New smartphone Nextbit Robin offers unlimited storage; opens for pre-order

Pre-orders for Nextbit's Robin, a smartphone which promises users unlimited storage on their phone thanks to cloud connectivity, are open on its Kickstarter page.

Pre-orders can be booked for $399 (approx Rs26,000) and the device can be shipped to India at an additional $70 (approx Rs4,600).

Nextbit, formed by former employees of HTC, Google and Apple offers the device with an unlimited storage, which means users can access cloud storage once the Robin's 32GB on-board storage runs out.

It starts to free up space on the device by offloading user content to the 100GB cloud allotted to the handset.

Nextbit has its own OS running in addition to Android and is designed to learn users' habits.

The device automatically pushes unused apps and services onto the cloud, which can be brought back with a single tap.

The device sports a smart look with its rectangular form factor and among other specs it comes with 5.2-inch 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, 2,680mAh battery and 13-megapixel rear snapper. It also features a USB Type-C charging port and fingerprint scanner.

According to commentators, backing up content on the  was not something novel and several others offered the service.

However, Nextbit said its service was superior as its intuitive service automatically backed up content intelligently and without the need for users to free up space.

Whenever the user is connected to Wi-Fi and power, the smartphone backs up everything on the phone to a cloud server and over a period of time it will detect apps that the user does not use much as well as also photographs and songs that the user had not accessed in a while.

It then removes them from the phone's memory and substituting them for greyed out icons.

The startup ran a Kickstarter for financial support for the device, setting a goal of $500,000, which it raised in about 12 hours.