Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

TLDR: The Nextbit Robin is a very interesting looking phone that is not ready for prime time. There are several serious hardware issues and minor software issues that affect nearly every single interaction with the phone. This phone might prove to be more compelling in 6 months when the price is even lower and the manufacturing and software issues are ironed out. Look at the Nextbit forums - all of the issues I've experienced are being widely reported in their own enthusiast community. I've owned this phone for a little over 2 weeks now and I feel bad but I am going to have to return the device. I REALLY wanted to like it but unfortunately there are way too many issues and compromises for me to justify the price and the day to day experience. I'll start with some positives about the Robin: - I was really drawn by the industrial design of the phone. The right angles and flat planes along with the very cool mint accents is very visually appealing to me. - The default Nextbit launcher is very iOS-like which I initially liked as I am an iPhone user since the first iPhone back in 2007 - The packaging is unique and a great user experience. I know it's minor but it gives a great first impression as a device that was made and presented with care. - Great feel in the hand. Even though the exterior of the phone is plastic, it has a nice heft to it. While I generally don't like devices that are too thin (I have to keep my iPhone in a case because its too thin and slippery) the Robin's flat planes and right angle edges help it stay firmly in the hand. - Qualcomm Quick Charge tech is awesome. I hope all manufacturers incoporate this cool feature. - None of the bloatware that I've been reading about for years that comes standard on the majority of Android phones. - Carrier unlocked SIM card slot. This was one of the key selling points for me. - Encrypted storage by default. Not sure if Google mandates this or Nextbit enabled it but it was great not having to encrypt the phone after setting it up and waiting 40 minutes for the encryption process to finish. Now that I've listed what I like about the phone, let's move onto my reasons why I must return the device. Hardware Issues: - Power button doesn't always power on/off the display. I would say 1 out of 4 times I press the power button and receive no response. - Fingerprint sensor fails to verify my fingerprints 50% of the time. This is EXTREMELY frustrating. On my iPhone, the TouchID sensor basically never fails to read my fingerprint, unless my finger is wet. - Fingerprint sensor is in an inconvenient (for me) location since I am left handed. I've registered my right thumb and my left index finger in order to be able to hold the phone with either hand but realistically the left hand index finger almost never passes finger print verification. - Front facing camera is horrible quality. Any and all selfies taken with this device come out super grainy and remind me of pics taken 6 or 7 years ago when front facing cameras were still relatively rare and never used for video calls - Fit and Finish: the top and bottom mint end caps feel loose and flex way too easily for my comfort. I am worried that if this phone is dropped that these end pieces will either fly off or develop a giant crack in them. They just feel too flimsy. - The back surface of the phone does not feel like a level plane, but instead like it has some raised or depressed portions (very slight). I can't take pictures to demonstrate this but I can definitelly feel it. I hope it is the housing that is slightly warped and not the battery warping which could lead to a catastrophic failure and then a fire if it is deforming. - Phone gets EXTREMELY hot. Other than Words with Friends (2 or three words played per day only) I don't play games on the phone. It will get hot browsing the web in Chrome or browsing my podcasts library in Pocket Casts. Also while charging the phone the heat gets really intense. - Battery life is terrible - most days I am charging the phone by 5pm because It's hovering around 20% or so. Typical use is light texting throughout the day, Pocket Casts app most of the work day, alternating between wired and bluetooth headphones. I should not be seing almost 10% per hour discharge rate with this usage pattern. - LED Notification Light - coming from iOS this is the only hardware feature that I've consistently been jealous of. I used to have it on my BlackBerry back in the day and really missed it at first when I switched to iPhone. The implementation here is questionable. Is it common to not locate a notification LED on either the front or back of the phone? Also not having an LED that supports multiple colors seems to be a huge missed opportunity. Any and all notifications that trigger the LED look the same to me, if i even notice them. - USB-C cable support - I understand the positives for using this type of cable (mainly transfer speed and ability to insert cable without worrying about orientation) but I have issues with USB-C cables in genreal and specifically the one included in the box. - The USB-A end of the included cable (the connector that plugs into a AC adaptor or a computer) can be inserted backwards into a USB-A female port. Was it cheaper to make the cable in this manner or was it for a unique look? I worry that someone who isn't paying attention can damage a USB port. - USB-C cables are way too stiff for my liking. For charging at home this is a minor annoyance but in the car it is extermely inconvenient to have a 3 foot cable that cannot be tamed and randomly catches on things. This has occured with the included cable and an aftermarket USB-C cable. - Lack of an included AC adapter. At minimum a non Quick Charge AC adapter should be included. It's a phone, not a FitBit with a tiny battery that charges in 20 minutes over USB. Software: - When Battery Saver is active, some apps are essentially broken because touch input is not recognized. This appears randomly, but only when Battery Saver is active. I don't know why this occurs and I don't have the time or the patience to figure it out. - In 2016, it is simply inexcusable that the Gallery app does not support cropping photos. I don't get why NextBit even bothered to expend the engineering resources to develop this app. My guess is that if they allowed the user to Google Photos by default, then the value proposition of the Smart Storage is vastly diminished since Google Photos offers photo backup in the cloud. - The Camera app is terrible. I should not have to pray that the camera app launches in time for me to get a pic of my niece before I miss the moment. - Lowest volume setting is way too loud and the phone is unusable in a house late at night where others may be sleeping nearby. Thankfully, I found a solution in the Nextbit forums - an app that helps tune the speakers a bit lower but I shouldn't have to do this in first place in my opinion. - The Nextbit launcher is very limiting. The app icons are way too large and the permanent placement in the lower right of the purple launcher button seems like a waste of screen space. Also, the option to view All Apps takes way too long to transition to the full list of installed apps. This is a minor issue since I discovered and installed Google Now launcher. - Initial phone setup was less than ideal. When I powered the phone on, the phone appeared to download some Android related updates. After finishing up my Google user setup I was on the home screen. Then the phone proceeded to download Google Play store updates for every included Google app which took too long in my opinion. Lastly, the phone notified me that the April Nextbit update was available so it proceeded to download and install that. I assume this is more an Android issue and how updates are handled out of the box rather than Nextbit's implementation but it was not great to see an hour of updates right out of the box. - I know its not fair to compare my iPhone 6 against this phone, but even at half the price for the Robin, many of these issues are just not acceptable. Reliable fingerprint sensors are the minimum table stakes, not nice high end flagship features in today's security conscious environment. If working correctly, the user should forget they even have a fingerprint sensor in the phone. The Robin does do this... but only sometimes for me. The hardware issues unfortunately are what drove my decision to return the device. I don't want to deal with a faulty device and I also don't want to go through the RMA and exchange process. There are simply too many issues and my level of confidence in receiving a "perfect" device as a replacement is not very high. As for the software issues, I believe the Nextbit team will eventually address these issues. In the mean time I had to do research to find alternative apps to fix the issues experienced to provide the functionality that I felt was missing from the built in software, such as cropping photos(!). I'd like to add the caveat that while I've used an iPhone for years, I am not anti-Android or a fanboy that likes to get into OS arguments. I have an Android tablet (Lenovo Yoga Tab 2) and as you can see the majority of my issues are with the hardware, not Android as a platform. Edit: I forgot to include the Nextbit Robin does not support T-Mobile WiFi Calling or WiFi texting. My typical use for my iPhone is to place it in Airplane Mode and enable WiFi to save on battery when I arrive at home. This enables me to make and receive all calls and all texts (SMS and iMessages) over WiFi, without having to rely on some 3rd party app like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Skype as a hack to receive calls and messages on WiFi. I believe the Samsung Galaxy phones and many other devices on Android also support this type of use and was surprised it is not supported on Nextbit. My guess is that it must be certified with each network operator and Nextbit has not gone through this process yet. August 2016 Edit: I also forgot to mention that the phone refused to work with my stereo head unit which is a Pioneer MVH-X370BT In-Dash Digital Media Receiver with Built-in Bluetooth. I bought this unit back in October of 2015 to work with my iPhone 5 in the car. - No matter what USB options I changed in the Android Settings app I could not get it to successfully mount the phone as USB drive with files on it. It would go into an endless loop of "Disk Format Error" messages. - The phone refused to charge over the Pioneer's USB port. If i was using navigation and the screen was on, I would be guaranteed to lose approximately 1% of battery capacity per minute which is crazy. I did try multiple USB C cables with no success. - I was able to pair it to the Pioneer via Bluetooth, but my phone book never downloaded to the head unit and I could not initiate or answer calls using the head unit controls. - Controlling the phone via voice (OK Google voice prompts) was also basically not usable because the phone would not use the head units hardwired mic. It always defaulted to the phone's built in mic which is not optimized to filter out sounds of the road so it never was able to understand voice prompts such as "Take me to the supermarket" or "Call John" that you would want to use in a car.