Let's start by saying that, based on the couple days I've spent with it so far, it's a beautiful titanium and ceramic device that looks and feel very high-end. There's a dual camera in the rear that's performing well in my initial tests. It's got mounds of storage and a bright, beautiful screen. It'll cost $699, which converts to about £545 or AU$935.
But what makes the Essential Phone -- officially the Essential Phone PH-1 -- important are the two little cut-outs on the back that look like a vampire bite. These magnetic pins are the attachment point for the modular accessories that are the phone's main reason for being. The connection is quick and wireless, and the phone can power the add-ons or vice versa.
Let's back up for a quick minute, because this is important, too. The Essential Phone is the first device from a new company that's spearheaded by Andy Rubin, the guy who co-created Android and, from 2005 to 2013, was the face of Android at Google. So a phone launched by Andy Rubin is a really big deal, particularly when you have a field stacked with talent from entrenched players like Samsung (Galaxy S8 ($669.88 at Amazon Marketplace) and soon, Note 8), Google (Pixel and soon, Pixel 2), LG (G6 and upcoming V30), Motorola (Z2 Force and Z2 Play) and Nokia (Nokia 8), just to name a few. How does it plan to pull this off?
Rubin's team thinks that the Essential Phone's modular accessories will appeal to Android enthusiasts who want to customize a high-end Android with swappable add-ons that physically attach to the phone. Although there's only one accessory so far, a 360-degree camera, Rubin and his team envision an ecosystem that includes a bunch of accessories and powerful software to support them. Essential also plans to launch an Essential Homespeaker for the living room, which will work with the phone's accessories.
What makes this experiment so risky is that it's the industry's fourth recent attempt to go modular, and the concept hasn't caught on. Google and LG tried out modular phones and failed. Motorola is still hanging in there, but Essential's two magnetic pins on the back form a novel approach that, unlike Moto's Z phones, don't take up the entire back of the phone's body. So that paves the way for more flexible shapes and uses.
Overall, I'm finding this test unit really sleek and likable, but too stripped down in the camera department, with buggy software that makes the phone feel unpolished. Essential says that it's already addressed most of the bugs I found in this prefinal version of the phone software, and will update buyers' devices, especially the native camera and 360-degree camera attachment. Therefore, we'll withhold our final assessment until the phone is completely ready -- consider this a sneak peek, not the last word.
Source: cnet
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