As a Robin owner, I suppose I should toss in my $0.02.
First things first, the nextbit cloud syncing stuff is the silliest thing I've ever heard of - it doesn't make any sense at all. It would only really make sense for some theoretical person who has a large mobile data plan, is never out of coverage, but doesn't want to use streaming services, and uses a literal butt ton of applications. For everyone else, and SD card slot would make a lot more sense - especially since a 128gb card is like $30, and way faster than 4g, and not tied to somebody else's servers being up and having a connection. Ultimately, the Ars Technica review hit the nail on the head when they said Nextbit's Cloud storage is reinventing the wheel, and coming up with a square.
Second, the battery life is weak. I'm a pretty heavy user, but I run a tight ship - no extraneous services, apps or whatever - just a pared down stock OS, low brightness, no sounds, and I'm getting around 3.5 hours of screen on time on a good day, browsing in firefox, texting and chatting via discord/whatsapp/steam. My Galaxy S6, HTC One M8 Windows, and my Lumia 950 all handily beat the Robin for battery life - and my Lumia 928 and Droid Turbo utterly slaughter it. The nextbit is the only phone I have, out of the ones I regularly use, that I have to charge during the course of my day. It's not a dealbreaker, but I really shouldn't have to - especially when several of my other devices have similar battery capacity, but higher resolution screens that use more power.
Third, the camera and speakers are sub par, even at this price point. The camera is fine enough, but the Nexus 5x beats it in quality and focus speed. The speakers are loud, and stereo, and front facing, but they're overdriven, and can get really gross and crackly sounding above 80% volume or so. The headphone jack is fantastic though, and drives some headphones several of my other phones cant, pretty well.
Fourth, the phone is plastic. The external body is a soft coat rubber, and I love how it looks and feels. But there's no metal internal structure at all - Jerry Rig Everything on youtube snapped one in half like a toothpick with his bare hands, and it didn't take much effort. It doesn't feel nearly as sturdy as most of my other devices, and I'd be terrified to carry it in a back pocket, for example.
Those caveats out of the way, I really like the device. I think it's gorgeous, it feels good in the hand, it charges fast, the screen is solid, and the factory load of android is mostly great. I'd love to see a dark theme, and the Nextbit launcher is trash (if I wanted all my apps in a big, horizontally scrolling list, I'd just get an iPhone, thanks). But with a bit of tweaking and a replacement launcher, it's pretty solid - not quite AOSP/Nexus level, but easily my least hated OEM android ROM. I will probably flash over to Cyanogen one of these days though, once there's a stable build out.
Overall, this phone has a lot of flaws, but it's unique, looks amazing, and it does a lot of things right. I think a Robin 2, with some refinement across the board, could easily be the best phone on the market - it'd need an OLED display, SD slot, better battery life, a much tougher chassis with a metal internal frame, speakers that don't fuzz out at the top end, and the headphone jack and USB port on the same end of the device - but it's come closer to what I think a phone should be than the vast majority of stuff out there, and that's absolutely worthy of praise for a startup like this.
For $250, you could do a lot worse. But frankly, unless you think the Robin is really sexy, you may as well get a Nexus 5x 32gb - it's tougher, has a much better camera, and can be had brand new for $240 on ebay every day, without the massdrop shipping wait.
First things first, the nextbit cloud syncing stuff is the silliest thing I've ever heard of - it doesn't make any sense at all. It would only really make sense for some theoretical person who has a large mobile data plan, is never out of coverage, but doesn't want to use streaming services, and uses a literal butt ton of applications. For everyone else, and SD card slot would make a lot more sense - especially since a 128gb card is like $30, and way faster than 4g, and not tied to somebody else's servers being up and having a connection. Ultimately, the Ars Technica review hit the nail on the head when they said Nextbit's Cloud storage is reinventing the wheel, and coming up with a square.
Second, the battery life is weak. I'm a pretty heavy user, but I run a tight ship - no extraneous services, apps or whatever - just a pared down stock OS, low brightness, no sounds, and I'm getting around 3.5 hours of screen on time on a good day, browsing in firefox, texting and chatting via discord/whatsapp/steam. My Galaxy S6, HTC One M8 Windows, and my Lumia 950 all handily beat the Robin for battery life - and my Lumia 928 and Droid Turbo utterly slaughter it. The nextbit is the only phone I have, out of the ones I regularly use, that I have to charge during the course of my day. It's not a dealbreaker, but I really shouldn't have to - especially when several of my other devices have similar battery capacity, but higher resolution screens that use more power.
Third, the camera and speakers are sub par, even at this price point. The camera is fine enough, but the Nexus 5x beats it in quality and focus speed. The speakers are loud, and stereo, and front facing, but they're overdriven, and can get really gross and crackly sounding above 80% volume or so. The headphone jack is fantastic though, and drives some headphones several of my other phones cant, pretty well.
Fourth, the phone is plastic. The external body is a soft coat rubber, and I love how it looks and feels. But there's no metal internal structure at all - Jerry Rig Everything on youtube snapped one in half like a toothpick with his bare hands, and it didn't take much effort. It doesn't feel nearly as sturdy as most of my other devices, and I'd be terrified to carry it in a back pocket, for example.
Those caveats out of the way, I really like the device. I think it's gorgeous, it feels good in the hand, it charges fast, the screen is solid, and the factory load of android is mostly great. I'd love to see a dark theme, and the Nextbit launcher is trash (if I wanted all my apps in a big, horizontally scrolling list, I'd just get an iPhone, thanks). But with a bit of tweaking and a replacement launcher, it's pretty solid - not quite AOSP/Nexus level, but easily my least hated OEM android ROM. I will probably flash over to Cyanogen one of these days though, once there's a stable build out.
Overall, this phone has a lot of flaws, but it's unique, looks amazing, and it does a lot of things right. I think a Robin 2, with some refinement across the board, could easily be the best phone on the market - it'd need an OLED display, SD slot, better battery life, a much tougher chassis with a metal internal frame, speakers that don't fuzz out at the top end, and the headphone jack and USB port on the same end of the device - but it's come closer to what I think a phone should be than the vast majority of stuff out there, and that's absolutely worthy of praise for a startup like this.
For $250, you could do a lot worse. But frankly, unless you think the Robin is really sexy, you may as well get a Nexus 5x 32gb - it's tougher, has a much better camera, and can be had brand new for $240 on ebay every day, without the massdrop shipping wait.