Essential Phone - First Impressions

*** Note: This post was originally published on Medium back in September 2017, but I'm adding it here while I try out Blogger as a place to share some thoughts.

Some very early (day 4) thoughts on the new Essential Phone, by Essential Products - the company founded by Andy Rubin, of "The guy who founded Android" fame

If You’ve Never Heard of the Essential Phone …

I’m sure you’re not in the minority on that. As a brand new entrant in the smartphone space, it hasn’t had a lot of hype or promotion so far — though there have been a number of good early reviews of it on tech sites.

Here’s what I think could pass for the quick gist of what Essential themselves tout the phone as, and some common thoughts from early reviewers:

Essential promises a phone that’s an impressive combination of ‘premium materials and true craftsmanship’ and a guiding principle that ‘Simple is always better’. The premium materials include titanium and ceramic, and the simple approach is reflected in its zero branding design (no logo or even the word Essential anywhere on the phone) and a very clean, near pure version of Android.

It’s a phone that includes a magnetic connector which allows for accessories to be added as and when Essential releases them. There’s a 360-degree camera module that’s available now, a slick looking charging dock that is due out ‘shortly’, and plans for others in future.

Early reviews of the Essential Phone have been positive about the solid, premium build of the phone and the overall concept and goals for the phone. Many reviews have hit on some weak points for the phone too. These include:

• Thoughts on the camera range from disappointing for a phone at this price ($700) to it’s terrible
• It’s been buggy and suffers from frequent freeze-ups
• The simple Android experience has been taken too far maybe — there are no clever, useful features added on top of a very clean Android build, as there are with Moto or OnePlus phones, for example.

My initial experience is …

Those premium materials are noticeable immediately. The Essential feels a little heavy in a nice, solid way — and it’s lovely to hold.

It’s definitely a handsome phone, but it’s also very understated and ‘simple’ looking. Not a flashy looking conversation-starter of a phone.

The camera does not seem as terrible as some reviewers said it is. The phone did get an Essential update on my first day with it and they’ve said they’ll be improving the camera via updates, so maybe that explains my better impression of it. I’ve added a couple photos on this post. When viewing them you need to factor in that I am probably right there in the Top 5 Worst Smartphone Camera Users worldwide, so imagine how much better they might be if taken by someone capable.

I have not seen any major freeze-ups on the phone through two work days and the weekend so far. I’ve only seen one bit of bugginess with it so far, and it’s a pretty bizarre thing. Twice over these 4 days, Google’s Gboard keyboard has decided it really wants to type the letter O over and over. As in all across the page and onto a next line and so on — even with my finger up to an inch away from the screen. It’s the “Look Mom, No Hands’ typing effect.

The first time it happened I thought it was weirdness just within the Play Store app, as I made it go away by force stopping the app. This morning it happened again and it spread across multiple apps, starting in the Signal messaging app and then carrying over to Evernote and Keep. Turning the display off and right back on cleared it up that time. Hopefully this odd bug will get squashed with an update soon.

Other than that one notable bug, performance has been very good. The phone has been fast and smooth to use.

One little extra feature that I’d like to see added is ‘Tap to Wake’ — I love using that on OnePlus devices.

Essential’s simple approach extends to a zero tolerance for bloatware policy — and it’s great to see 95GB of space available after installing all my apps.

The fingerprint scanner works as well as any I’ve used and its placement on the back of the phone makes it super easy to use.

I don’t love the placement of the power button on the right side of the phone, below the volume buttons. I find that I frequently end up adjusting the volume when I want to be turning the screen off.

Battery life has been good too. The phone has a easily made it through work days and late into work day evenings with up to 35% left in the tank. And charging is very fast — not quite as fast as the OnePlus 3T, but plenty fast enough.

The nearly bezel-less display did not initially feel as big as I expected it to be. I guess that is probably due to my liking for bigger phones — the Nexus 6P is probably my all-time favorite. So it’s taking me a while to see how I feel about the display on the Essential. I like it, and it is (ha) growing on me, but I’m not sure if I love it just yet.

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That’s all I’ve got for now, a pretty promising start with the Essential I think.