Creator of Android Andy Rubin Launches the Essential Phone

Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, unveiled a new smartphone called the Essential Phone.

Design and Display

The Essential Phone features a 5.71-inch Quad HD display with very slim bezels and circular corners. Its selfie camera even eats up some of the screen to make the top edge bezel as slim as the sides.

It has a Titanium frame, Ceramic back cover and Gorilla Glass 5 front panel resulting in a very tough body.

Performance and Connectivity

The Essential Phone runs on flagship level hardware including a Snapdragon 835 chipset, 4GB of RAM and Android Nougat as the operating system.

It also has all the usual connectivity options such as dual band Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0 and USB Type C. It even has pogo pins for connecting accessories like a 360-degree camera and charging hub. However, it lacks a 3.5mm audio jack.

A 3040mAh battery powers the device.

Photography

The Essential Phone is equipped with dual rear cameras – one is a regular 13.0 Megapixel snapper while its companion is a 3.0 Megapixel monochrome image sensor. The latter dramatically improves the phone’s low light photography performance.

On the front of the device is an 8.0 Megapixel selfie camera. Its position has been set by the fact that the Android status bar usually has no icons in the middle – a perfect placement for the front camera.

Essential Phone Price and Availability

The Essential Phone has an official price of $699.00 in the US. That’s a little less than ₱35,000.00 based on current forex rates.

It’s now available for pre-order on Essential’s own store. However, there’s no mention about availability outside the United States.