The Essential Phone is official:

kirbyrj said:
I thought you just got done saying you were at BB and didn't like it. I had it in my cart for $399 with a $50 cricket wireless startup kit, but couldn't pull the trigger. Still rocking my Pixel 1 (non-XL).
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Waiting official 5T announcement
 
I'm not an Android guy, at all. But outside of buying a Pixel directly from Google, this would probably be the only piece of hardware I would say is worth considering (and just to be redundant, so people are clear, this is my personal opinion... people get hung up and want to argue the case for their phone and their preference).

There are two big issues I see with Android:
1.) Related to security of personal data. I won't get into this as I know most people either don't care or they think that Google can be trusted.
and 2, the one the general public cares more about:
2.) Software updates, support, seamless pushes of releases and support for older hardware. (Yes that was 'slightly' redundant, but they all cover different things).
Everything else isn't worth talking about. We could talk about features and one OS versus another, but really that's personal preference and ecosystem. At this point as much retardedness as I've seen around here, (and now a resurgence what with the Pixel 2 dropping and iPhone X, both sides have more than enough power to do anything anyone could possibly want to do in a device. A thread literally got locked because people were arguing about benchmarks and which one/OS was faster... seriously, who cares?) the difference in speed between iOS vs Android devices matters literally, not at all. In hand no one is going to be able to discern one versus the other unaided. /rant

If Essential manages to have continued support for this phone several years out than it could be one of the few alternative choices to buying a Google phone. The company is so new though that it's hard to know if that's going to be the case. But if they do, this is some of the best game in town in terms of quality of hardware, hardware performance, and pure Android.
 
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I'm worried with these big price drops if Essential will even be around as a company still supporting this phone, let alone releasing an Essential PH-2 ? Over on XDA, the file images still have not been released by Essential, so development is zero, nothing going on. Phone has been out 2 months now, and other phones running stock Android like this, Nexus, OnePlus, Pixel, all have their files officially released pretty early and quick. Not sure why Essential is holding back ? At least get the development community on your side, to try and build up a base from there, baby steps would help for them. But giving the cold shoulder to the developers on a phone like this, will just make it worse.
 
Yeah, I wonder if they can break even at least because it certainly doesn't sound like they're doing well.

They really should have been trying their best to be development friendly because once you gain a reputation, it's hard to lose it. I'd certainly be more interested in this phone if it didn't have fewer custom ROMs (only LOS) than the LG G6 (of which ALL carrier models, and some non-carrier models too, are bootloader locked!).
 
Supposedly you can get one from Sprint for $145. Sign up for the $5/18 month lease + $25 activation. Then you pay it off for the $30 buy out. It will then be unlocked in 24-48 hours.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/forum....w-to/145-essential-phone-sprint-t3706226/amp/



YMMV, but it appears that several people have been able to swing this deal with Sprint which seems like an insane deal for minimal effort.


And the deal gets sweetened on Nov. 23.


Beginning Nov. 23, with the lease of an Essential Phone, get the Essential 360 Video Camera – the world’s smallest 360° 4K camera for video that snaps right to your phone – for FREE. That’s a $199 value.

Essential requires new-line activation or eligible upgrade on 18-month lease. Early termination results in balance due. $5/mo./line annual upgrade fee waived on Sprint Flex. Camera offer available 11/23-12/03. Requires online registration and new line or eligible upgrade. Camera ships within five weeks of registration. Ask rep for details.
 
Whoa, that's a crazy good deal. The Essential, while I don't put it at the level of giants like the V30 or Pixel 2, is still very solid in my book. I'm more worried about the company folding than anything else.

Maybe if I can grab a good deal I'll get one in the coming weeks.
 
Looks like Nokia beat Essential by releasing final Oreo first. It's now available for Nokia 8.
 
I'm not too surprised. Essential's Oreo beta still has a lot of bugs to work out.

The 2018 Nokia 8 will be a phone to watch out for.
 
Holy Amazon Cyber Monday Deal of the Day!

The Essential Phone bundled with the 360 camera is $399 today!
 
Well, hopefully the rest of the team can just keep working without him. Their team is actually really open compared to all other manufacturers. And also one of the few that added in Treble support despite the phone not launching on Oreo (I'm looking at you OnePlus and your 5T which should have launched with Oreo).


They have actual staff (not PR) replying to AMA's every two weeks on Reddit. There's one going one right now:
 
If the phone drops to $399 or less again before the end of the year then I may pick it up. Essential has shown they are fairly dedicated in the software update department with 5 big updates in the past 3 months and the second Android Oreo beta dropping in the next week. The camera quality alone went from garbage fire to pretty decent. My buddy picked one up + the 360° camera on Black Friday for $399. He hasn't received it yet though - I'll be interested to check it out.
 
I get mine on Wednesday. For a Snapdragon 835 phone, it's hard to beat the price.
 
Sprint versions on Swappa are selling for right around $300 brand new. Some are unlocked and some are not.

It appears that some are still having luck doing the Sprint $5/18 month lease deal, paying it off and automatically getting it unlocked in 2-3 days.

$145 or so final price depending on if you get the $30 activation fee waived.

I was going to try it but I can't see that I would use it other than to mess around with as reception and camera still seem very hit or miss.
 
It's not Oreo (beta 2 comes out this week) but the OTA with the December security patches for Nougat is rolling out right now. Not too shabby. 2 years OS updates and 3 years security updates might not be an empty promise.

 
Picked up my Essential. Updated to the latest patch, December security update, immediately which was nice.

The phone is definitely a beauty and a massive fingerprint magnet. Feels really dense too (and my HTC 10 was already a dense phone).

Screen is as good as advertised. In office lighting, the blacks may as well be OLED and there's no colour shifting or black smearing of course. I consider this screen to be more perfect than current OLEDs.


Immediately noticeable are the touchscreen issues. This definitely would be a dealbreaker if I had to pay full price for the phone. But at the discount and knowing that it's fine in LineageOS (meaning that a proper software fix is possible) makes me pretty forgiving. We'll see if Oreo improves things but if not, LOS is already available and working well.

Treble support is already here and will eventually be 100% implemented which means developer support is ensured. This will be a nice ride I think.
 
This thing might have V30 levels of battery life. 7h19m SOT, 20% battery, 16 hours on battery. I've been playing games, web browsing and installing/restoring apps all day too. Mixed wifi and cell data usage.


With this phone, I can start the day with 50% battery and not have to be worried I'd run out of battery.
 
ChronoReverse said:
This thing might have V30 levels of battery life. 7h19m SOT, 20% battery, 16 hours on battery. I've been playing games, web browsing and installing/restoring apps all day too. Mixed wifi and cell data usage.


With this phone, I can start the day with 50% battery and not have to be worried I'd run out of battery.
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That's great to hear.
 
ChronoReverse said:
This thing might have V30 levels of battery life. 7h19m SOT, 20% battery, 16 hours on battery. I've been playing games, web browsing and installing/restoring apps all day too. Mixed wifi and cell data usage.


With this phone, I can start the day with 50% battery and not have to be worried I'd run out of battery.
Click to expand...

First full day with it today and I have 53% at the end of the day.
 
I've been using this phone for the past 5 days or so. A few observations coming from an OG Pixel:

- Battery life is much better
- Camera is much worse (not a problem to me as I don't take a lot of pictures, but it's harder to focus compared to point and shoot with Pixel)
- The jittery scrolling is real, but not a deal breaker
- Much more solid feeling than Pixel. There's definitely some heft to it.
- Notch isn't really distracting
- The size is very close, but the screen seems a lot larger. Fits in the same work shirt pocket, which is why I don't get a bigger phone
- Fingerprint reader works the same...no issues
- I can live with it until next years phones
 
Yeah, I'd say the only two true weaknesses are indeed the camera as well as the touchscreen.

Camera quality is almost passable and goes up to par with the modded GCam. Not even close to as good as my HTC 10 either way though so it's nowhere near the true flagships of 2017.

Touchscreen with the latest update works mostly okay but will occasionally miss taps. Very strange since multi-touchscreens is a mature technology by now. I have to think it's some software issue like an overaggressive palm rejection.
 
Essential definitely wasn't kidding about making the update available today. I have one of their phones and it was available right away. Of course, it helps that they haven't sold a ton of these devices, but this beats the announcements you get from other OEMs where they say it's "rolling out now" and really mean that you'll maybe kinda hopefully get your upgrade in a few weeks.

It's also odd to be one of those precious few people whose non-Google Android phone is on Android 8.1. Not that it's an earth-shaking revelation, but in a good universe Android users wouldn't have to be 'lucky' to use the latest release.
 
Considering the topic of this thread, it's somewhat ironic to announce this:

The Essential Phone is dead

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...hone-maker-essential-is-said-to-consider-sale

Can't say I didn't see that one coming, and I can say I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. :(

Hopefully Rubin and his cohorts will learn from this failure and perhaps come back later with something that truly is different and not just because of a silly notch. Even with all the pricing adjustments they did, the report says an insider at the company stated only about 150,000 devices were actually sold.

Maybe they'll dump 'em at fire sale pricing cheap, seems like a waste of hardware to me to just eradicate them in some dump someplace.
 
Hopefully Amazon picks it up and Essential Fire will come with much better camera.
 
Overpriced, sluggish, bad camera, privacy concerns, customer service problems, hyper competitive smartphone market. Gee I wonder why they did not become the next big thing?
 
biggles said:
Overpriced, sluggish, bad camera, privacy concerns, customer service problems, hyper competitive smartphone market. Gee I wonder why they did not become the next big thing?
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If they priced it competitively and actually had store distribution, I bet it would've done well. Even with no other changes.
 
I was looking forward to a second gen since I liked the design and size. Uh, well..
 
Look how long it took one plus to break into their niche market and they had the backing off oppo a large cellphone manufacturer. I am not surprised at all. The cellphone market is brutal. Goes ask LG how tough it is.
 
The OnePlus One was a massive hit even before it became available - the stupid invite thing that OnePlus did only bolstered the popularity out of the gate so it was a brilliant thing actually. I had one about 2 years after it was first released and it was amazing, fast, fluid, crazy long battery life (11+ hours of SOT), and I still wish I had it to be honest. But the Essential Phone was just way overpriced and pretty much set up to fail from the gitgo - when Rubin even told people at launch that it would more than likely fail as a product that was not a good thing to have said, looks like it proved completely true.
 
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