MEGATech News Nextbit Robin Review Round Up Dylan Duarte February 18, 2016 MEGATech Reviews There’s a new player in town and you helped pay for them. Well, maybe not you exactly, but the Nextbit Robin was crowdfunded on Kickstarter back in September of 2015 and the Android handset is finally upon us. It’s always excited to see a new OEM, especially one that’s coming out of the gate hot. Plenty new OEMs start up and die without making so much as a splash, but between the crowdfunding and effective marketing, the Nextbit Robin has arrived with more fanfare than most newcomers. Now that’s it’s here, how is the phone scoring among the masses? Gizmodo “But with great usability, stellar hardware, and features that avoid the “gimmick” graveyard, the Robin is an amazing 1.o device. I say one dot zero because the real utility of a cloud phone doesn’t seem like enough right now to keep an everyday shopper from a storage-expandable cheap phone.” Read Gizmodo’s Review Engadget “Nextbit’s first phone is as ambitious as it is pretty… Too bad, then, that the unremarkable camera and disappointing battery life detract from a thoughtful (and truly cool) experience.” Read Engadget’s Review Ars Technica “While I’m not a fan of the cloud system, it’s still really great to see a new smartphone OEM appear, create a product, and launch it. Nextbit seems like it can deliver solid hardware at a good price; it just needs to provide a more compelling reason to pick the company’s offerings over the competition.” Read The Ars Technica Review Tech Crunch “Despite the occasional hardware quirk, the Nextbit Robin really is something special. It’s been a long wait for early-backers of the Kickstarter campaign and I certainly doubt many of them will be disappointed with the device when it lands at their front doors today.” Read Tech Crunch’s Review The Verge “If you buy phones on a limited budget, and find yourself struggling with cleaning out apps and data to make space, the Nextbit Robin is a perfect solution. Its smart management of local storage by harnessing the cloud is something that much bigger companies like Apple, Google and Samsung should have been doing already.” Read The Verge’s Review BGR “Nextbit is off to a good start with the Robin. It’s a unique smartphone that offers a fresh take on storage, a nice custom build of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow platform, and an original design. It certainly won’t be for everyone and you won’t find it fighting for shelf space at your local carrier store with Galaxy phones and iPhones anytime soon, but it’s a breath of fresh air in a somewhat stagnant market and I have little doubt that it will quickly build a loyal fan base.” Read BGR’s Review Everyone seems to agree that the Nextbit Robin is a success, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than others. The thing I find really interesting is the range of disagreement regarding the cloud storage usage. Some are big fans, like Walt Mossberg over at The Verge, others are relatively apathetic, and then Ron Amadeo over at Ars Technica seems somewhat baffled by its impracticality. I’ve never used the phone, but from a conceptual standpoint I would agree with Mr. Amadeo. I don’t think we’re ready for such a heavy reliance on cloud storage, nor do I think MicroSD cards have outlived their purpose. Share This With The World!
