Scott Croyle has been credited for pushing the boundaries of what smartphones should look and feel like. When he was in charge of HTC’s design department, as commander-in-chief, the One series witnessed a critically acclaim never-before-seen by the company.
Now, with the Nextbit Robin, Croyle wants to push boundaries even further.
He departed HTC last year, in April, to join a highly-intriguing start-up called Nextbit. They were initially aiming at developing software, not hardware.
Croyle had his way and he gathered a team that would be eager to develop awesome things for our pockets.
Today marks the day Croyle showcases what he has been working for such a long time. The Nextbit Robin is what he likes to call the design-first, cloud-first smartphone.
Croyle has told The Verge that he was more than tired of pleasing mobile carriers instead of the end consumer. With Nextbit, he doesn’t have to go through all of the hassle. He feels more liberated and in power.
Nextbit will sell directly to consumers, and because they are a small start-up they can experiment and prioritize to better fit consumers – aesthetics, originally, freshness in design and, of course, tactile appeal.
Their main goal was to look the part. It’s pretty hard to build a poorly designed smartphone nowadays, he adds. Because of this, they wanted to avoid the conventional and boring look.
I wanted to kind of zig and maybe zag.
When you first lay your eyes on the Nextbit Robin, you don’t know how to react. It’s simple but not really. Its rectangle shape doesn’t convey that natural sense at all. It has a spartan approach, notes Croyle.
Spartan symmetry to be accurate.
Designing a phone is to Croyle as is symmetry to Wes Anderson and Kubrick. They just fit together.
Everything is as it should be with the Robin. You got a bezel above the screen, and below it – both are identical. The cameras are positioned on opposite sides, but they mirror their placement.
However, we do not know how much difference this will make in the eyes of the end-user. But, it’s a pretty nice when considering how much thought and work Croyle and his team put in the smartphone’s design.
It features a Snapdragon 808 proc, which is a derivative of the 810 but without all that nonsense regarding thermal issues. The 5.2-inch 1080 display was a no-brainer, adds Croyle.
The Nextbit Robin will be launched on Kickstarter pretty soon. That’s where users who want to support the brand new smartphone-maker Nextbit will have the posibility of choosing a battery life and other components.
Michael Turner
