The Nextbit Robin, like many smartphones that intend to do things differently in the industry, was announced as a GSM unlocked smartphone that would work on both AT&T and T-Mobile networks in the US. Nextbit was counting on consumers to appreciate what the Nextbit Robin would bring to the industry: a new smartphone that would offload unnecessary content onto its 100GB of cloud storage while keeping the device’s local 32GB of storage free for new content – without users having to do it themselves.
The company wasn’t counting on an overwhelming response to the Nextbit Robin that called for a carrier-locked, CDMA variant of the device. But, that’s the outcome that drove the company to produce a CDMA variant of the Nextbit Robin. The company promised that the device would arrive in consumers’ hands by the end of February, but that’s no longer the case. The company took to its Kickstarter page to make the announcement:
“You want the future to be here already. You want your Robin today. We feel the same way. We know CDMA backers want to know when their Robins will arrive. We wanted to wait until we could give you an exact date, but we can’t wait anymore.
The CDMA Robin wasn’t in development until we saw your response on Kickstarter, and we got a little carried away in the excitement of the campaign. When we estimated we would deliver CDMA Robin in February, we were being optimistic. Now that we’ve gone through development and are working out the testing schedule, we think April is more realistic. We don’t know exactly when in April as there are still a number of factors outside our control. We will keep you up to date, as we get more and more information.”
Testing and development for not only the device but Verizon and Sprint carrier networks are partly to blame, if not entirely.
The Nextbit Robin allows consumers to enjoy cloud storage and local storage without fighting between either, but this doesn’t set well with a number of consumers who still don’t rely on the cloud and want more local device storage such as found in MicroSD cards. Google finally added native SD card storage in Android 6.0 Marshmallow that lets users add storage that can then be added to native storage and used to store all apps, not just a few.
The Nextbit Robin seems to combine local storage and the power of current Wi-Fi technology, but, as always, issues of security will rise to the surface. Cloud storage and the cloud are wonderful technologies, but consumers don’t want to compromise their privacy and personal data to experience them.
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