Nextbit’s game changing smartphone is coming 1 September
The next best device you’ve never heard of
Think of a device better than anything made by Google, Apple, Amazon or HTC. Can’t? That’s because it’s not out until 1 September.
Nextbit, a San Fran mobile developer run by former employees of all of the above companies, is set to unveil its debut Android handset and wants to change the mobile market as it does so.
In an interview with Cnet, Nextbit CEO Tom Moss and former Worldwide Head of Business Development and Partnerships for Android at Google said the company is “trying to push the boundaries” by delivering a “premium tier” Android device which will “perform better over time”. The idea is that cloud storage expansion and organic software updates will create a smartphone which adapts to the user to prevent what Moss termed “phone fatigue”.
The move to enter a market already two-a-penny with suffering smartphone producers is a bold but risky one: HTC’s decline has been widely publicised, and Microsoft has struggled to find success after its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile arm.
Considering Nextbit is an unheard-of mark in the industry, the company will need all the design smarts of Scott Croyle, the man behind the sleek and sexy HTC One M8, to make the desired impact.
We’ve whipped up a mockup of the handset above, though obviously we’d be very surprised if the final result looks exactly like it.
Pitching between the US$300 and US$400 price point, it seems likely that Nextbit will pursue its own route to market, as Xiaomi did, and will have to fight hard to develop relationships with consumers accustomed to Apple and settled with Samsung.
That said, the success of OnePlus, much of which was achieved through intelligent marketing (such as the Tuesday-only sale of its One handset – your 2014 gadget of the year), showed it’s still possible to break into the mobile market in a big way without an established reputation.
Only time will tell what consumers will make of Nextbit’s as yet unnamed offering, but, with few hard specs on the cards to date, many eyes will be trained on its September 1 announcement.
[Cnet]
Chris Rowlands
Freelance contributor 
