The Robins are coming
over 8 years ago – Mon, Feb 08, 2016 at 10:36:56 PM

You may have seen pictures of our flashing party on Friday. We were preparing Robin to meet all the reviewers around the world. They’re excited to meet Robin. Well, maybe not as excited as you are. Now that those are off on their journeys, it’s time to get yours ready.

This week is Chinese New Year. The Early Adopter GSM Robins (and all the parts to make more Robins) are napping in a warehouse while everyone goes home to visit their families and celebrate. As soon as everyone comes back they’ll be boxing up the Early Adopters to ship out - as planned. For all those who weren’t able to purchase a Robin during Kickstarter or preorders, our store will be going live on February 18th.

What is shipping out?

The first Robins to ship will be Early Adopter GSM Robins in Mint and Midnight. Electric is running a little late. (Just a little.) Scratches and Bumps cases will ship to GSM early adopters with their phones.

All GSM Robins - including Electric - are still on track to ship by the end of February. Bruises and all accessories should ship out to all GSM Rebels by then, too.

Accessorize with Robin
over 8 years ago – Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:17:37 PM

We’ve had some big announcements over the past couple weeks. This week, we have good news. We have real samples of all our accessories now.

Robin is a standout phone, and we designed accessories that stand out too. Why hide it? Check out how they look in real life!

Cases

Late last year, we showed you the prototypes for Scratches, Bumps, and Bruises. Now, we have the final versions - in full color (or lack thereof in the case of Scratches).

Cables

We’re offering three different cable lengths, and now we have all three in the office to show you. The standard cable that comes with your phone is 1m / 3'. The short cable is .15m / 6" and the long cable is 2m / 6'. You will be able to buy the standard cable in either mint or grey.

Chargers

Here’s your first look at the updated chargers, in the right color. We’re still working on the Australia/New Zealand charger.

T-shirts

Team Nextbit was sporting some new swag this week - those exclusive Kickstarter t-shirts.

New Rebels

Remember how we told you our rebel base is getting full? Here’s an introduction to just some of who’s joined us since the end of our Kickstarter campaign. Pretty much every team has grown: marketing, engineering, product, design, operations, and more!

(Steven, Khang, Ninoschka, Tarek, Pam, Sarah, Anita, Saro - missing Nick and Kathy)

The whole team is working hard to get Robin to your doorstep. Trust us, we’re as excited as you are.

The Fullest House
over 8 years ago – Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 11:23:27 PM

Team Nextbit is getting big. This week, we officially filled our last desk at rebel base. Our team has grown almost 50% since the beginning of our Kickstarter campaign, and a lot of these new Rebels are here to make sure that you have the best experience possible.

Caught up in the moment

You want the future to be here already. You want your Robin today. We feel the same way. We know CDMA backers want to know when their Robins will arrive. We wanted to wait until we could give you an exact date, but we can’t wait anymore.

The CDMA Robin wasn’t in development until we saw your response on Kickstarter, and we got a little carried away in the excitement of the campaign. When we estimated we would deliver CDMA Robin in February, we were being optimistic. Now that we’ve gone through development and are working out the testing schedule, we think April is more realistic. We don’t know exactly when in April as there are still a number of factors outside our control. We will keep you up to date, as we get more and more information.

We know this isn’t the type of news you want to hear and we’re sorry. We’d love to tell you all the Robins would ship in February like we planned, or at least give you an exact date. Stay true, Rebels. We are gonna do this.

Tell me something good
over 8 years ago – Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 10:08:07 PM

It’s a big week here are Nextbit. We have officially locked the ROM we will be shipping with. Our team is taking a short break to celebrate this afternoon, and then it’s back to work. Here are some other things going on at rebel base.

CES recap

Last week, Scott and Eric spent some time at CES. They threw a little party and had the chance to meet up with some pretty cool press. Check out just a few of the interviews we did.

CNET
The Verge
Android Authority
Techno Buffalo

#californiadreaming

By now, most of you have received your surprise postcards! We wanted to let you know that while we’re hard at work, we’re thinking of you guys - our awesome backers. We couldn’t do it without you.

Show us where you’re putting your stickers by posting on social media with #californiadreaming.

If you haven’t received your postcard, be sure to check your shipping address. Enter your email address here to check and update if you need to!

Forum

This Kickstarter community is pretty amazing, and we want to keep you all together. But once Robin ships it doesn’t make any sense for us to stay here. We’re really excited to show you what we’ve created over to the official Nextbit forum, coming in February 2016. Kay has been busy building out the forum and Tarek designed a special badge for you amazing Kickstarter backers.

Preorders closing

We opened up preorders a while ago on BackerKit and we’ve received overwhelming feedback. As we announced at CES, we’ll be closing down BackerKit preorders Friday, January 15th at 8pm PST / 11pm EST. Anyone who orders a GSM Robin before January 15th will be included in the late February shipments. Let your friends and family know!

Ugh. Oooh.
over 8 years ago – Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 11:32:50 PM

Ripping off the band aid

We've got some news Rebels. Unfortunately, it's bad news but not as bad as you might think. Robin will ship to early adopters a few weeks late. We will ship GSM models to early adopters the week of February 16. The rest of you who ordered GSM phones will still receive your Robin by the end of February, as promised. We're sorry we can't get them to you earlier but some factors have conspired against us. A few last minute firmware improvements need to be integrated into the ROM to make it the quality of product we want you to have. Additionally, a key component has not arrived in the quantities we need to produce all your Robins, maybe not even all the early adopter models. This will push the schedule right up to Chinese New Year, when everything shuts down. Once things get started again after Chinese New Year, we'll be able to send the first Robins to you all.

We know you want NextNow, and we’re disappointed we can’t get Robin to you any sooner. We want to remain open and straightforward with you about development, which is why we’re telling you as soon as we had enough information to set a new shipment date. We are still working on a date for CDMA backers.

Brighter news

We have enough parts for prototypes, and development is coming along great. We all took Robin home to test over the holidays. Alastair’s was in Utah and New York, Tom’s was in Japan, Aaron’s was in Iceland, and there were a whole bunch of Robins all over California. We came away with some great shots, and wanted to show you just how awesome Robin’s camera is. We know you were skeptical (and rightly so), but we’re so proud of how well it works.

What’s everyone doing this week?

Tom, Scott, and Eric are at CES this week, spreading the word and showing off Robin. We got our latest production units in and the office was pretty busy on Monday getting phones flashed with the most updated software for Vegas. Now, we’re all focused on putting finishing touches on software, packaging, and everything else.

Here’s to a very exciting 2016!