Friday, April 15, 2016

 

This small dancing robot may look cute but will cost you

This cute little dancing robot smartphone costs a small fortune.

Sharp's RoBoHon is definitely not your normal smartphone. For starters, it's a robot. Secondly, it dances. Can your iPhone or Android phone dance? Exactly.
How much for Japan's quirky robot smartphone? Too much! Sharp's taking pre-orders for RoBoHon at 198,000 yen (about $1,800) with shipments slated for May 26 in Japan. To put that in perspective, you could buy four iPhone SEs and still have some change leftover for a cheap Android phone.

RoBoHon was unveiled at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo last December. The 7.6-inch tall "smartphone" is on par with a midrange phone. It runs Android 5.0 Lollipop and is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 2GB of RAM. The lil guy has 16GB of internal storage and a 1,700 milliamp-hour battery.
On the back of the 'bot phone is a 2-inch display with 320 x 240 resolution. That's lower than the original iPhone's 480 x 320 resolution screen!
An 8-megapixel camera sits between RoBoHon's eyes for taking selfies. Above the camera is a projector capable of projecting a 1,280 x 720 resolution display on walls. RoBoHon is like R2-D2's distant cousin, only you know, it can't project holograms.

RoBoHon also responds to voice commands. "The reason people are not utilizing the highly improved voice recognition function is because it feels strange to be speaking into a square tablet," said Tomotaka Takahashi, CEO of Robo Garage. "Then, would it be a different feeling if the device you were speaking to was shaped as a human or animal? Wouldn't it feel more natural? That is what I thought."
Like R2-D2 and BB-8, nobody can accuse RoBoHon of not being charming or adorable. But $1,800 is a bit too high. And owners will need to pay $6 per month to use voice commands? Sorry, but GTFO.

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