Category: Nextbit Robin

Over at Amazon you can still pick up the Nextbit Robin for $149.   I reviewed the Robin a few months ago and at the time I said it was a pretty good deal at $299.  At $149, it is one of the best deals on a phone with these specs out there right now.  Over the holidays the phone was $169 on Amazon so this price drop makes it the lowest price the phone has ever been available.

For those that don’t recall, the Nextbit Robin has some great features and offers a unique device-meets-cloud storage solution.  It has 32GB of onboard storage merged with 100 GB online storage, so you always have the space you need. Robin seamlessly backs up your apps and photos, intelligently archives the stuff you’re not using, and easily restores items when you need them.  The idea is that you never run out of space.  Those less used apps are backed up into the cloud but then are instantly available when you want them.  You’ll know an app has been backed up into the cloud as it will be grey on your Robin.  You can read my review of the Robin to see all my thoughts on this great little phone.  I also think it is perhaps one of the most underrated phones of 2016.

One of the most common questions I receive about Google’s Project Fi is if it will work with phones other than the Google Pixel and Nexus phone lineup.  The short answer to this question is yes.  However, there are things that you have to consider in the process and you will have to have, at some point, a compatible Pixel or Nexus phone to activate your Fi SIM.  So really the answer is yes, but with a lot of hurdles to jump.

In this How To, I will go over the steps to get a non-Google phone to work with Project Fi including what you need to do to set it up, how to configure SMS/MMS and the limitations you will have with using Fi on a non-Google phone.  For this article, I’m using a Nextbit Robin but the reality is that the steps outlined here should work with any phone.

A couple of warnings before I get started.  First, there is no support provided getting your non-Google phone working with Project Fi.  They clearly advertise it as working with their devices only as the primary SIM card (you can get the data-only card working with some iPad models and other tablets).  Second, one of the big advantages of Fi is the ability to seamlessly switch between Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular.  In a non-Google phone, you will only get T-Mobile service.  If T-Mobile is not great in your area, keep that in mind.

I appreciate that I’ve told readers about this deal already.  But it is one of those deals that is just too good to pass up.  Over at Amazon you can still pick up the Nextbit Robin for $169.  Originally the deal was only on the Mint color but now it is also on the darker Midnight color option.  Regardless of which color you choose, you are getting a solid mid-range phone with great specs and performance.  I reviewed the Robin a few months ago and at the time I said it was a pretty good deal at $299.  At $169, it is one of the best deals on a phone with these specs out there.

For those that don’t recall, the Nextbit Robin has some great features and offers a unique device-meets-cloud storage solution.  It has 32GB of onboard storage merged with 100 GB online storage, so you always have the space you need. Robin seamlessly backs up your apps and photos, intelligently archives the stuff you’re not using, and easily restores items when you need them.  The idea is that you never run out of space.  Those less used apps are backed up into the cloud but then are instantly available when you want them.  You’ll know an app has been backed up into the cloud as it will be grey on your Robin.

As 2016 starts to wind down, It is always interesting to go back and look at how things progressed throughout the year.  To be sure, there have been a huge number of phones launched this year from a wide range of manufactures.  One of the new kids on the block, Nextbit, launched their first phone in mid-2015 and started shipping it in February of this year.  Originally priced at $399 and having more than a few teething problems (mostly related to a really sluggish camera), the phone has slowly and steadily been updated, fixing issues and improving performance as time has gone by.  At the same time, the price kept dropping.  Mid-way through the year it hit $299 from Nextbit with Amazon dropping the price for a few weeks here-and-there to $199.  Now it is available for $169, a price which makes this solid performing phone a no-brainer.  Seriously, I would challenge readers to find an equally equipped phone for this price.

What I’m not going to do here is rehash my review of the Robin.  You can read that and get the specs and my initial thoughts.  But I will make the case for this phone being the unsung hero of the year based on its specs for the price, the update cycle that Nextbit has been keeping and the open and supported nature the company has taken with the Robin.  Let’s start with the specs.  It is powered by the Snapdragon 808 processor running at 2GHz and coupled with the Adreno 418 GPU.  It has 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM coupled with the processor which gives a nice, snappy feel to the Robin during use.  Storage wise you have 32GB available on the device along with 100GB in the Nextbit Smart Storage

The Display of the Robin is a 5.2″ renders at 1080 x 1920 Full HD resolution which gives you approximately 423 PPI.  That makes the flat screen of the phone easy on the eyes when viewing for a long period of time.  The display is protected by Gorilla glass 4.  Camera wise, the main camera is a 13MP unit with phase detection auto focus and a dual-tone flash.  On the front you have a 5MP camera that is wide angled to give you a good selfie image.

In the market today, there are a handful of phones that run the Snapdragon 808 processor.  Those phones are all substantially more than the Robin.

• Blackberry Priv:  $399
• LG V10:  $368
• Nexus 5X:  $299
• Moto X Pure:  $299
• Lumia 959 (Windows 10):  $369

All of these phones have 32GB or less in storage so from a price point alone, even at $299, the Robin starts to make a lot of sense.

Owners of the Nextbit Robin will want to check their devices for updates over the course of the next few days.  Nextbit has pushed out a series of updates for the phone, updating a system level app as well as the Camera, Gallery and Smart Storage apps.  The updates are all being pushed at the same time so once you get one, you like will see all of them.  Robin owners will get these via an OTA update.

The first and probably the one you will notice first is the Nextbit Servcies update.  This update will pop up a notification that will allow you to opt-in to have additional performance metrics about Robin to be measured.  This is 100% opt-in and is not required… but if you want to help the Nextbit team improve the software on the Robin and likely learn things for their next phone, doing so isn’t a bad thing.  No, nothing you do on your phone is tracked, it is all anonymous data.

Here is the good news:  If you have been thinking about picking up the fun & fabulous Nextbit Robin, you can still get it for $169 from Amazon.  That’s half the cost of the original price of the phone.

Here is the bad news (sort of):  You are going to have to wait until next week before it ships.  Right now Amazon is showing that November 10th is the date they will have them back in stock.  So you can still order it, but it will just take a little longer to get.  The wait, however, is worth it.  At this price, this is a bit of a no-brainer.

For those that don’t recall, the Nextbit Robin has some great features and offers a unique device-meets-cloud storage solution.  It has 32GB of onboard storage merged with 100 GB online storage, so you always have the space you need. Robin seamlessly backs up your apps and photos, intelligently archives the stuff you’re not using, and easily restores items when you need them.  The idea is that you never run out of space.  Those less used apps are backed up into the cloud but then are instantly available when you want them.  You’ll know an app has been backed up into the cloud as it will be grey on your Robin.