Nextbit has been bought by Razer

Razer, the gaming laptop and peripheral company, has acquired smartphone-maker Nextbit. A press release announcing the acquisition says that Razer “has acquired the majority of the assets of Nextbit Systems Inc. and has brought onboard the management and employees of the company,” but no financial details of the acquisition were disclosed. The deal closed on Friday, January 27th, 2017.
Nextbit, which was founded by former members of Google’s Android team and a former head of design at HTC, will remain a largely independent company, operating as a “standalone business unit under its own management,” according to the release. In an interview about the acquisition, Nextbit CEO Tom Moss said the “whole team” will be coming over and that the deal will give the company more resources than it otherwise would have access to. The Nextbit staff will remain in their current location in San Francisco and will not combine with Razer’s team at this time.
Moss would not comment on any new products in the pipeline, but said that Nextbit will “continue on its mission to push boundaries and do cool stuff in mobile.” It is likely that we’ll see new hardware and software at some point, but Moss did not provide any details about future plans.
Nextbit has released one smartphone so far, the Robin, which became available just about one year ago, following a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. It garnered a lot of acclaim for its unique software design and promise to “never run out of storage,” but didn’t exactly upend the mobile industry. Moss said that Nextbit is committing to another year of software updates on the Robin and Razer will be backing up purchases with six months of hardware warranty, though the device has been out of stock in official channels for a couple of months already. The forthcoming Android 7.0 Nougat update is expected to arrive this quarter, and Nextbit’s promised battery improvements are due to follow shortly after that.
For Razer, Nextbit is one in a series of acquisitions, following last year’s very similar purchase of audio technology company THX. What happens in the future remains to be seen, but by all accounts, it seems that Nextbit has found a lifeboat of sorts in its new parent company.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linktree’s free workaround lets you add multiple links to your Instagram bio

Image
Instagram only gives you one opportunity to link to outside resources inside its photo sharing platform. This might not be a problem for a majority of the users, but for those wanting a little more customization and even more options, it leaves much to be desired. Enter  Linktree , a free tool for Instagram designed to improve traffic to your outside link, be it a blog, portfolio, or store. How it works is fairly straightforward. After connecting Linktree to your Instagram profile, you’ll receive a single link to place in your Instagram bio. Once that link in place, you can customize what it’s linked to within your browser, be it a single website, or a collection of sites you’re looking to direct followers to Say you’re a photographer who’s using Instagram as a marketing tool for your wedding photography. Using Linktree, you can direct Instagram followers to your blog, your portfolio site, and even your other social media accounts. Until now, you would’ve been stuck choosing b
Read more

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PIXEL 4, THE MOST-LEAKED PHONE EVER

Image
Google’s  Pixel 3 might have been the  most-leaked phone in history . Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos, photo comparisons, even a full review of the device. Surely, for the Pixel 4, Google would clamp down on leaks to leave some surprises for its debut on  October 15th , right? Let’s just say, if that was the plan, it didn’t exactly work out. We’ve now seen the Pixel 4 XL from every angle and in three different colors. At least seven different sources have touched this phone, many of them confirming the same specs. We not only know which cameras it’ll have, but also what they may be capable of, including air gestures (go figure). That doesn’t even count information Google has already shared  on purpose. So if you want to know almost everything about the Pixel 4 nearly a month before it’s announced, buckle up. We’ve sifted through all of the rumors and information we can find to compile everything we know — and everything we
Read more

Our favorite iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad in 2018

Image
As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to look at some our favorite apps of the year. While not all of these are brand new, many of them popped up onto our radar for the first time in 2018, and are definitely worth the attention. Others are some of our favorites that are still best-in-class despite having been around for some time now. We aim to do things differently at TNW, and as such you’re not going to find the recommendations you’re probably used to seeing: Gmail, Skype, Dropbox, and the like. Instead, we want to focus on the best-of-the-best that you may not have heard of, and others that are just special enough to warrant a mention. As always, we’d encourage you to share some of your favorites in the comments below, or on Facebook. Enlight Pixaloop (Free Pixaloop  is one of my favorite apps on the market. Unlike typical image editors that allow you to remove red eye or apply a filter, Pixaloop allows you to create stunning photo animations with a few clicks on your
Read more