The Nextbit Robin successfully raised more than $1.3 million on Kickstarter and nearly another $100,000 on BackerKit. If you’ve only recently decided that you’d like to find out first-hand what this cloud-centric smartphone is all about, though, you can still do so.
Nextbit is taking general pre-orders for the Robin. Pricing is set at $399, the same price as the Kickstarter campaign, those on Kickstarter you also got a case and vinyl toy. With the pre-order, you’re getting just a phone and charging cable. You can also pre-order one of three cases for between $15 and $35 if you’d like, and the vinyl toy is available for $40. You can also snag a Quick Charger wall charger for $10, or a screen protector for the same price.
Getting back to the Robin itself, if you do decide to pre-order, you’ve got a couple more decisions to make. First up, you’ll need to decide if you want a GSM version for AT&T and T-Mobile or a CDMA model for Verizon and Sprint. You’ll then need to pick a color, either Mint or Midnight. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that you’ll need to pony up a bit more cash for shipping. It’ll cost $25 to ship to the US, with shipping prices for other countries ranging anywhere from $14 up to $117.
Pre-orders of the Nextbit Robin are expected to ship in February 2016.
The Nextbit Robin was created by some folks with lots of experience in mobile. For example, Nextbit Chief Product Officer Scott Croyle previously worked at HTC as SVP of Design and User Experience. The phone definitely looks good, but its main feature is its cloud-centric approach to storage. The Robin comes with 32GB of storage and no microSD slot, but it also includes 100GB of cloud storage. The phone takes advantage of that cloud storage by automatically putting apps and content that you don’t often use in the cloud and keeping your frequently used content stored on your phone. Your stuff in the cloud is still visible on the phone, though, and you can pull it down and store it on your phone just by tapping on it.
