Nextbit, the unique 'cloud-mobile' phone maker who promised a world of storage to its users, has been acquired by gaming laptop major Razer.
In the short run, the acquisition may not impact Nextbit's plans of launching new devices or updating the Robin.
Nextbit's claim to fame has so far been a single smartphone- the Robin which the company launched back in 2016 via a Kickstarter programme. The phone is unique in the sense that it is the only one in the world to have cloud backup inbuilt in its ecosystem. Otherwise a capable mid-ranger, it was a great alternative for those who found backing up data to cloud bothersome and those who preferred to store all their media and movies in a single device.
Nextbit Robin in-depth review - Minty fresh
While exact numbers aren't available with us, we gather the Robin took a lot of analysts by surprise when it launched and Nextbit did decent business through it. While we didn't hear from Nextbit much following the launch of the Robin, what we knew was that Robin was due for a software update and that Nextbit may launch a new device in 2017. As it turns out, the company got acquired by gaming laptop major Razer a few days ago but it seems Nextbit's immediate plans aren't in danger.
According to The Verge, Nextbit will, in the short term, retain its core team in San Francisco which will do what it planned to do until Razer decides otherwise. Tom Moss, CEO at Nextbit, has said that the acquisition has brought in more resources than what the company could bring in on its own and that it will remain independent as hitherto.
What Nextbit's future devices will be like, unless the company decides not to develop smartphones anymore, can be gauged by taking a look at Robin, the company's first £350 phone. Featuring a 5.2-inch Full HD display, the phone also fields a Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 13-MP and 5-MP cameras, a 2,680 mAh battery, a fingerprint sensor and 100GB of in-built cloud storage.