New Essential Phone an Essential Failure

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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The $700 Essential Phone grabbed a lot of attention last summer, but it looks like a lot of that excitement was not transferred into actual sales at Sprint stores, and Best Buy. The Essential Phone sold less than 90,000 units even after massive price cuts last October. A lot of folks are pointing to the phone's camera being the weak point that impacted its lackluster sales. In other news, Google "only" sold 4M Pixel 2 phones since launch.

Check out the video.

Sadly, the Essential Phone’s poor camera and high price tag back at launch probably ruined its chances to compete with the likes of HTC, Google, or OnePlus.
 
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Wasn't the camera one of the essential selling points of this device? It had an adapter or something.
 
It's a nice value now at $500 ($400-$450 in a few recent sales on Amazon) and the camera is only hampered by its software, which is easily fixed for the most part by side-loading the Google camera app. It should have debuted at $500 though because all of the initial perception of it was mixed at best just because of the price tag at the time. I really hope they're able to make another one without raising the price too much from its current price, because the more decent competitors the better for consumers.

Google (and Essential too I guess, but I know it'd be harder for them) could sell a LOT more if they pull their head out of their ass and do whatever needs to happen to get them in all US carrier stores and actually keep up with demand as well. But personally, no phone is worth $850 to me and the Pixel 2 is too small, so I'll be looking for something a bit more reasonable priced this year when I eventually decide to replace my 6P.
 
I don’t think the camera is that big of a deal by itself.

Being yet another Android in a sea of Androids with no real market differentiation - that I think is the issue.

“No Bloatware” isn’t a strong sales point without a few other things backing it up.
 
I have an Essential phone. It's ok for the price I got it for ($400...Black Friday pricing). The camera has been getting regular updates, and is never going to be a Pixel camera, but it's serviceable. The build quality of this thing is second to none. I think if it was priced to compete with OnePlus phones off the bat and not a Sprint exclusive it would have sold better. It has flagship specs, Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 128GB storage. Hard to find that combination for less than $500 right now.
 
so no headphone jack, usb-c dongle, no wireless charging, 700$ price point was a mistake. At 400$ it would be decent. Universal carriers isn't anything new, the nexus 5 could do that with some caveats (verizon didn't want to play with 4g, the rest of the 4g carriers work in the US). The dongle system for cameras and whatnot seems iffy (didn't LG try something similar with snap accessories but no one wanted it?).
Practically no advertisement as far as i could tell.
CPU and storage is decent. Edge to edge screen looks decent.
 
kirbyrj said:
I have an Essential phone. It's ok for the price I got it for ($400...Black Friday pricing). The camera has been getting regular updates, and is never going to be a Pixel camera, but it's serviceable. The build quality of this thing is second to none. I think if it was priced to compete with OnePlus phones off the bat and not a Sprint exclusive it would have sold better. It has flagship specs, Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 128GB storage. Hard to find that combination for less than $500 right now.
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The reviewer in the video mentioned the display being a potential issue. How does it work for you? Too bright at night/dim in the day? Does it have sufficient auto-dimming functionality?
 
dj_spanmaster said:
The reviewer in the video mentioned the display being a potential issue. How does it work for you? Too bright at night/dim in the day? Does it have sufficient auto-dimming functionality?
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Yeah, I can see that as a negative on the phone. It is kind of bright at night. Not bad during the day. No night mode like on the OG Pixel (great feature BTW), although it sounds like that's coming with the Oreo update.
 
Andy Rubin's name doesn't really change the fact that it was effectively a new company producing phones. Moving units was always going to be an uphill battle.
 
yeah i dont know who the fuck andy rubin is either.

and cheaping out on the camera was stupid.
People like their dick pics and nudes in high detail.
 
It's all about market share.

Where are you going to get your customers from? They're not gonna be new customers getting a phone for the first time, since everyone essentially already has a phone, or a parents old one. You need to lure your customers away from another vendor's line (APPLE SAMSUNG LG). It's going to take either a feature set, or unique experience, or price to make a substantial impact in any shape. I know that the Pixel has been trying tirelessly to establish itself as a player in the Smartphone world but honestly I don't see enough advertisement to give it any breakthrough potential. It does a good amount of units, just nothing close to the big 2 by any means.

Regarding the essential phone, I just never saw it having enough mainstream appeal to take any apple or samsung customers.
 
"Sprint and Best Buy"

That's why it failed.
They partnered with the bottom carrier and best buy.

Should of partnered with a bigger carrier and other retail stores.
 
I just can’t look past the eye sore of the front facing camera taking a bite out of the display. Looks broken to me. I’d rather loose a small amount of screen than have that ugly ass divit.
 
Etherton said:
Wasn't the camera one of the essential selling points of this device? It had an adapter or something.
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Not sure but I recall laughing at it being called essential when I saw the price tag. Specs are alright but nothing screaming being in high end phone category from an unknown vendor. For me the biggest bummer is lack of memory card slot, I personally won't even consider a phone without having removable storage.
 
An essential phone would have had replaceable 6000mah battery, superiorly deployed dual micro sd slots, headphone jack, usb c, dual sim. Besides standard higher end device stuff.
 
As someone who recently purchased new phones via Sprint (an official Sprint store), the sales people vehemently direct you AWAY from the Essential phone and tell you that the ONLY phones you should buy are an iPhone or a Samsung. This from multiple sales people on multiple occasions.
 
cjcox said:
As someone who recently purchased new phones via Sprint (an official Sprint store), the sales people vehemently direct you AWAY from the Essential phone and tell you that the ONLY phones you should buy are an iPhone or a Samsung. This from multiple sales people on multiple occasions.
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Good to see they still have someone to kick around with Windows phone being out of the picture. Honestly the sales person is going to heavily push whatever handset they know will get the least returns and that they can attach the most high markup cases and accessories to.
 
gunbust3r said:
Good to see they still have someone to kick around with Windows phone being out of the picture. Honestly the sales person is going to heavily push whatever handset they know will get the least returns and that they can attach the most high markup cases and accessories to.
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Commission... The sales reps at the store will get kick backs from the manufacturer for selling their phones. No commission = no sale.
 
bman212121 said:
Commission... The sales reps at the store will get kick backs from the manufacturer for selling their phones. No commission = no sale.
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Incorrect. That's not how cell stores work. Otherwise Microsoft could have just bribed those ugly windows phones to relevance.

No, store managers and their salespeople favor the phones with the lowest rates of returns. Their business model isn't even selling phones - their business is selling lines of service. They don't care which phone you buy; they just don't want to see it returned. The phone is a means to an end.
 
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odditory said:
Incorrect. That's not how cell stores work. Otherwise Microsoft could have bought those shitty windows phones to relevance.

No, store managers and employees favor the phones with the lowest rate of returns. Their business isn't even selling phones - their business is selling lines of service. They don't care which phone you buy; they just don't want to see it returned. The phone is a means to an end.
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Based upon your opinion? Or knowledge from people who actually worked at a Sprint store and sold phones? You can call it whatever you want, but Sprint employees are incentivized by certain manufacturers more than others. Microsoft never greased the wheels afaik when it came to sales, so that was part of their reason for failure. I can ask to get specific details, but I seem to recall specifically if you sold x number of Samsung's latest and greatest phone, they'd throw free swag your way.
 
Love mine, best phone I've owned in terms of hand feel, everything works, ranging from good enough (camera) to above average (software updates) to great (battery life) to awesome (display packaging).

Oh, and it only cost me $145 including taxes, so there's that.
 
I think one of the issues is advertising. Nobody knows who essential is or that this product even exists. I saw ZERO advertising targeting a general audience. Compare that to Apple or Samsung who run TV and Internet advertising campaigns 24/7.
 
given that the last few years essentials has been what software has been named when it removed all but the bare minimum. Stuff like Photoshop essentials. To me the name essentials phone sounds like it is going to be a stripped down basic phone.

on the flip side as a customer would not have been happy knowing that this is v1 which their plan for v2 is much different. It was only Android since they didn't have the money to create their own OS yet and was using this to gather money. Next phone was going to have its own none Android OS. Which means a whole new ecosystem and none of your android apps being supported.
 
meh, no cell phone is essential. it is only a necessary evil to keep my wife happy.
 
For year and years everyone thinks the way to break into the phone market is to copy apple, down to every dumb decision apple will make. The first one and the dumbest is to make your product exclusive to one carrier. Its not working newbies. Stop it. When you make some device that isn't widely accepted you cant generate hype by putting it on the worst carrier in the nation. You need to sell it to everyone that wants it. Its not like this is the only problem the phone had buts its one for them. I never met anyone that wanted this phone except the rare techy type. Why they thought they could generate so much hype is beyond me.

And BTW I say that a person who has used sprint for over a decade.
 
rudy said:
For year and years everyone thinks the way to break into the phone market is to copy apple, down to every dumb decision apple will make. The first one and the dumbest is to make your product exclusive to one carrier. Its not working newbies. Stop it. When you make some device that isn't widely accepted you cant generate hype by putting it on the worst carrier in the nation. You need to sell it to everyone that wants it. Its not like this is the only problem the phone had buts its one for them. I never met anyone that wanted this phone except the rare techy type. Why they thought they could generate so much hype is beyond me.

And BTW I say that a person who has used sprint for over a decade.
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The first and dumbest mistake armchair pundits make is assuming a new company can come in and get major carrier shelf space, marketing and training time competing against the major manufacturers with billion-dollar product release budgets.

So don't blame Essential for not being able to pick up more carrier deals, they'd have had to spend more than their R&D and bill of materials budget combined to grease the two big carriers. Even older companies with actual brand recognition like HTC are getting locked out of carrier stores because they can no longer afford to pay the (for lack of a better term) bribe money.

Also, as another data point, in MY area, Sprint has better voice and data coverage than Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. So win/win for me with the sweet $140 PH-1 deal last year and the best possible coverage. :)
 
Croak said:
The first and dumbest mistake armchair pundits make is assuming a new company can come in and get major carrier shelf space, marketing and training time competing against the major manufacturers with billion-dollar product release budgets.

So don't blame Essential for not being able to pick up more carrier deals, they'd have had to spend more than their R&D and bill of materials budget combined to grease the two big carriers. Even older companies with actual brand recognition like HTC are getting locked out of carrier stores because they can no longer afford to pay the (for lack of a better term) bribe money.

Also, as another data point, in MY area, Sprint has better voice and data coverage than Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. So win/win for me with the sweet $140 PH-1 deal last year and the best possible coverage. :)
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But they didn't get any of that from sprint. If you go into a sprint store and I have been around the Midwest and CA, they are going to try to sell you iphones. Essentail didn't need space and training they needed to simply sell to as many of the people that bought into their product as possible and that wont happen if you limit your device to 1 carrier. Maybe I am just an arm chair pundit but apparently I seem to understand what they didn't understand which is that if you DONT have a multibillion dollar budget nothing you do will get them push you device so don't limit your device to one carrier. Sometimes you gotta think a little harder about your client base. If you want to push a niche device with a low budge either ATT or Tmobile would have been better choices anyway. ATT is known for getting lots of niche phones and still playing that game and Tmobile seems to be where a lot of more tech savvy and young clients go. Sprint is where people like me go to get the lowest price accepting that all I get is garbage service for it.
 
bman212121 said:
Based upon your opinion? Or knowledge from people who actually worked at a Sprint store and sold phones? You can call it whatever you want, but Sprint employees are incentivized by certain manufacturers more than others. Microsoft never greased the wheels afaik when it came to sales, so that was part of their reason for failure. I can ask to get specific details, but I seem to recall specifically if you sold x number of Samsung's latest and greatest phone, they'd throw free swag your way.
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having worked for a cellular company for some time, I can confirm that the hardware is not the focus, residuals are (the people whom stay with the carrier for years and years)
 
Saw it on the Amazon Prime thing, I still won't buy one even at that crazy low price but I'm sure a few thousand of 'em have disappeared from stock for sure. :)
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
having worked for a cellular company for some time, I can confirm that the hardware is not the focus, residuals are (the people whom stay with the carrier for years and years)
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haha well I don't know about other carriers but sprint really isn't very good at rewarding loyal customers. Now port in from another carrier and they will bend over backwards to win you. Maybe that's why they have always had so much churn.
 
good idea , phone not designed to break ..like the S5 was . Problem is the new crap is selling or become 'the must have' because of a feature or ad campaign ..not because of any promise of longetivity .

Kenny
 
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