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The Essential Phone designed by Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, has finally come true. And now the company is taking pre-orders with the price starting at $699 in USA. The Essential Phone and Essential Home will have their own AI assistants. However, both will be open to integrate third party assistants like Assistant, Cortana, Alexa, and even Siri, provided the companies agree to make them compatible to Ambient OS for its smart speaker Essential Home.
“The Ambient OS would also be open source. While this worked in the favor of Android to become a dominant force in running on many smartphones today, it could leave Ambient OS as fragmented as Android, with the fallout being missed ‘vital upgrades’ for many users,” said by Andy Rubin.
The Essential Phone features a 5.7-inch edge-to-edge display with QHD (2560 x 1312 pixels) resolution, 19:10 ratio and covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The handset is powered by a 2.45GHz Octa core processor that’s fueled by latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC paired with 4GB of RAM. It sports a titanium and ceramic body that offers it a premium look.
Additionally, the phone also sports modular functionality that allows you to attach a 360-degree camera that can be clipped on the device thanks to the magnetic connector. The 360-degree camera capable of recording UHD (3840 x 1920) video at 30fps. The company is also offering a charging dock. Both these accessories connect to the phone with small metal pogo pins. There’s no 3.5mm audio jack, but there will be an adapter.
Coming to the optics, the device comes with a 13-megapixels dual camera setup at the back with RGB and monochrome capabilities in each lens, with hybrid autofocus, phase detect, IR Laser Assist Focus, and 4K video support. At the front, there is an 8-megapixel selfie sensor with f/2.2 aperture, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 4K video support here as well.
The device runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat and supports 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, NFC, GPS, USB Type-C port, Nano-SIM support, and GLONASS. The handset measures 141.5 x 72.2 x 7.8mm, and weighs less than 185 grams.
Along with the Essential Phone, the company also announced a 360-degree camera module, which clips behind the handset with the help of the magnetic pins and lets you record 360-degree video from your smartphone. Alongside, the company also launched the Essential Home – a smart speaker with a big round display that runs on the brand new Ambient OS.
