Nextbit proudly announced earlier this month that its first phone, the cloud-powered Robin, would begin shipping to Kickstarter backers on February 16. Backers that were not among the first wave on Kickstarter were told to expect their Robin ship near the end of February; however, Nextbit didn’t provide any status of the CDMA model beyond saying they have been “working on a date.” It was originally believed that this model, destined for a carrier like Verizon, would come in February or March, but Nextbit is disappointed to clarify that neither month is possible.
The CDMA model of the Robin will likely ship in the second quarter of 2016 following the delay.
Simply put, Nextbit just wasn’t prepared to released a CDMA model of the Robin when it was developing the phone. The company only realized there was a demand for it when Verizon and Sprint customers were very vocal on the Kickstarter page.
Here’s the full rundown from Nextbit:
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.
No one should be furious and angry with Nextbit for delaying the CDMA model because it only followed the well-thought-out GSM model’s launch on Kickstarter just two weeks later. Having something that was previously unplanned ship two months after the original isn’t a big deal. Whatever delayed it is out of Nextbit’s control, too. So let’s not get all fussy. Nextbit is building its very first phone and plans to ship within 8 months of going live on Kickstarter. We can definitely cut the company some slack as most ambitious campaigns on Kickstarter ship about 9 months after they debut.
Source: Nextbit (Kickstarter)
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