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Not Many People Are Buying Andy Rubin's iPhone-Killer Essential Phone, It Seems (fiercewireless.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Essential Products has sold an estimated 5,000 phones through Sprint since the gadget made its big retail debut in the United States earlier this month, according to estimates from BayStreet Research. That figure would put Essential, whose maker became a unicorn without shipping handset, well below market heavyweights like Apple and Samsung, which typically sell tens of millions of phones per quarter in the United States. BayStreet tracks shipments of phones and other devices across the United States. Essential representatives didn't respond to requests for comment on the BayStreet estimates. BayStreet also clarified that its 5,000 figure is an estimate of Essential's sell-through (when a customer buys a product from a retailer) rather than its sell-in (when a retailer buys something from a manufacturer). Sprint is the exclusive carrier for the phone; most phones in the United States are sold through carriers. However, Essential also offers an unlocked version of its gadget. Essential, the first major startup from Android founder Andy Rubin's venture capital firm Playground, currently sells the $699 Android-powered Essential Phone through Sprint and promises to release the Essential Home smart-home hub later this year. Essential was named as one of FierceWireless' top 15 startups to watch in 2017.
* User-replaceable battery * SD card support * Non-giant (5") screen
Yeah. Honestly this sounds like one of the worst product launches in recent memory. I have seen no marketing for this device. Additionally I have heard NO talk of this device anywhere but here. I cant think of anyway for launch the phone worse than they have. It is like they are trying to fail.
Similar pricing as the Galaxy S8. Weaker distribution channels. Unknown brand. Releases months later.
It could compete with One Plus and other cheap brands but it's too expensive for that.
Its main advantage is the 128 GB storage but the market for that amount of storage is too small. Especially outside of the Apple world.
If it weren't for Andy Rubin, we wouldn't even have heard of this phone. And those who don't know who Rubin is definitely never heard about this phone to begin with.
"seems like an acceptable phone"
User replaceable battery: no
SDCard slot: no
Headphone jack: no
Want one: no
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Agree about the need for GPS. Why carry two devices when one does the trick. Ever gotten lost driving a car without a GPS or its software is out of date? A phone with Google Maps saves the day. One of our cars has a GPS system, but is out of date. The update software costs ~$180, and we don't know how up to date it is. Once we went looking for an address but when we got there the car's GPS map showed we were in the middle of nowhere with no roads. My wife as navigator with her phone and google maps got us there.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
That doesn't make it "unacceptable." These things are minor.
That depends on who's making the assessment. None of those things are "minor" to me. I don't care even a little what the mass market considers "acceptable".
you're going to sound like someone who laments not having a rotary dial on a keypad phone.
You know that you can still use rotary phones on POTS lines, right? So if that's your thing, nothing stops you from using one.
But I would say the big difference is that touch tone phones were actually an improvement over rotary. Eliminating the headphone jack is irritating because there isn't a wireless solution that is even as good, let alone better, than the jack.
When the day comes that wireless headphones are superior, you'd have a point -- but I'll bet that nobody will complain about the lack of a jack then.
In the meantime, eliminating the jack is an active downgrade and deserving of condemnation.