
 
 
 
 With a Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, a 19:10 Quad HD display, two 13MP cameras at the back, and a 3,040mAh battery on deck, it seems to have what it takes to tackle on the Galaxy S8+, the LG G6, and the venerable iPhone 7 Plus. 
 
 
 
 Phew, what a selection! 
 
 
 
 Let's see how the bold newcomer compares against these in terms of specs and raw hardware prowess! 
 
 
 
 
 
 Specs Essential Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus LG G6 Apple iPhone 7 Plus Display 5.71-inch IPS LCD 
 
 1312 x 2560 pixels 6.2-inch AMOLED 
 
 1440 x 2960 pixels 5.7-inch IPS LCD 
 
 1440 x 2880 pixels 5.5-inch IPS LCD 
 
 1080 x 1920 pixels Size 141.5 x 71.1 x 7.8 mm 159.5 x 73.4 x 8.1 mm 148.9 x 71.9 x 7.9 mm 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm Screen-to-body ratio 83.33% 79.47% 67.58% Processor Snapdragon 835 Snapdragon 835 (US) 
 
 Exynos 8895 (Intl) Snapdragon 821 Apple A10 Fusion RAM 4GB 4GB 4GB 3GB Storage 128GB 64GB + microSD 32GB + microSD 32, 128, 256GB Battery 3,040mAh 3,500mAh 3,300mAh 2,900mAh Rear camera 13MP RGB + 13MP monochrome 
 
 f/1.8 
 
 PDAF 
 
 4K video recording 12MP 
 
 f/1.7 
 
 OIS 
 
 4K video recording 13MP f/1.8 + 13MP f/2.4 wide-angle 
 
 OIS 
 
 4K video recording 12MP f/1.8 + 12MP f/2.8 
 
 2.0x optical zoom 
 
 OIS 
 
 4K video recording Front camera 8MP f/2.2 8MP f/1.7 5MP, f/2.2 7MP f/2.2 Software Android 7.x Android 7.x Android 7.1 iOS 10.x Water resistance - Yes, IP68-certified Yes, IP68-certified Yes, IP67-certified Special features Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C Fingerprint scanner, iris scanner, USB Type-C Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C, dual camera Fingerprint scanner, dual camera Colors Black, White, Gray, Green Black, Orchid Gray, Silver, Gold and Blue Black, Silver, White Jet Black, Black, Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, Red 
 
 
 
 Andy Rubin's latest foray into hardware is now official with the Essential phone , a device that arrives with a splash and obviously skimps neither on specs nor on appearance. ||||| Essential The creator of Android has finally unveiled the new smartphone he has been working on. 
 
 On Tuesday, Andy Rubin unveiled the first smartphone from Essential, his new company, after months of teasing. 
 
 The PH-1 is an Android device that packs some interesting features and clearly is intended to go head-to-head with the top smartphones from Apple and Samsung. 
 
 The first thing you notice in photos of the high-end device is the screen: It takes up almost the entire front face, going so close to the edge it curves around the selfie camera. 
 
 Another notable feature: It's modular. It has magnetic connectors on the back of the device that let you attach accessories, including a 360-degree camera that can be ordered alongside the phone. 
 
 Speaking of ordering, it costs $749 to reserve it, unlocked and with 128 GB of internal storage, along with the 360-degree camera. For just the phone, it'll cost $699. But unfortunately for international customers, it's available only in the US, to begin with. 
 
 Essential 
 
 Along with that 128 GB of internal storage, it packs 4 GB of RAM and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor. 
 
 Its casing is titanium and ceramic, and it comes in four colours — Black Moon (glossy black), Stellar Grey (matte dark gray), Pure White (glossy white), and Ocean Depths (a glossy green with bronze sides). 
 
 The screen is a hefty 5.7 inches — even larger than the 5.5-inch screen on the iPhone 7 Plus — but the relative lack of bezels on it means it has a smaller footprint than you'd expect. The rear camera is 13 megapixels, while the front-facing camera is 8 megapixels. Both shoot 4K video. 
 
 Essential 
 
 All in all, this is a premium device, and an interesting one at that, intended to go after the high-end customers who typically buy the likes of Samsung and Apple devices. (It even compares itself to them directly when showing how its titanium body can withstand a drop test.) The big question is whether it can manage it. ||||| As the co-founder of Android, Andy Rubin was one of the most important figures in the development of modern smartphones. So when he unveiled his latest project today — a new company called Essential that will sell a high-end smartphone — the technology world paid attention. 
 
 The Essential Phone, a $699 device whose release date hasn’t yet been announced, will be made out of titanium, which Essential says is more durable than the aluminum and plastic enclosures that are common today’s smartphones. The screen covers practically the entire front of the phone. It also has a unique magnetic connector for accessories, including a tiny 360-degree camera that’s also offered by Essential. 
 
 But overall, the Essential Phone seems remarkably similar to devices that are already on the market. It runs a standard version of the Android operating system Rubin created, and in most respects it looks little different from smartphones you can buy today from Apple or Samsung. In other words, one of the smartphone industry’s greatest innovators set out to reinvent the smartphone and found that there just wasn’t that much room for improvement. 
 
 It’s a very different situation from the 2000s, which saw several generations of industry-changing smartphones. Before Android, Rubin created a company called Danger in 1999 that made a smartphone called the Sidekick. It never reached a large market share, but it beloved among techies, and concepts pioneered by Danger later found their way into Android. 
 
 Around the same time, business customers were going wild for the email-focused BlackBerry. It became so ubiquitous that in 2009 President Barack Obama insisted on being given a hardened version of the device for use as president. Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, and Motorola also had early, innovative smartphones. 
 
 Then Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007 and it instantly rendered these non-multitouch phones obsolete. In the past decade, the smartphone industry has largely been a story of other companies trying to catch up to Apple. Today’s smartphones are larger, faster, and have higher-resolution screens than the original iPhone, but they have retained the iPhone’s basic design and user interface. 
 
 In its typically enthusiastic write-up of the Essential Phone, Wired gripes that smartphones have become “as personal as refrigerators.” The phrase was intended as a complaint about the state of smartphone innovation. But it makes more sense to look at the situation the other way around: Refrigerators all look alike because refrigerator manufacturers perfected the basic design of a fridge decades ago. 
 
 Fridge manufacturers have tried every possible combination of features and configurations, and they’ve settled on the designs that do the best job of meeting consumers’ needs. That’s not to say that refrigerator innovation is impossible, but it’s not surprising that refrigerators don’t change very much from year to year. 
 
 Laptops reached the same point more than a decade ago. Apple laptops from the mid-2000s barely look different from today’s laptops. Last year’s introduction of the touch bar was the biggest change we’ve seen in years, and it’s not exactly a revolution. 
 
 And now smartphones, too, seem to have reached a point where there’s little room for further progress. If anyone had the potential to fundamentally rethink the smartphone, it would be Rubin, with his extensive experience of innovation in both hardware and software. 
 
 This isn’t to say that the Essential Phone won’t be successful. It looks like a good phone that could catch on with customers. But the best-case scenario for the Essential Phone is that it becomes one of the better-selling devices in an already crowded Android phone market. Essential doesn’t pose a serious threat to incumbents like Apple, Google, and Samsung the way the iPhone and Android threatened early smartphones. ||||| If the future of tech starts with the phone, then Andy Rubin's new company Essential started in the right place. But at first glance the Essential Phone looks more like another bleeding-edge Android phone than something completely new. 
 
 The founder of Android, Rubin created his own company, and that company's first product is a phone. In fact, it's called the "Phone." It runs Android, but it's also the key piece in a dream suite of smart home and modular devices that Essential plans to release over the next year and beyond. 
 
 Essential 
 
 It's expensive 
 
 At $699, the Essential Phone is a premium device. (UK and Australian details have yet to be announced -- it's US-only for now -- but that converts to about £550 or AU$940.) It's also got a crazy amount of screen, removing the bezel almost completely and even wrapping the 5.71-inch display around the front camera. 
 
 The specs sound competitive with other top-end phones on the market, including the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8. It has dual cameras, the popular and powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip and a titanium and ceramic-bodied design. 
 
 It has magnetic mods 
 
 Much like the Moto Z, a small magnetic connector on the back works with a future collection of add-on accessories. 
 
 The first is a 360 camera, which Essential claims is the smallest for a phone. It definitely looks smaller than the the Samsung Gear 360, but promises to shoot 3,840x1,920 pixels at 30 frames per second with two 12-megapixel f/1.8 lens 210-degree cameras and four microphones. 
 
 Essential 
 
 Unlike the Moto Z, the Essential's mods seem to attach nearly invisibly. The 360 camera snaps on next to the rear camera at the top of the device with two pins. Motorola uses a larger strip of exposed pins on the bottom of its modular phones. 
 
 There's also a contactless charging dock, which is sold separately. The phone comes with a 27-watt fast-charging USB-C adapter in-box. 
 
 It's made of titanium 
 
 Essential's sleek launch page promises that the phone's ceramic and titanium body will be extremely durable. The slab is minimalist and logo-free, and with its fingerprint sensor on the back it looks like the Google Pixel mixed with the Galaxy S8's all-screen look. 
 
 Yes, there's a dual camera (or a 360 one) 
 
 It's become standard to throw a dual camera onto high-end phones now. The Essential Phone promises to have the slimmest design, and a combination monochrome/RGB camera with an intense focus on low-light performance. 
 
 Essential 
 
 How is this different from other Android phones, really? 
 
 Rubin's other mission -- the larger one -- is for a connected, ambient operating system called Ambient OS that knits together home, phone and other things. This Ambient OS isn't clearly explained yet, but should be home-focused, and will live on the Essential Home smart speaker to connect smart devices using Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. 
 
 It's all a little unclear, however, whether Essential's phone is an essential part of that Ambient OS equation, and how. It's first and foremost a premium Android phone, but it could end up tapping into Ambient OS. We also don't know what other customized software is running on Essential's phone beyond Android. The cut-around-the-front camera display seems to be unique, and could be customized to fit certain notifications at the top. 
 
 Colors: four 
 
 The Phone comes in "black moon" and "pure white" for now, with "stellar gray" and "ocean depths" (a muted green) soon. 
 
 Notable downsides: No water resistance, no headphone jack 
 
 The Essential Phone PH-1 (the phone's official model name) uses USB-C but ditches the headphone jack, like the iPhone 7. No mention of any water resistance, however, means this phone may want to stay away from serious splashes. 
 
 Essential does throw a USB-C headphone adapter in the box, at least. 
 
 Cost and specs 
 
 The PH-1 costs $699 to preorder, or $749 (roughly £580 or $AU1,000) for the phone plus the 360 camera, which is normally a $200 add-on. It's only being sold online in the US for now. ||||| Andy Rubin wasn't ready to retire when he left Google in 2014. He certainly could have: After an illustrious career developing some of the most innovative products in tech, he had all the wealth and accolades anyone could want. As an engineer at the Apple spinoff General Magic, he built some of the world's first internet-connected portable devices. As CEO at Danger, he created the Sidekick, a smartphone that defined the category before anyone had invented the term. And then, of course, Rubin created Android, the operating system found in more than two billion phones, televisions, cars, and watches. 
 
 But Rubin wasn't done. More to the point, he couldn't be done. Ask around, and everyone says the same thing: Andy Rubin sees the future, and can't sit around waiting for it to arrive. He's spent the past few years watching Apple and Google and everyone else try to rule the world from walled gardens, and he considers that a dead end. Rubin has always believed that the open platform is the one that wins. 
 
 Most people complain that there's no innovation in smartphones. Andy Rubin disagrees. Vehemently. 
 
 And so he's back, as the CEO of Essential Products, his first company since Android. He wants to make Essential the first great gadget maker since Apple, one that builds and distributes the open platform that will power the billions of phones, watches, light bulbs, and toaster ovens about to come online. 
 
 That wasn't always the plan. Rubin likes telling a story from just after he left Google, where he spent a decade running Android and a few years leading its robotics projects. Over dinner and wine, he and his wife, Rie, discussed his next move. "How do I top Android?" Rubin asked. "What could I possibly do that would be bigger than that?" "Don't do one thing," Rie replied. "Do 10." And so Rubin launched Playground, a venture capital firm where a few dozen engineers and designers at Playground Studios help startups build stuff. 
 
 Rubin and his partners sought out a wide range of investments. "You meet a ton of people, thousands of people," he says. "Some really crazy ideas, some pretty good ideas, some teams that are great, some teams that are not that great." As he speaks, Rubin curls his lanky body into a comfortable chair at the head of a long table in the same room where he met many of those people. He fidgets as he talks and touches his stubbled face as he thinks. Now and then, he walks over to the whiteboard to diagram his points. "We thought that people weren't swinging for the fences and doing big-vision things in consumer products," he says. All of which is to say, there hasn't been an Apple since Apple, and Rubin figures it's time. 
 
 Essential launches publicly today with the announcement of two products expected later this summer: a $699 smartphone called Phone and a smart-home hub called Home that Rubin hopes will bring order to the endless standards, protocols, and systems wrought by the Internet of Things. To understand what Essential hopes to achieve in the long term, look at the hub. Rubin wants to build an open source, infinitely extensible platform, called Ambient OS, that powers all the smart stuff in your home. Android for everything. But even Rubin concedes that it will take a while. If you want to know how he plans on getting there, we need to talk about the Phone. 
 
 Carlos Chavarría for WIRED 
 
 Take a Bite 
 
 Most people look at smartphones and see one of the largest and most competitive markets in history, one with no room (or profits) for anyone but Apple or Samsung. And most people complain that there's no innovation. Rubin disagrees. Vehemently. He sees loads of innovation, but believes companies don't take advantage of it because they're simply too big. "When Apple finds some new technology, they're like, 'Great, can I have 50 million next quarter?' Manufacturers are like, 'No, you can't. We just invented it,'" he says. Meanwhile, companies design by committee—with too much input from supply chain experts and accountants—and everything moves slowly. 
 
 If Essential sells 50 million phones this quarter, Jason Keats, the company's head of product architecture, is totally screwed. Essential simply cannot produce that many phones. That's the point. "We've gone after technologies and methods of manufacturing that aren't designed to support 50 million devices," he says. He wants Essential to think like a high-end watchmaker, not a commodity gadget builder. (Granted, everyone says this, even the commodity gadget builders.) From the start, Essential's designers and engineers met with countless manufacturers in search of the most interesting technology and materials, especially stuff no one could produce at scale. "We're not for everybody," Keats says. "You know it's going to be a little exclusive." 
 
 Gadgets used to say something about their buyers, communicating fashion sense or nerd cred. Now that everyone has an iPhone or a Galaxy, neither say anything. 
 
 Everybody at Essential hates the idea that you, your grandma, and your accountant all carry the same phone. Gadgets once said something about the people who carried them. They communicated fashion sense or nerd cred. Now they're as personal as refrigerators. Rubin wants the Essential phone to clearly and emphatically state that the person carrying it isn't won over by marketing, isn't a fanboy, isn't driven by trends. +++inset-left 
 
 Jason Keats, Essential's head of hardware architecture and noted prototyping enthusiast. Carlos Chavarria for WIRED ||||| Andy Rubin, the inventor of Android, finally revealed his new smartphone today, called Essential. 
 
 Rubin teased a photo of the new smartphone on Twitter back in March; it will, unsurprisingly, run Android. 
 
 Rubin will say more about his new company and smartphone on Recode’s Code Conference stage where he will be interviewed by Walt Mossberg; you can watch live here. 
 
 Unlike Apple, which tends to be selective about what apps can run on the iPhone and only until recently started letting users delete unwanted apps that came pre-installed, Essential is touting itself as a company that values user choice and interoperability first. 
 
 “Devices are your personal property,” Rubin wrote in a blog post today announcing his new company. “We won’t force you to have anything on them you don’t want to have.” 
 
 He continues by hinting that Essential won’t have a product schedule premised on planned obsolescence that forces customers to update their device every year. Rather, he says, devices “should evolve with you.” 
 
 “We will always play well with others. Closed ecosystems are divisive and outdated,” writes Rubin. 
 
 The first smartphone from Essential features a screen that stretches to cover the full front of the phone. Even the camera lens is embedded in the screen. The phone comes with 128 gigabytes of storage and can take 13-megapixel pictures and 4K videos. 
 
 Looking at the new smartphone, you won’t know who made it. That’s because Rubin’s team decided not to put any logos on its titanium and ceramic exterior, materials Essential chose because they don’t blemish, “unlike the aluminum competitor devices,” the website reads. 
 
 The phone also doesn’t have a headphone jack, so, like the iPhone 7, users will be forced to either use a dongle or wireless headphones. 
 
 Essential isn’t just planning to be a smartphone maker. The company is also touting an Essential Home device. 
 
 The Essential Home has a screen, making it look a bit like the Echo Show from Amazon, and shares a name with the smart-home hub from Rubin’s former employer, Google. 
 
 But the feature that Rubin’s new company thinks will set its Home apart from the others is privacy. Essential Home is designed to run most of its functions locally on the device, in order to keep as much data as possible in the home. This is different from the way many smart-home devices work, where data collected from the home is stored on a distant server, as opposed to on the device itself. 
 
 The Essential Phone is available now for preorder for $699 and comes in four colors: Black Moon, Stellar Gray, Pure White and Ocean Depths. The Essential Home device is not yet available for preorder and no price is listed. 
 
 Watch: Andy Rubin and the Essential Phone ||||| The Essential Phone, brought to us by the person who created Android, is finally ready for the spotlight. It’s an incredibly audacious and ambitious project, with an outlandish screen and the beginnings of a modular ecosystem. 
 
 First, the Android phone basics: the Essential Phone costs $699 with top-of-the-line specs and features. As you can see above, it prominently features an edge-to-edge display that one-ups even the Samsung Galaxy S8 by bringing it all the way to the the top of the phone, wrapping around the front-facing selfie camera. 
 
 It’s a unique take on a big screen that makes the phone stand out — and it’s smart, too. Often, the status bar at the top of an Android phone doesn’t fill that middle space with icons, so it’s efficient. The screen does leave some bezel at the bottom of the phone, but nevertheless it’s as close to the whole front of a phone being display as I’ve seen. 
 
 Essential is launching the phone in the US to start, and it’s filled the phone with radios that should make it work on all major carriers, alongside usual Android flagship internals like a Qualcomm 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. And because Essential seems to be hanging its hat on the idea of shipping phones without extraneous junk (the designers don’t even put a logo on the exterior), chances seem good that there won’t be a ton of extraneous software laded on to slow the phone down. 
 
 Essential is clearly planning on releasing a very well-made phone: the screen looks promising, it has no annoying logos, and it is built with a combination of titanium and ceramic so it can survive a drop test “without blemish, unlike the aluminum competitor devices.” (Those would be Samsung and Apple, if you’re wondering.) 
 
 But nice hardware isn’t all that hard to come by on Android phones, so the company is aiming to build an ecosystem of accessories. It starts with a magnetic connector and wireless data transfer. Essential will ship a 360-degree camera that can click in to the top of the phone, and the company will also offer a charging dock. Both connect to the phone with small metal pogo pins. They won’t entirely replace USB-C for most people, but Essential is clearly hoping that they could someday. 
 
 Speaking of ports, there is no traditional 3.5mm headphone jack — which is a bummer. We’re told that it will ship with a headphone dongle in the box. It’s possible that other audio accessories could be made that could clip on to the magnetic accessory port. 
 
 The Essential Phone also has a good take on the dual-camera systems we’ve seen on other phones. Rather than use the second lens for telephoto or bokeh, it’s using it for a monochrome sensor, just like Huawei has been doing with the P9 and P10. That second sensor will be able to take in more light than a traditional color camera, meaning it can be combined with the regular 13-megapixel for better low-light shots. The front-facing camera is in line with current expectations, too: an 8-megapixel sensor that can also capture 4K video. 
 
 All that sounds great, but it ignores some key facts in the smartphone space: Apple and Samsung have it pretty locked up right now. The pessimist might say that although this phone looks incredible, it is also likely to break upon the shoals of the phone market, the same rocks that have cracked every Android phone that doesn’t have the Samsung logo emblazoned on it: carrier support, consumer interest, and lack of true differentiation. 
 
 But when it comes to cracking on the rocks, Andy Rubin claims that the Essential phone’s titanium and ceramic build is better able to withstand a drop test. Presumably, Essential’s grander ambitions are equally durable — it’s impossible to look at just this phone outside the context of Essential’s other announcements: the Essential Home speaker and its Ambient OS. 
 
 Even if those ambitions don’t bear out, the Essential Phone itself is exciting on its own. It’s a simple, straightforward Android device that respects the user: it’s powerful, clean, and not entirely beholden to the business whims of the giant companies that currently control the mobile and smart home markets. 
 
 If nothing else, it deserves our attention because it’s coming from Andy Rubin, who knows a thing or two about doing the right thing in the smartphone world. 
 
 Andy Rubin will be onstage tonight at the Code Conference. You can watch it live starting at 6PM PT / 9PM ET.
– The man who created the Android operating system unveiled a brand new smartphone Tuesday to compete with Apple and Samsung, Business Insider reports. Andy Rubin's Essential Phone—Essential is his new company—will sell for $699 and only in the US to start. It has a massive screen that takes up nearly the entire front of the phone, wrapping around the selfie camera. It has a larger screen than the iPhone 7 Plus, 128GB of internal storage, and magnetic connectors to attach accessories. Here's what you need to know: Wired, which has more on Rubin's journey from Android to Essential, calls the Essential Phone (it has no branding) the "anti-iPhone." Rubin believes Apple no longer has the ability to create devices that seem brand new; Essential can take that mantle. But if that's the case, Vox would have to classify the Essential Phone a failure: "One of the smartphone industry’s greatest innovators set out to reinvent the smartphone and found that there just wasn’t that much room for improvement." Rubin promises to do a few things different with the Essential Phone than Apple does with the iPhone, namely staying away from "planned obsolescence" and not forcing customers to have stuff on their phone they don't want, Recode reports. Phone Arena compares the Essential Phone to its top competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, the LG G6, and the Apple iPhone 7 Plus. The Essential Phone "looks incredible"—and it promises to be more durable than its competition because it's made of ceramic and titanium instead of aluminum—but there's little reason to believe it will have better luck than any other phone not made by Samsung or Apple, according to the Verge. CNET reports the Essential Phone also has a few drawbacks, such as its lack of headphone jack and water resistance.