A few weeks ago, Japanese OEM NuAns launched a Kickstarter campaign to make their NEO Windows 10 Mobile handset available to customers in select regions outside of Japan, hoping to get $725,000 from backers. Sadly, the Kickstarter campaign has since failed as the company only managed to get $142.368 from 489 Windows Phone enthusiasts after 45 days (via Neowin).
The company has yet to release an official statement to acknowledge that it missed its Kickstarter goal, though the team has posted several comments on its Kickstarter page over the last few days to explain what’s next. This first comment was posted four days ago and it seems that the company still has plans to release its handset in other countries:
We have not given up on bringing NEO to the rest of the world, and we hope you won’t either. This is only the beginning.
This other comment was posted just a day ago:
Very sorry about the poor communication and also keeping you wait for long. We will soon send another information to all the backers. Please give us a little more time. Thank you!
As a reminder, the NuAns NEO is a mid-range Windows 10 Mobile phone featuring a unique rounded design with customizable shells. On the inside, the handset features a Snapdragon 617 SoC (with support for Continuum), 2 GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a 3350 mAh battery. But as Microsoft is currently dropping the price of its Lumia 950 and 950XL flagship handsets, it’s not clear if the NuAns NEO could be competitive against the more popular Lumia brand. Let us know in the comments if you think NuAns should still work to release the NEO outside of the Japanese market.