Razer has shuttered the Nextbit community website which now takes you to the Razer homepage when visited. It’s not clear exactly what Razer is planning by introducing this particular change though it’s likely that the redirection is just a placeholder for now and the Nextbit community site could be taken offline completely without the redirect in the future. Razer acquired Nextbit earlier this year after having officially announced the buyout, and it wasn’t long before the Robin, which was Nextbit’s first and only smartphone, was unavailable to purchase by new customers. At least not directly through Nextbit as you may still be able to get one of the devices through other means online.
As of right now there is no explanation from Razer about what’s happening and why they suddenly took the website down without notice to users by email or some other form of communication, like an official blog post, but those that were aware of the acquisition may have expected changes to come soon as it was made clear that there would be changes. Although Nextbit Robin owners no longer have an official community page to go to for all Nextbit-related topics about the device, software updates and future maintenance should continue for a time as Razer has already agreed to keep the Robin updated. That being said they never mentioned how long they planned to maintain the software.
Nextbit was said to remain as a standalone business when the acquisition was announced so it’s possible and likely that the Nextbit team is still running things for the Robin, and as of now with no detail on what the removal of the community site means for the future of Nextbt Robin owners everything else could be business as usual. What means exactly is also unclear but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Robin owners should have cause for alarm. Although Razer has said they have no plans to launch a smartphone following the Nextbit acquisition, they are continuing to produce products that are able to cater to mobile device owners, as is evident by their recent launch of the Razer Hammerhead BT headphones, which are an updated Bluetooth-powered version of the Razer Hammerhead V2 earbuds.