San Francisco-based company Nextbit is a no more than a small group of self-described “rebels who want to free people from the limits of today’s mobile technology,” but it seems they’re onto something quite special.
Robin – a cloud-first, design-forward smartphone that learns to organize its user's data the more it is used – is the company’s first and only product. The infinite storage “smarter” smartphone’s Kickstarter campaign is already well past its funding goal of $500,000 with 28 days left to go. Not bad for a bottomless (well, not exactly – but pretty large) storage well.
So, what exactly does Nextbit mean when it says “cloud-first?" Robin’s Android-based OS is a combination of about 32 GB of on-board storage added on top of over 100 GB of cloud storage. Now, there’s nothing new about the existence of cloud-based storage on smartphones, but what’s interesting – and what makes Robin smarter – is its ability to seamlessly organize data between these two storage tanks based on the needs of the user.
Say, if you’ve been using the phone for a while and your storage is really starting to wear thin, the phone's built-in knowledge of what apps and media you access least will help it make some space for you by shooting the less-used fluff up into the cloud.
(Photo : Nextbit)
This doesn’t mean it's gone forever or even restricted from immediate access. It just means that data is temporarily off your phone until the very second you need it again. Tapping on a removed app re-downloads and installs it from the Nextbit cloud and re-merges it with the personal data you have on your phone: hassle-free.
Although this system of transfer will eat up more phone data than any traditional setup, it bypasses all the trouble of limited phone storage, microSD card purchases and of course, losing everything you love after dropping your phone in the toilet.
Talking about specs: Nextbit’s Robin has a 5.2-inch 1080p display with 3 GB of RAM and a 2680 mAh battery. Truly embodying the future, it has a USB Type-C port at the bottom that supports USB 3.0 speeds. There’s also a fingerprint reader, dual front-facing speakers, NFC and a 13 megapixel camera.
The design is simple, elegant, but also playful – a soft-edged rectangular box, essentially. A mix of metal and colored plastic make up the body, with the Nextbit logo and four small LED lights in the back for when data is being transferred.
(Photo : Nextbit)
Although at first glance, Nextbit looks like yet another tech startup with big ambitions, the experts that run it are by no means new to the game. The company’s CEO, Tom Moss, worked on the Android team at Google; Chief Technical Officer Mike Chan was with Android as well and Product and Design Head Scott Croyle was a former Senior Vice President of Design at HTC. That’s a pretty strong lineup.
When the Kickstarter campaign ends, the devices (which come in two color schemes: "mint" and "midnight") will go on sale for $350 (discounted for early bird pledgers) and ship in January 2016. Eventually, the company intends to sell the product directly to consumers at a price of $399.
