Essential, led by ‘Father of Android’ Andy Rubin, has launched a new Essential Phone featuring edge-to-edge display with gorgeous design alongside Essential Home and a 360-degree camera. The smartphone comes in four color options and is up for pre-order in the United States. The company will start shipping the newly launched device within next 30 days.
In terms of design, Essential Phone (PH-1) has been crafted with titanium and ceramic materials. The back of the smartphone sports beautiful colored ceramic which is scratch resistant. You won’t need a phone case as the Essential Phone is build with titanium which doesn’t scratch, bend, or dent. It also sports top edge-to-edge display with thin bottom bezel. There are two magnetic pins at the back that will act as a click cordless connector for wireless data transfer and to keep your phone cord-free, future proof, and up-to-date.
The company also introduced a 360-degree camera which it claims to be the world’s smallest 360-degree camera. To start using it, you just have to connect it to the phone via the magnetic connector. The 360-degree camera features dual 12MP fisheye imagers with f/1.8 aperture capable of shooting 360-degree UHD (3840×1920 pixels) video at 30fps. There is another modular accessory i.e. Essential Phone Dock that connects the same way as 360-degree camera and quickly fuel up the phone’s battery.
Getting on to the Essential Phone’s specifications, the device sports stunning 5.7-inch edge-to-edge QHD (1312×2560 pixels) display with 19:10 aspect ratio and comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The device is powered by 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core (Four cores @ 2.45GHz | Four Cores @ 1.9GHz) SoC paired with Adreno 540 GPU and 4GB of RAM. It comes with 128GB of internal storage and runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
Essential PH-1 features 13MP dual rear cameras with RGB, true monochrome mode in each lens with image fusion technology, hybrid auto focus, PDAF, IR Laser Assist focus, and 4K video recording. There is also an 8MP front facing camera with 16:9 aspect ratio, f/2.2 aperture, and 4K video recording. The smartphone also sports fingerprint reader on the rear side.
It’s a single SIM (Nano) smartphone that comes with 3040mAh battery and fast charging support via USB. The smartphone ships with USB Type-C adapter as there is no 3.5mm audio jack. Other connectivity options include WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v5.0, 4G LTE, NFC, GPS and GLONASS. Sensors on board Essential Phone include proximity, accelerometer, ambient light, barometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer.
Essential also introduced Essential Home similar to the Google Home or Amazon Echo that can control smart home products such as lights, music, thermostats and can answer your questions. It sports a large circular display with features like voice activation and runs on newly developed Ambient OS. Ambient OS, just like Android, is also open source. The company haven’t shared much information regarding the smart Home device.
Let’s get to the pricing, the brand new Essential Phone (PH-1) has been priced at $699 and is available in four color options- Black Moon, Pure White, Stellar Grey, and Ocean Depths. The 360-degree camera comes with a price tag of $199. Essential is offering both the devices as a bundle at a discounted rate of $749. You can pre-book the device via company’s website.
