A new take on the cloud
Trying to differentiate a new Android smartphone with literally thousands of other products in the market is a tough gig, one that Nextbit’s CEO Tom Moss knows too well. A former Google exec, tasked with running Google’s Android business development from 2007 to 2010, he knows exactly just how much competition his new phone is facing. He’s not worried though – Nextbit’s upcoming smartphone, the Robin, is an Android smartphone that has an ace in its sleeve – tight cloud integration that essentially gives the phone 132GB of storage.
Nextbit Robin specs
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor
- 3GB of RAM
- 5.2-inch IPS full HD display, 1920 x 1080 resolution
- 32GB of offline storage, 100GB of online storage
- 13-megapixel rear camera with phase AF, dual LED flash
- 5-megapixel front facing camera
- HSPA+, LTE
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Quick-charging, Fingerprint Sensor
- Android Lollipop/Marshmallow (depending on release date)
- 2680mAh battery
The Robin’s specs are pretty awesome on paper – 5.2-inch full HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM along with a USB type-C port. As far as Android versions go, Nextbit is trying to push for a Marshmallow release for their phone, though if the phone ships first before the new version hits, they’ll push out an OTA instead.
What really makes the Robin stand out from the pack is the way it handles storage. See, the Robin comes with 100GB of cloud storage on top of the 32GB of storage on the device. The way the phone works is that it will figure out which apps and data you haven’t accessed in a while and push those up to the cloud, freeing up space in your phone. The idea is that you’ll never have to delete anything on your phone as it should have already moved the data to the cloud on its own.
Even after the phone moves data or apps into the cloud, part of it still remains in your homescreen. All you need to do is access it again, and Robin retrieves the data from the cloud back to your device. You can also tell the phone to pin apps to your homescreen to prevent it from shuffling it up to the cloud if you want your stuff accessible all the time.
As for the actual phone, well, it looks pretty badass. The design is different enough to make it stand out in the crowd, and the company has even managed to put in a fingerprint scanner in there, as well as an indicator to tell you when the phone is uploading to the cloud. As for availability, Nextbit is making the Robin available through Kickstarter, with a $299 (14K) starting price, which you can check out here.
