated into it right at the OS level. Unlike other apps and services out there, the handset’s cloud integration lets it do much more than simply backing up your photos to the cloud.
One such cool feature in Robin is that it will automatically create a snapshot of an app that has not been used in quite sometime and back it up to the cloud. The associated app data will also be backed up, and the app will then be uninstalled from the device to save space. The icon of the app will still show up on the phone’s app drawer, though it will be greyed out. Tapping on it will then make the phone download and restore the version that it had stored to the cloud. The cloud feature of Robin is also capable of backing up the photos shot from the cameras of the device. It will the send back a downscaled and optimised version of the image that will occupy less space on the internal storage.
The cloud integration is not the only highlight of Nexbit. The design of the handset is also very unique, which should not come as a surprise since Scott Croyle — who designed the HTC One M7, One and many other handsets for HTC — was responsible for it. The handset is made of polycarbonate, but features a very unique design thanks to enlarged sensors on the front and bold colors that Nextbit will be offering it in. Taking a page out of the HTC One, the Robin comes with front-facing stereo speakers, though they don’t look anything like what they do on the One. The back of the Robin houses two different LEDs: the four tiny LEDs located on the upper part of the handset light up when any cloud activity is going on, while the bottom LED is used to subtly notify of any new notification. The detailed specs of Robin are as follows:
Processor: Snapdragon 808 Memory: 3GB RAM / 32 GB onboard / 100 GB online Screen: 5.2” IPS LCD 1080p Rear Camera: 13MP with phase detection autofocus, dual tone flash Front camera: 5MP Battery: 2680 mAh Dual front facing stereo speakers Fingerprint sensor NFC Quick charging Bluetooth 4.0 LE WiFi A/B/G/N/AC GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/900/1800/1900/2100 LTE Bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/28
Despite being a cloud-first smartphone, Robin will easily last a day on a single charge. The company’s CTO, Mike, led the power management team at Android right from the beginning, so if there is any person on earth who can optimise the OS to improve its efficiency, its him. Additionally, the handset will ship without any kind of bloatware, and will also come with an unlocked bootloader and open source drivers to help in building a development community around it. Robin won’t be going for sale through retail stores though. Instead, interested customers will have to back the Kickstarter campaign of the handset. The first 1,000 early adopters of the handset can get the device for only $299, while others will be able to grab it for $349. The first batch of Robin will be sent out to backers sometime in early January. → Nextbit Robin
