























SPECS AT A GLANCE: Nextbit Robin SCREEN 1920×1080 5.2" (423ppi) LCD OS Android 6.0 Marshmallow CPU Six-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 (two 1.8 GHz Cortex-A57 cores and four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores) RAM 3GB GPU Adreno 418 STORAGE 32GB NETWORKING 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS BANDS GSMA Version GSM 850/900/1800/1900 HSPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 LTE Bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/28 CDMA Version CDMA 800/1900 GSM 850/900/1800/1900 HSPA 1700/1800/1900/2100 LTE Bands 1/2/3/4/7/13/20/25/26/41 PORTS USB 3.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack CAMERA 13MP rear camera with phase detection autofocus, 5MP front camera SIZE (not official) 149.3 x 72.1 x 7.2 mm WEIGHT 150g BATTERY 2,680 mAh STARTING PRICE $399 OTHER PERKS NFC, quick charging, fingerprint sensor, white notification LED

Now here's something you don't see every day: a brand new smartphone company. "Nextbit" is a San Francisco-based OEM that was only founded in 2013. Today, thanks to the magic of Kickstarter, the company has shipped its first-ever smartphone called the Nextbit Robin.

While the name is new, the company is made up of some notable industry veterans. The founders, Tom Moss and Mike Chan, are both former Googlers from the Android team. Moss is also a founding board member of Cyanogen, Inc. Nextbit's lead designer, Scott Croyle, was snatched away from HTC where he was responsible for everything from the legendary HTC Evo to the HTC One M8.

The company's first device, the Robin, is about on par with a Nexus 5X—it has a 5.2-inch 1080p screen powered by a Snapdragon 808 with 3GB of RAM (1GB more than the 5X). It runs a skinned version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. You can even have it for about the same price as a Nexus 5X: $399 for a 32GB device.

Nextbit would rather you not think about that 32GB of storage, though, as this is being pitched as a "cloud first" device. Buy a Robin and you'll get access to 100GB of cloud storage from Nextbit along with an operating system designed to take advantage of that storage automatically. Your apps and data get quietly uploaded to Nextbit's cloud, and if your phone fills up, the OS will automatically remove your lesser-used apps, replacing the shortcuts with greyed-out icons. This frees up phone space, but with a single tap on a removed app, your app will be re-downloaded and installed before launching.

Extending your phone's local storage with storage from the cloud and having a piece of software automatically shift your data back and forth is a pretty crazy idea. Nextbit used Android to make an entire operating system built around this concept, and the company boasts a ton of cloud servers to store everyone's data. While Nextbit's system more or less works, did anyone stop to ask if this was a good idea? Shifting apps and data back and forth to the cloud uses a ton of data, and while that's fine at home, no one really has the cellular data plan to support something like this on a mobile device. It's also wholly inferior to the simple, obvious solution of just adding a microSD slot, especially once you consider the SD card improvements made in Marshmallow. At first glance, I'm not really sure why the feature exists at all.

While not impressed with the headline feature of the Robin, we are more than happy to see a new smartphone OEM enter the fray. So let's give a proper welcome to Nextbit and cover everything from top to bottom.

Hey look, a uniquely designed smartphone!

In a market where it seems most of the newcomers can only come up with designs that mimic Apple or Samsung, it's refreshing to see a new company show up with something looking totally different. The Robin won't be mistaken for any other device on the market. This design is about as simple as you can get—it's just six flat planes that intersect at right angles. We received the shouty blue and white model, but there is also a more understated dark version. The phone is made out of a hard, matte plastic which feels decent enough for $400.

Whether you actually like the design is another story. Some people find it pleasingly minimalist (especially the dark version), while others think it looks like unfinished development hardware. We've seen it described it as "childish" even. It seems fair to call the design "divisive," but hey, it's different! In a world of samey-looking smartphones, different is good.

You can definitely see the HTC influence in the hardware, which has sizable top and bottom bezels housing large "don't call them BoomSound" speakers. The dual front-facing speakers sound impressive on paper, but in person they're rather disappointing. At max volume they're louder than most phones, but treble tones often get turned into a buzzing, rattling mess. If you lower the Robin's volume so the rattling stops, you'll find that the "max high-quality volume" is lower than what you would get out of the single-speaker Nexus 5X.

To the left of the top speaker, you'll find a standard-issue, 5MP front-facing camera and a sensor cluster designed to look as much like a second camera as possible. Taking up the majority of the front is a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, which looks no better or worse than any other screen out there.

One highlight of the Robin's hardware is the side-mounted power button/fingerprint reader. This little blue oval will read your fingerprint just as well as the top-tier solutions from Apple, Samsung, or a Nexus phone. It's fast, accurate, and error free. It's impressive that Nextbit managed to fit a fingerprint reader this good into the tiny ~7mm side of the Robin.

The power button/fingerprint reader is actually embedded slightly into the phone, meaning you'll be feeling for an indent rather than a bump. It's an odd choice for a button, but it really didn't cause us any problems. It's only sunken the tiniest amount below the phone case, so it's still easy to squish your finger pad in there and depress the clicky power button. This is probably our new favorite spot for a fingerprint reader. The rear sensors on a Nexus device are unusable on a table, and a Samsung-style physical home button means you can't use the Google-standard on-screen buttons. A side-fingerprint reader works on a table and doesn't require a physical button to take up space on the front bezel.

There's no special software here; Nextbit smartly decided to plug right into Marshmallow's new fingerprint API. This makes it usable for the lock screen, Android Pay, and a growing number of third-party apps. Most smartphone fingerprint sensors are typically large, round, "whole finger" sensors, making every finger scan pretty much the same. Nextbit's sensor is only a tiny sliver, making it possible to place different sections of your finger over the sensor. The trick to overcoming this is to move your finger around during the "training" session of registering a finger. Android's software will just deal with it, allowing you to scan a very large section of your finger, which makes passing fingerprint authentication a breeze.

On the opposite side of the device, you'll find the volume button, which looks exactly like those candy buttons that come on a strip of paper. The headphone jack is on the top edge of the device along with a secondary mic, and the bottom edge houses a USB Type-C port, the main microphone, and a single white LED. The oddly located LED serves as both a charging indicator and a notification light. By default it will pulse white when you have a notification, and it looks like white is the only color available—even apps like Lightflow don't seem to be able to change the color.

There's more weird LED placement on the back, which has a set of four lights below a silkscreened cloud logo. The lights bounce back and forth to indicate the Robin is accessing Nextbit's cloud, but these essentially serve no purpose other than as a loading spinner. These were reconfigurable with Lightflow and didn't activate with an "all LEDs" test, but they look like they showed up in the settings as "Ip5523:channel0" through "channel3," so there's some hope for some kind of custom support. Also on the back is a sub-par 13MP camera and a dual LED flash.

Overall, the Nextbit hardware is impressive, especially considering that this is from a brand new company. Everything seems well made and executed, and the price is great. It equals the Nexus 5X in that regard and most specs, but Nextbit throws in an extra gig of RAM. (This phone comes in $50 cheaper than the 5.7-inch 32GB Moto X!) The hardware turns in a solid effort in every area, especially for a first-time effort.

Nextbit's Cloud Storage: When your reinvented wheel comes out square















The Robin's biggest marketing focus is on its cloud connectivity, which is built right into the OS. The device comes with 32GB of onboard storage, but buying a Robin also gives you access to 100GB of Nextbit's online storage. The software on the Robin tries to mesh the onboard storage with the cloud by automatically transferring your apps and data in between the two storage pools. Nextbit's website claims this "makes running out of space history" and that "when you need space, it archives the things you use least, so you always have space for what you want most."

NextBit tries to make this process as seamless as possible for the user. Fill up your phone, and things will occasionally get moved to the cloud and removed from local storage. Apps that get moved to the cloud are replaced with a grayed-out icon, and tapping on that icon will restore that app from Nextbit's cloud (which can be an old version). In the settings, the "Storage" section has transformed into "Smart Storage," and it shows separate pools for your local and cloud storage. Tapping on a storage pool will do exactly what stock Android does today, displaying a space breakdown by data type.

There is really nothing magical going on under the hood here. Removing an app is a basic uninstallation, and the "smart storage" app generates a fake activity with the name and icon of the removed app. The nice thing about using fake activities is that the grayed-out apps will appear and work in any launcher, not just Nextbit's. An app restoration will download and install the app, along with the app data. This takes about as long as you would expect, anywhere from one minute to several minutes depending on the size of the app. The stub icons work on any launcher—the Google Now Launcher or Nova Launcher will work just fine, with a single tap restoring an app just like on the packed-in launcher. This is great, because the packed-in launcher is very weird.

From day one, I've been skeptical of Nextbit's cloud setup. Sure, this would sort of work on Wi-Fi, but what if you weren't on Wi-Fi? It would just murder your data allowance for the month. It also seemed absurdly complicated compared to just including a microSD slot, which should completely satisfy most storage enthusiasts. After playing Nextbit's cloud storage system for a week, I can say that there are really no surprises here. Every obvious problem you can think of is present... along with some extra problems introduced by Nextbit's specific implementation.

Who will want to use this?

Let's start with Nextbit's apparent thesis: "There isn't enough storage space on your phone." Is this even true? Is storage space a problem on a 32GB device?

A lot of people would just say "No, 32GB is plenty of space." We think this accounts for the majority of smartphone users, including both the "casual" storage user that doesn't have a ton of apps and media and users that use the cloud extensively to stream movies, music, and data as they need it. If you're a heavy cloud user, usually you go that route because you have fast, plentiful Internet. Right away, that's a significant chunk of the phone market that doesn't really need what Nextbit is selling.

There is a second group of people that would say "32GB is not enough space." This group wants to access movies and music locally, either because they have big media libraries already or because they don’t have a cheap, fast, omnipresent Internet connection needed for streaming.

Nextbit's cloud storage would only work for a third group, a group that is both willing and able to use the cloud yet still finds storage to be an issue. This type of user, for whatever reason, doesn't want to take the more obvious and simpler step of just buying a phone with more storage. Any Google-sanctioned Android phone already offers plentiful, seamless cloud storage for pictures and documents, and there are a million competing cloud services out there. All of this means the only unique aspect of this approach is Nextbit's app backup and restore.

You'd have to be a person that likes to keep a lot of apps around, and then you'd have 32GB of apps on your phone (which is a lot) and 100GB more of apps in the cloud. Again, if you do this on a mobile connection, you're going to burn through a lot of data very quickly. You have the option to tell the Robin to only download and backup apps on Wi-Fi, but that means when you're out and about you only really have 32GB to choose from.

Let's say you fall into NextBit's target audience: you 1) need more than 32GB of storage, 2) don't just want to buy a phone with more storage, 3) are OK with using lots of data, and 4) want to use Nextbit's cloud over every other cloud service. At this point, there's still one question left. "Is Nextbit's cloud service any good?"

A lack of control and communication makes for a frustrating experience

Nextbit's entire cloud backup system is driven by a silent algorithm. It aims to back up your older, "least used" apps and will quietly remove them to free up space. You can pin apps to keep them on your device and tap on a grayed-out icon to restore it from the cloud. There are settings to limit automatic backups to Wi-Fi and AC power, but other than that, you are pretty much at the mercy of the backup system.

The biggest problem with the backup system is the lack of communication and control. There's no way to manually make use of the 100GB of storage you are given. You can't manually push something up to the cloud, and there's no folder access. There's really no way to see what is in your cloud storage.

You could count up the grayed-out icons on your home screen, but there's also an option to back up photos. Are all my pictures backed up right now? I'm really not sure. The settings show a size readout for "pictures" in my cloud storage, but that could be anything. The gallery doesn't have any kind of cloud storage status on my individual pictures. That's the typical experience—confusion and uncertainty due to a lack of communication—not really what you would want from a backup system.

There's no status. I'm not sure if I have any pending backups right now. If I plug the Robin in and it starts doing a backup, I'm not sure what it's backing up or how much longer the backup will take. The only communication is a binary "backing up/not backing up" signal via the lights on the back of the device. When it's finished, it will state the number of apps it backed up. It will not, however, indicate which apps.

There is no way to ask the system to create a certain amount of free space. Sometimes the storage manager will decide 4GB of free space is fine; sometimes it will decide 600MB of free space is fine. You are not involved in this decision. If you have 600MB free and want to install a 700MB game, the Play Store will say you are out of space and the install will fail. If you have 4GB of space free and want to copy 5GB of data over from a computer, the computer will say your phone doesn't have enough space on it and the transfer will fail. There is nothing you can do about this. Pray that the storage manager's whims align with your current storage needs.

For whatever reason—especially on the days when the storage manager decides to leave you with a small amount of space—it's possible to completely fill the phone. (Again, the lack of communication means we have no idea what is going on.) When the phone is full, it's full. There is no alarm that goes off in the software that says "The phone is full! Better blast more stuff out into the Internet and make room!" With no controls and no communication from the system, we could only stare at the "local storage full" message and beg the phone "Well, fix it!" It never could.

Why not just include a microSD slot?

The biggest obstacle we see to Nextbit's cloud adoption is that if you are a user that values a ton of storage, there's no compelling reason to skip the obvious solution and buy a phone with a ton of storage. There are devices out there with SD card slots and devices that come with 128GB of storage onboard, so why not just buy those? In this regard, nearly all the major comparison points between Nextbit and a traditional microSD-capable phone argue against the new OEM.

Nextbit's system is way more complicated. Option One: do a little more engineering to include a microSD card slot. Option Two: build an entire cloud storage system from the ground up. Build a companion operating system that integrates this storage at the OS level. Maintain this cloud/OS integration while also dealing with Android's numerous OS updates. Build a user interface and automatic algorithms to manage this data. Store tons of user data on your servers and be responsible for it forever. Pay a constant monthly bandwidth bill for these servers while charging your users zero dollars per month. (We'd pick option one.)

It's way slower. Downloading and installing an app and the app data takes way longer than just having an app stored locally on your SD card. That's great that you have a 2GB game backed up, but if you want to play your backed up game, downloading and installing 2GB is going to take a long time depending on your connection. There's no magic speed savings going on here, a restore is going to take as long as the initial download and install would take. That can last anywhere from half a minute to several minutes.

It's way heavier on your data. A microSD card would, of course, use no data. With Nextbit you have the option of only using the cloud service on Wi-Fi, in which case you don't really have everything with you. Otherwise you're slamming your data plan to download something you need. In two days, we had Nextbit's smart backup system use 10GB of data.

A microSD offers way more storage. You can get 200GB microSD cards now, if your phone supports cards that big. That's double Nextbit's online storage.

Typical microSD-capable phones allow for control over everything. You could manage your files with a file manager!

...and you wouldn't have to trust Nextbit. Nextbit is a new company, but how long will it be around? The storage is free, but for how long? What is its uptime like? These are all questions you wouldn't have to deal with if you used local storage.

A 128GB microSD card can be had for about $35 today. You could store however much you want without needing the cloud complication. If you're Nextbit and trying to tackle the "32GB is not enough" demographic, why not just spend a few extra dollars on the phone design and include an SD card slot? The storage demographic would be 100 percent satisfied with an SD slot and Nextbit wouldn't have to develop an entire, complicated cloud platform and operating system from the ground up.