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Android Creator Andy Rubin Launches Top-of-the-line Essential Phone (theverge.com)
The much-anticipated smartphone from Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, is here. It's called the Essential Phone, and it runs a custom version of Android. Priced at $699, the Essential Phone offers top-of-the-line specifications including "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." From a report on The Verge: 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. [...] 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.
Correct me if I'm wrong. So it won't get the updates from Google directly, right? We need to wait for him to get around to passing the update to the phone, correct?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
or anticepated ;-)
or what?
Appears to be glass-backed like iPhone 4, no analog audio jack, no removable battery, no SD card slot, proprietary power plug. But it's running Android so it's ok, right?
No headphones jack - no money
Another stupidly thin, horribly fragile, totally unhandy enormophone.
How about actually innovating and making a small, thick, fast one we can keep in our back pockets ?
I guess this phone will look good for a week until I have dropped it on the floor a few times, and the screen has shattered on the edges. My otterbox have kept my Iphone 5S alive for several years now. How do you keep a phone with wrapped screen from breaking when dropped?
Cool, so it's a smart phone like every other model on the market with small performance enhancements and features I would never ever notice.
What's the battery life?
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If I can't get the latest from Google, doesn't matter how pretty it is.
Is a phone that is analogous to the Steve Jobs era MacBook Pro. Expensive, well-built, upgradeable (in a limited sense as laptops go), repairable, long term support. For a phone that is like that, I'd not only pay $1k up front, but be willing to fork over $150-$200 for a support package that guarantees that, barring bankruptcy, the company will provide timely software updates past the first two years.
It's the same thing everybody else does just polished to a higher shine.
What exactly about this will make it more usable, more versatile or give us new possibilities?
Look, wake me when somebody makes a phone that won't start acting strange between a year and a year and a half in (hey, if you make it stop working at exactly two years it would make me less annoyed, if we're clear about the matter from the start), that lets me brwose the web like on my desktop (meaning LET ME FUCKING CHANGE THE FUCKING USER AGENT!!!) and lets me input text with something other than this braindead concept of touching my screen.
I mean come on, if somebody touches your monitor at work, don't you want to strangle them? Aren't we fans of the old IBM clackedy clack keyboards to the point we're paying premium for mechanical keyboards? And yet we think touching our screens to input text, with no tactile feedback, is somehow okay?
I want a phone for an IT guy, that makes remoting into a server not a pain in the fucking ass....
cuz.. "essential" is not a $700 'custom' android "smart phone", it's a $50 flip phone that, ya know, CALLS people, can do texts, and doesn't need to be tethered to a power outlet because the battery lasts more than half a day (try a week or two, typically).
The display with a hole? What a stupid idea
Cell manufacturers piss me off because they're focusing on everything i dont care about. Thin phone? I dont ware hipster skinny jeans, I could care less. Faster processing? The only reason I use a Samsung S5 is because my S4 broke. Screen goes all the way to the edge of the phone? I'd rather my phone not have design features that make it prone to breakage.
If some one made a smart phone that could go several days without charging under realistic usage conditions I might drop $699 on it. Lame duck garbage like this? No thanks, I'd rather spend 3 or 4 hundred on something that does everything I want it to do just as well (and I find that expense insulting even given how old the tech is now that meets my needs)
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it's as close to the whole front of a phone being display as I've seen
The Xiaomi Mi Mix doesn't f up the screen with the front camera by adding it at the bottom, where both this and theirs don't have a screen.
Some screenshots give the impression the screen isn't so large, but that's due to the on screen controls having a black background.
...but the press release promises it will change everything, and isn't it nice to be informercialed about these exciting, slightly different phones every day on Slashdot?
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
I don't. If you have a phone with it, is it worth it? Can you even use a case with it?
Too bad that a company can't make the perfect phone for users, but is boring to the marketing department.
I really want a new guy into the market to succeed, just so we can have competition and new ideas. That's great.
But to mimic the crap of Apple (no audio jack) and to add new crap (a chunk missing from the screen for a _rarely_ used camera, cept for narcissist gen x/y/millenials...)
Retina and Retina HD are marketing terms invented by Apple. They're trademarked, and nobody else can use them.
A "Retina" display is any display with a density between 300ppi and 325ppi. A "Retina HD" display is any display with a density >= 326ppi. The iPhone 7 has a 326ppi display, the iPhone 7 Plus has a 401ppi display, so those are both "Retina HD".
The Samsung Galaxy S8 has 571ppi. The Essential Phone has 503ppi. So they both have higher densities that outclass the current generation iPhone. If they were Apple devices, Apple would probably call them "Retina UHD" or something.
Well then I vote "Nay!" with my wallet.
...of having an all glass front? I thought that stuff was just for the hipster/Apple crowd. It's like Steve Jobs paying insane manufacturing cost to get a perfect rectangular parallelepiped case for the NEXT computer, and not one with a slight slope that could be pulled out of a mold. Who cares?
I do not think it means what you think it means.
There's nothing essential about this phone or company. Also, edge to edge displays in handheld devices are flawed by design. They're gimmicks, and that brings us back to that word you keep misusing.
Hipster phone,designed by a hipster for other hipsters to look cool with..
Crap to use in daily life..
The omission of a headphone jack will get one and only one response from intelligent
buyers.
DON'T BUY IT.
Someone forgot about real phones. Maybe next time, Andy. Ok?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
700 bucks for an "essential" phone.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
What makes it Essential? Edge to Edge screen, already been done. No Logo? Is that really a feature. Hmm..O It's "cool" and it cost a lot! That's it. Sorry, too late. "Cool and Expensive" market is already completely ruled by Apple.
Sent from my TARDIS
Hipster checklist:
[x] Owner picture in black shirt with ominous facial expression
[x] Non-mainstream case material
[x] No headphone jack
[x] New proprietary connection
[x] Lack of expandable storage
[x] No waterproofing (because hipsters love to show their loyalty by the money they spend on a brand)
NO way this thing succeeds outside of a niche enthusiast market following the cult of Rubin.
Booooooring!
The article starts with:
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.
For me, the "Android phone basics" are:
- what version of Android does it ship with?
- how often will it be updated?
The rest of that stuff is just phone basics.
Overall though it sounds interesting and I like the idea of more competition in the Android space. But I will simply not buy an Android phone that does not run an Android software update schedule that is on par with what Google do with the Nexus/Pixel series.
No. "Retina" does not have a defined ppi.
A "Retina display" is defined by the pixels being so small that they are imperceptible from a standard viewing distance. So the "Retina display" of an iPhone has higher pixel density than the "Retina display" of a laptop monitor because a phone is held closer to your face than a laptop.
no headphone jack? no thanks.
You care enough to post about it twice? Holy shit.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Maybe I'm seeing things or maybe it's just an artistic rendering, but I see bezel all the way around, not just the big chunk on the bottom. But hey, Lonzo...I mean Andy, you created a phone...something I have never done... so good for you!
For $699 it better come with a SCO license.
Any time someone with a no bezel phone hands it to me, I have to treat it like I'm defusing a bomb. Almost inevitably a fraction of a finger touches the screen and there goes whatever I was supposed to look at. Leave enough of a bezel that the phone can be handed off to another person.
Yay! Super happy to carry an extra piece of equipment that I can lose and replace and lose and replace. Or forget to recharge headphones. Or carry a second set of headphones for airplane entertainment systems. That water resistance and extra 14 minutes of battery time are totally worth the tradeoff.
I think people criticizing this phone doesn't seem to get the point of Android. The greatest thing about Android phones is the amount of CHOICES and INNOVATION that are happening right now. Apple, which was producing effectively the same phone for the last three iterations, is now falling behind.
Want a smartphone with a physical keyboard? Get Blackberry Keyone. What a phone with no bezels? Get the Samsung S8. Want a phone with modular expansion? Get the Moto X. Want a Chinese phone with near flagship specs at one half of price? Get a Huawei Honor 8. etc. Want a phone that runs a lean Android ROM and monthly security updates? Get a Pixel. In the Android marketplace, there is now a smartphone for every taste and desire. None of those phones are meant to appeal to everyone, but each has its small niche.
As I predicted, more and more mobile devices will be following Apple, Motorola, HTC and others in eschewing the outdated, problematic and technologically-inferior 3.5 mm headphone jack in favor of a digital replacement.
Guess Apple was courageous after all, eh?
Or are people going to fill Slashdot and other online forums with literally thousands of posts crapping on this new "Essential" Android phone for shipping a "dongle" for analog headphone compatibility, too?
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.
Dear oh dear
Edge to edge screen? I'm going to sell a suction cup handle to stick to its back so you can hold the phone without registering extra touches when you fumble to reach those far sides of the app with one hand.
A "Retina" display is any display with a density between 300ppi and 325ppi. A "Retina HD" display is any display with a density >= 326ppi.
None of that is even remotely correct.
Your definition for "Retina" excludes the 4K and 5K Retina iMacs (218-219 PPI), all of the Retina iPads (264 PPI), and all of the Retina MacBook Pros (220-226 PPI). And that example you gave of the iPhone 7 being "HD" because it has 326 PPI? It can be applied equally well to literally every single Retina iPhone, all of which are 326 PPI, not to mention Retina iPod Touches (326 PPI), Retina iPad Minis (326 PPI), and Apple Watches (330-333 PPI), none of which are labeled as "Retina HD" by Apple.
So, no, that's not the definition for "Retina".
The way it was originally described by Jobs, a Retina display is any display where the pixels are small enough that they can no longer be individually perceived from a typical viewing distance. Simple as that. We can express the relationship between pixel density and viewing distance as pixels per degree (PPD), which is how you can measure the "Retina-ness" of a display. According to Jobs, a 300 PPI display at 10" qualified as Retina, so that gives us a PPD of 57 as a threshold for what qualifies as Retina.
As such, with a viewing distance of 10" and a PPI of 326, the iPhone 4's PPD of 57.9 made it the first device to qualify. The Retina MacBook Pro that failed to meet your standard? It has a PPD of around 81, given a 20" viewing distance. The Retina iPads that you say aren't Retina? They have PPDs between 72-86 if you assume a 15" viewing distance.
It's arguable that Apple set the bar too low by suggesting that 300 PPI at 10" was sufficient to hit the limits of human vision. After all, people with vision better than 20/20 (a.k.a. 6/6) can still perceive individual pixels at 57 PPD, and even people with average eyesight who can't do so may still able to perceive jagginess on account of Vernier acuity helping us recognize misaligned pixels. Even so, we're nearing the point where none of this will matter, in much the same way that the printer DPI wars became pointless once they surpassed our ability to perceive any difference.
As for "Retina HD", it's a straight-up marketing term that Apple is (incorrectly, if you ask me) slapping on the iPhone 6 and 7 lines as a reference to other improvements they made in terms of color accuracy and contrast. It has nothing to do with pixel density.
Essential sounds like a budget brand. Like, what Walmart would call their own brand of electronics.
Even worse, they skimp on things most people consider essential, like removable batteries, SD card slots and a headphone jack.
It just doesn't work for a high end brand.
Whatever difficulties exist, were solved by previous engineers. Even the Chinese companies that make the lamest phones, are able to do it.
Anyone complaining that it's hard, gets no sympathy. It's your job to make the phone be usable. If you're not the kind of person who can do that, fine, but step aside and let someone else play hardware engineer.
Maybe we'll get that old white-bearded guy who designed phone hardware 3-4 years ago. He sure knew how to do it.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
we're nearing the point where none of this will matter
Oh, I think we passed that point long ago - well before His Holiness Steve Jobs blessed the masses with the sacrament of "retina displays".
People can see the individual pixels on the displays of their pocket supercomputers? How can they live like that? Is there no God?