This Kickstarter phone never runs out of space

We’ve all been there: you try to download an app to your phone, or install a system update, only to be greeted with the dreaded “not enough storage” warning. What if you had a phone that never ran out of space?

That’s the promise of the Nextbit Robin, a $399 phone that debuted last year on Kickstarter and raised over $1.3 million. The hook? It’s a beautifully designed Android phone that uses cloud storage to make sure you never run out of space.

How to Free Up Storage on Your iPhone or iPad

At first glance, the Robin doesn’t seem like much more than your standard Android phone. It’s got a nice 5.2-inch display, an okay camera, and a cute two-tone design that stands out from the crowd.

Its two-toned plastic build might stray too far into Fisher Price territory for some people, but the mint version we checked out certainly grew on us. At the very least, it’s a nice break from the sea of aluminum-on-glass phones out there.

So far, it’s pretty standard stuff. But when a user begins bumping up against the ceiling of the Robin's 32GB internal storage, the phone’s secret weapon kicks in: it automatically begins archiving apps (login credentials and all) to the cloud—with up to 100GB available to each Robin user by default.

This can be done manually, but the phone otherwise moves your least-used apps first.  Apps that have been stored in the cloud have gray icons, so it’s easy to see which ones aren’t immediately available.

This process only takes place when the phone is plugged in and connected to WiFi—so it won’t eat up your data cap—but it’s going to appeal mostly to people that have access to a fast, reliable wireless network. When you want to use one of these apps you just tap it and, after a delay, it’ll spring back to life.

The main issue is that delay. Even small apps on a strong WiFi connection take a good amount of time to restore. I averaged about 4-6 minutes per app, and this was with a significantly fast connection. Your mileage may vary, of course, and there's always room for this to improve with future software updates.

While it definitely needs some refinement, the appeal is obvious—not to mention cool. But there are some glaring problems here that stop the Robin from soaring to the dizzying heights it sets out to reach.

In our experience, the biggest issue is the battery life. It just doesn’t stand up to extended use, though it’s no worse than phones like the Apple iPhone 6S or the Google Nexus 5X. The camera also wasn’t great, though we did like it a bit more than the similarly priced HTC One A9.

The Robin's physical build might also literally rub people the wrong way; its squared-off corners never quite settled into my hand the way I wanted them to, though the phone was still comfortable to hold.

For all of Nextbit's talk about the phone’s balanced, harmonious design, I was a little disappointed to find the device's volume buttons sitting directly opposite the power button (it’s a pet peeve, certainly, but a peeve nonetheless). The volume controls and power button are also deeply set into the body of the phone. This cuts down on accidental presses, but it makes them more difficult to press when you actually want to.

And even though the power button is equipped with a fingerprint sensor, I can't say I'm nuts about the lack of a home key somewhere beneath the display. I recognize that there are different schools of thought on this, but for my money, having more than one way to wake up a smartphone is always ideal.

The other feature we’re torn on is the USB Type-C port, which is used for charging and data transfer. USB Type-C has a bright future, promising faster transfer speeds and a reversible design like the iPhone’s Lightning connector. But while the Robin’s power cable appears reversible, the review unit we used only charges with the cable plugged in a certain way.

But despite these shortcomings, I’m still excited about the Nextbit Robin. It’s a beautiful phone that handles day-to-day tasks effortlessly and its cloud storage feature has loads of promise. It has a few design quirks and the battery will barely last you through a full day, but the good certainly outweighs the bad.

And in the end, that’s enough to justify the Nextbit Robin’s existence. While the unit we checked out lacks some of the polish of the best flagship phones, it’s a wonderful proof of concept that should have Robin backers singing when they begin to receive their copies in the near future.

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