New Windows 10 Phone By NuAns, NEO, Goes To Kickstarter

Japanese company NuAns is taking a leap of faith in launching a $725,000 Kickstarter funding bid to bring its Windows 10-based phone NEO to the world. A leap that could see the company broken on the ground for coming in too late in the game.

The NEO is a midrange phone with a 5-inch HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable internal storage, a 13-megapixel back camera and a 5-megapixel front camera, and a reversible USB-C port.

With performance banking only on average, what can NuAns offer their Kickstarter customers? Customization. The phone has an interchangeable back cover panels that can be made out of different materials and used for extra functions like storing cash or credit cards.

For extra customization, the designs for the panels will soon be available for3D printing.

As an added feature, it runs Microsoft's Continuum feature that enables the user to turn it into a mini-desktop PC by connecting it to a dock.

The phone seems like a good choice for any smartphone user, but for one caveat: it runs on a Windows 10 mobile platform.

While Windows is doing great with its desktop and laptop operating systems, its foray into the mobile OS market has been nothing but failure so far. Windows-based mobile phones only have 0.7 percent of the market share as reported in the first quarter of 2016, and according to Gartner, the platform is "as good as dead."

That is also the reason why Microsoft opted to provide Android and iOS users its exceptional apps instead.

With ultra-thin smartphones operating in iOS and Android, NEO looks like a thick cousin of the old Nokia Lumia, only with a better design.

NEO could have been a winner that would have launched Windows phone into the smartphone arena years ago, according to Raymond Wong, but with Windows Phone 7 and 8 failing as well, whether it would have made any headway still remains to be seen.