Is Nextbit the Next Big Player in Premium Smartphones?

The US$300-US$400 smartphone range that Nextbit plans to enter is a crowded field, occupied by Chinese vendors such as Huawei, ZTE and Alcatel, which have launched mid-tier phones with quality functions at competitive prices. Well, the company appears to be in capable hands. Mike Chan, chief technology officer and fellow Android veteran, said the Nextbit phone would rely heavily on cloud storage to let users access as much of their content as they like, even when it is not stored locally on the phone. In fact, Nexbit’s big promise is that its smartphone won’t just be good, but will improve over time as software updates augment its performance and cloud services expand its storage.

Still, a move from software to hardware is bound to ramp up costs at the company and Nextbit’s going to have to produce something seriously different and very appealing if it’s to have a realistic hope of competing in the space. As for rival startups like OnePlus, they have officially been put on notice. A company by the name of Nextbit is slated to unveil its first Android smartphone early next month and according to CEO Tom Moss, it’ll be friggin’ awesome. Headed by former HTC and Google staff, it has a secret weapon in the form of a phone that it says will get better with age.

Nextbit didn’t reveal any information regarding its relationships with carriers. The company believes its smartphone is so unique that it will be able to stand out among the competition. “That’s why we’re doing something different”. In an email sent to TechnoBuffalo, a company spokesperson said that “the idea is to take Android a step further, and extend beyond the hard specs of the phone to offer features that consumers have been clamoring for over the past few years”.

Despite the bold claims, Nextbit says it will not be modifying Android in the way Amazon does with its Fire phone and tablets. While at HTC, Croyle was was a key member of the design team behind HTC One M7 and M8.