It's finally happening. Today marks the official, long-overdue launch of the Essential Phone PH-1 with Essential and Sprint making announcements that you can pre-order Andy Rubin's new device today.
Both Essential itself and Best Buy have the unlocked model for $699, and Sprint will be the exclusive carrier in the U.S. Both versions of the phone will work on all major U.S. carriers. Speaking of Sprint, however, the company is offering an interesting and sweet deal for the launch. Going through its Sprint Flex Lease program, you'll get 50% knocked off the price of the phone, meaning that your monthly payments will be just $14.58.
And for a limited time, if you purchase the phone through Essential, you can get the 360° camera for another $50.
All three outlets are showing as "Reserve," "Pre-order," and "Coming Soon" for me at the time of writing. Also, it looks like you can only get the black model through Sprint at the moment; the white one will be "available at a later date." There will be a few source links below, so pick which one best suits you.
Also, keep in mind that Sprint says that "full retail availability is expected within a few weeks," which makes me wonder about Essnetial's claim that previous pre-orders will be shipping with the next week.
PRESS RELEASE
When I started Essential, I did so with six core beliefs. Today, as we celebrate the launch of Essential Phone, I want to illustrate how we baked those principles into every facet of the device—and how all the choices we made along the way were done with you in mind.
At Essential, we are up against industry giants that employ tens of thousands of workers to develop and deploy smartphones around the world. There is a significant advantage to that kind of scale, but we also know that when a company gets to a certain size, the desire to create a customer-first experience sometimes takes a back seat to other considerations, like profits and corporate agendas. Our 100-person team is made up of people who believe in putting the best experience for you above all else. That’s why we’re working around the clock to create products designed to fit your life—never the other way around—with the spirit of American innovation and craftsmanship imbued in every part we design.
Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want.
One of the first things you’ll notice about Essential Phone is that there’s no branding. That’s because we want it to be yours, not ours. And once you turn it on, you’ll find that there are a limited number of preloaded apps and no duplicative services.
We will always play well with others. Closed ecosystems are divisive and outdated.
Every year, like clockwork, manufacturers make “design tweaks” and launch new features and products that work well if you choose to stay in their ecosystem. You buy their phone, TV, speaker, and fridge with the promise of simplicity, but more and more often, this is a way to force loyalty. At Essential, it’s our goal to be the bridge between all these different ecosystems so you can pick and choose the products and services that work best for you, no matter who makes them.
We’re just getting started but we will always advocate for solutions that work well across all your devices. For instance, why limit who you can talk to by sticking to Facetime while there are so many alternatives out there -- from WhatsApp to WeChat -- that work across a wide range of mobile and desktop devices.
Premium materials and true craftsmanship shouldn’t just be for the few.
Our phones are with us all the time, and they are susceptible to wear and tear as they get shoved into pockets, tossed in bags, dropped on desks, and exposed to the elements. You deserve a phone that can resist the trials of everyday use. That’s why we made Essential Phone out of titanium and ceramic. These materials are harder, stronger, and more resistant to dents and scratches than the materials that make up most smartphones. And while costs for such finely crafted materials are usually reserved for high-priced, out-of-reach goods, we've tried to make our phone as affordable as possible.
Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.
Technology moves so quickly that companies rush to release a new phone each year, but most times even that isn’t fast enough. This deluge of devices isn’t good for your wallet or for the planet. Essential Phone will get guaranteed Android OS updates for 2 years and will get monthly security updates for 3 years, so your phone will always be secure and have the latest features.
We also plan to release new wireless accessories (like our snap-on 360º Camera) every few months. That schedule ensures that the latest technology will always be in the palm of your hand without having to replace your phone. These accessories will also work with other products like Essential Home.
Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life.
Our phones are no longer just digital companions; they are the means by which we record and share our lives. Each and every day, we capture images and videos to share with friends, save for family, or post for the world to see. That’s why we put nearly a year’s worth of development into making a camera that integrates into the body of the phone (without the tell tale camera hump) while still taking great pictures. The dual camera system on Essential Phone shoots with both color and monochrome sensors to create a photograph with richer color and clarity, even in low-light situations. Now you can snap a photo and enjoy the moment––without worrying about picture quality.
With the 360º Camera, we’re also making it a lot easier for you to capture the world around you -- from group selfies to immersive sunsets on the beach. If a picture is worth a thousand words, 360º is worth a million.
Simple is always better.
The most consumer-friendly attribute of all is simplicity. That’s why we made something that works intuitively right out of the box, without complication or clutter. While the technology powering Essential Phone is cutting edge, the exterior and interface hide the complexity underneath; the result is a phone with a minimalist style designed to offer only what you need and nothing more.
At Essential, we believe that phones are at their best when they serve you, not a company. Our phone comes standard with 128GB of storage, because it’s a small cost for us to absorb and unlike most players in the market, we’re not out to charge customers for incremental upgrades. We’ve made a 360º camera because we want to unleash the creativity of our customers. And we’ve built in future-proof technology because we want Essential Phone to evolve with our customers’ needs. This is the phone we always wanted, but we didn’t just make it for ourselves. We designed it around you.
Available today. Compatible with all major networks.
Starting today, Essential Phone is available on Essential.com, Sprint and Best Buy. Essential Phone is compatible with all major carriers.
On Essential.com you can get an unlocked Essential Phone for just $699 and for a limited time you will be able to get Essential Phone and Essential 360 Camera as a bundle for $749.
PRESS RELEASE
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. & PALO ALTO, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE), August 17, 2017 - Today Sprint (NYSE: S) and Essential Products announced the beginning of pre-order for Essential Phone, the first smartphone from Essential Products, started by Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, the world’s most widely used operating system.
Essential Phone is expertly crafted using titanium and ceramic, has an edge-to-edge Full Display, and captures stunning images (even in low light) with a color and monochrome dual-system camera that captures rich, crisp photos.
Sprint is the exclusive U.S. retail carrier for Essential Phone. Sprint will be the only carrier where customers can walk in and experience the beauty of Essential Phone before making a purchase. Customers who wish to be among the first to get Essential Phone can pre-order it in black now at www.sprint.com/essential. It will be available in white at a later date. Full retail availability in expected within a few weeks.
“Essential Products was created to realize our vision for a 21st century consumer technology company,” said Andy Rubin, founder of Essential. “Essential Phone and Essential 360° Camera are the first of many products designed around the consumer that embody our commitment to premium craftsmanship and cutting edge innovation. Live streaming Essential 360° video is the kind of unique experience and functionality that is a perfect use of Sprint’s national high speed data network.”
For a limited time, get 50 percent off Essential Phone and pay just $14.58 per month with $0 down with 18 Sprint Flex Lease payments1 – that is a savings of more than $260. Plus, get the Essential 360° Camera, the world’s smallest 360° 4K camera, for just $199.99 or $16.67 per month for 12 months with Installment Billing2.
“I am excited for Sprint to be the exclusive carrier for Essential,” said Marcelo Claure, Sprint CEO. “Combined with our incredible value on unlimited data, talk and text, customers will love using this powerful phone and its 360° camera.”
With Sprint Flex Lease, customers can lease Essential Phone and have the option to upgrade or purchase later. Unlike other carriers, which require the customer to decide to buy up front, Sprint lets customers make the final decision later, so they don’t get stuck with their old phone. Sprint Flex allows customers to enjoy their phone before deciding what option (upgrade, continue leasing, return or own) works best for their lifestyle. Customers can still choose to buy the phone outright at point of sale.
Sprint offers the best price on Unlimited – a family can get five lines of Unlimited data, talk and text, HD video and 10GB of mobile hotspot for just $20/month/line. That’s five lines of Unlimited for $100/month and 50 percent off Verizon and AT&T Unlimited rates for a family of five.3 Sprint has more spectrum than any other carrier across the nation, allowing Sprint to keep adding the capacity and speed needed to serve customers’ increasing demand for unlimited data.
Striking Design, Powerful Features
Essential Phone boasts stunning design elements and innovative technical specifications including:
- Design & craftsmanship: There’s a reason titanium is used to build rockets and replace bones. Unlike aluminum, which is what most phones are made of, titanium doesn’t scratch, dent, or bend. Titanium is the perfect material to create one of the most essential things in our lives – one we all sometimes drop.
- World’s Smallest 4K 360° Camera: Other 360° cameras are big, bulky, and complicated to use. We thought it was about time someone made a 360° camera for the rest of us. Simply click the 360° camera to your phone to point, shoot, and share. It’s that easy.
- Full Display™: With the Essential Phone’s stunning edge-to-edge Full Display there’s finally a large-screen device that fits comfortably in the palm of your hand.
- Beauty meets brawn: This phone will take on whatever you want it to do. It comes with top-of-the-line specs and 128GB of memory so you have plenty of space for apps, photos and music.
- Accessories that simply click: The magnetic connector with wireless data transfer keeps your phone cord-free, future-proof, and always up-to-date.
Essential Phone is enabled with three-channel carrier aggregation capable of reaching peak download speeds of more than 200Mbps. With an average of 204MHz of spectrum and more than 160MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets, Sprint has more spectrum than any other carrier across the nation, allowing Sprint to keep adding the capacity and speed needed to serve customers’ increasing demand for unlimited data.