Essential, the company set up by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, has unveiled the Essential Phone.
This Android-powered smartphone is going after the major flagships. It has a high-end price tag with top-of-the-line specs and features, such as an edge-to-edge display, which goes all the way to the the top of the phone and wraps around the front-facing selfie camera. Essential htc parts is launching in the US on Sprint to start, but it's packed with radios that should make it work on all major carriers.
Here's everything you need to know about the device.
Essential Phone: Design
The Essential Phone certainly stands out, thanks to its edge-to-edge display that surrounds the front-facing camera and extends virtually all the way to the bottom, leaving a small bezel. The bezel isn't there to house a home button/fingerprint sensor, though, as that can be found on the rear where your fingers will naturally lie. The phone itself is made of titanium with a ceramic back for added protection.
It will be available in four colours: Black Moon, Stellar Grey, Pure White, and Ocean Depths. The Essential Phone works with a modular system as well, which lets you attach accessories. At launch, there are only two mods available: a 360-degree camera and a wireless charging dock. Apart from that, there's a few notable omissions, like that the phone doesn't offer a 3.5mm jack or water resistance.
Essential Phone: Hardware
The Essential Phone features a 5.7-inch (2560x1312) display, with a 505ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Also around the outside of the device, you'll see a dual 13-megapixel camera with a f/1.85 lens and laser autofocus and a 8-megapixel selfie camera with a f/2.20 lens. Particular attention has been paid to the cameras: the dual-lens setup includes a black-and-white secondary sensor.
That allows it to take in more light than a regular colour lens. Rather than be used for extra zoom, the second lens should provide better low-light shots. Both the rear- and front-facing cameras are capable of shooting 4K video at 30fps, as well. There's a USB-C charger, but no traditional headphone jack, which may not please everyone, but the phone will ship with a headphone dongle in the box.
Inside, there is a 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (2.45GHz octa-core Kryo 280 CPU) and Adren 540 GPU. It comes with 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 3040mAh non-removable battery with fast charging, and support for Wi-Fi with MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, NFC, LTE, GPS, and GLONASS. But nice hardware is easy to find on any phone, so the company also built an ecosystem of accessories.
Essential will ship a 360-degree camera that can attach to the top of the htc replacement parts . The company will also offer a charging dock. You can attach either via the magnetic metal pogo pins at the top of the rear panel, although you can still use the USB-C port on the bottom to wire your phone to mains power. The USB-C port is also where you'll have to connect some headphones, of course.