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Nextbit's Robin smartphone is available for preorder starting at $399

Nextbit's Robin smartphone is available for preorder starting at $399

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Shipping in February 2016

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The Nextbit Robin, the "cloud-first" smartphone that continuously backs up your data online, is now available for preorder with a starting price of $399 and an estimated ship date of February. Nextbit raised $1.36 million on Kickstarter last month selling units at $50 to $100 less than the current retail price.

As is apparent from its playful design, the Robin is a rather unique mid-range Android device meant to learn from your habits. Any apps or photos on the device you haven't used or looked at in a while are stored in the cloud automatically when you're connected to power and on a local Wi-Fi network. The company pledges to improve the device down the line with additional features that take advantage of cloud syncing. The Robin is the brainchild of former HTC designer chief Scott Croyle and former Google Android team members Tom Moss and Mike Chan, who co-founded Nextbit in 2012 to develop more intelligent backup software and this year moved on to hardware.

a mid-range Android phone with "cloud-first" features and a unique design

The device comes in two colors — mint (green) and midnight (black) — and is packed with a Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of memory, and 32GB of storage (with an additional 100GB in the cloud). It has a 5.2-inch display and a 13MP rear-facing camera, in line with other modern Android handsets. The Robin will ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Nextbit says. You can snag either a GSM version for AT&T and T-Mobile networks or a CDMA one for Verizon and Sprint. A Nextbit wall charger must be purchased separately for $10, as the device only comes with a charging cable.

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