Nextbit, the cloud-based smartphone manufacturer that launched Robin, announced on Friday that it has received regulatory approval to sell smartphones in India. In a brief tweet from the company's official Twitter account on Friday, the company said it would shipp, starting next week, the Robin smartphones to buyers who had pre-ordered the device on Kickstarter.
Despite being approved, Nextbit did not reveal any immediate plans to conduct general sales (online or offline) for its Robin smartphone in India. The U.S.-based tech firm was unable to launch the smartphone in India due to the pending Bureau of Indian Standards approval.
"Big news, India. We received regulatory approval! Robins from Kickstarter will ship next week. No general sale yet, [sic]" the company tweeted.
The smartphone-manufacturer did not reveal the pricing of the Robin smartphone in India either, but there isn't much surprise around that. The official price of Nextbit Robin is $399 (roughly Rs. 26,000) plus the shipping costs, which is another $70 (roughly Rs. 4,600) for Indian buyers. The handset has been available for pre-order since October last year, but it Nextbit expanded shipments to several regions in February.
Amazon is running a limited-period discount on Nextbit Robin, which is selling for $100 cheaper at $299 for an unlocked unit. The offer is valid only till May 10 before the $399 price tag returns.
For the price, Nextbit Robin is an interesting package with unique elements that stand out in a crowd. The handset sports a 5.2-inch Full HD display, a 13MP primary camera with dual LED flash and a 5MP front-snapper. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor, which is paired with 3GB RAM, 32GB onboard storage and 100GB cloud storage.
Nextbit Robin also sports a USB Type-C charging port and supports 4G LTE on its single SIM slot. There is a fingerprint sensor to add the extra protection to the device. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and has an unlocked bootloader for users to easily use custom Android ROMs.
