Interview
Andy Rubin
— Founder and CEO
Why I started Essential
I know people are going to ask me a lot of questions about why I started this company. Why didn’t I just travel the world, ride my motorcycle, tinker with my robots, hang out at my bakery with friends and family. And to be honest I still do ask myself that sometimes…but not too often.
So why did I create Essential? Well, my hardware engineers wanted me to talk about how we are bringing real passion and craftsmanship back into this category. My software engineers wanted me to talk about our vision for making all devices, even those we don't make ourselves, play well together. My partners wanted me to talk about how we are using methods that could change how successful technology companies are built forever.
But the real reason is because of what happened during a night out with an old friend of mine...
Your phone
Pure White
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Stellar GrayAvailable Now
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Copper BlackNow Available
Halo Gray
AMAZON EXCLUSIVE
Black Moon
01 360° Camera
Accessories that
simply Click
simply Click
Don’t you hate it when you have to buy new dongles, chargers, and accessories every time your phone is upgraded? We do too. So we decided to make this a thing of the past. The magnetic connector with wireless data transfer keeps your phone cord-free, future-proof, and always up-to-date.
All accessories magnetically
snap to the phone
snap to the phone
Introducing the
world’s smallest 360°
personal camera
world’s smallest 360°
personal 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.
Order yours now
01.1 Experience 360°
Knitting Factory — Boise, Idaho, May 26
Filmed on Essential Phone
A 360 day in the life
of Cameron Dallas
Questlove visits the Bay Bridge
in San Francisco
Tyga takes his 488 Spider for a spin
01.2 Technical Details
Dimensions:
Height: < 67mm
Width: < 32mm
Thickness: < 12 mm (body)
Weight: < 35grams
Audio:
Microphone: 4x microphones in 3D, ambisonic tetrahedral arrangement
Dual Cameras:
Sensor Resolution: Dual 12MP fisheye imagers
Lens aperture: f1.8
FOV: 210° (each)
Video Resolutions: 360° UHD (3840 x 1920) at 30fps
Ports:
60GHz Wireless, SuperSpeed USB
2x accessory power pins
System Architecture / OS
Qualcomm® 8053
Glass optics for
the best achievable
clarity
the best achievable
clarity
Dual 12 megapixel
image sensors
image sensors
Realtime
stitching engine
stitching engine
Wireless magnetic accessory
connector
connector
Thermal vent
Interview
Xiaoyu Miao
— Principal Engineer at Playground
Why 360 changes everything
If you look at a 360 camera, it’s completely different from a conventional one, in that it captures the entire world around the user. It is an immersive experience that puts the viewer in the center of the action and fundamentally changes how we take a picture. You no longer aim your camera, because you get everything in every shot.
This is a fundamental format change, the largest since George Eastman founded Kodak in 1888.
However, there are a few major issues with where the industry is now, and I wanted to work hard on those aspects to make a miniaturized 360 camera that’s affordable and easy to use for most users.
Docking station
Essential
Phone Dock
Docking station for Essential Phone
Magnetic
connector
connector
Your phone is an essential part of your daily life. And like you, it needs to lie down and recharge sometimes. With our unique Click cordless connector, your phone can quickly recharge while always being at-the-ready for when you need it.
Keep me posted
Beauty meets
brawn
There’s a reason titanium is used to build rockets and replace bones. Unlike aluminum, which most phones are made of, titanium is exceptionally more durable. Our phone housing can resist scratching, denting, and bending as it's made from a harder, stronger, and more resilient material.
We believe titanium is the perfect material to create one of the most essential things in our lives – one we all sometimes drop.
The drop test. We drop tested the Essential Phone on solid concrete to ensure that your phone could survive a bad accident. See it in slow motion.
Titanium: Strong.
Resilient. Distinctive.
Resilient. Distinctive.
When performing a corner drop test on solid concrete, the Essential Phone’s titanium enclosure survived the fall with significantly fewer blemishes compared to the aluminum competitor devices.
Titanium
Essential Phone
Essential Phone
Aluminum
Aluminum
Interview
Jason Keats & Linda Jiang
— Head of Product Architecture & Head of Industrial Design
What craftsmanship
means to us
Craftsmanship is the intangible quality that a customer senses when they pick up a product for the first time. The experience one feels as the product rests in your hand, there’s an unconscious acknowledgment of whether it’s good or bad. If you hold a poorly crafted product, you can feel the haste in which it was rushed through the R&D process. This abstract notion is impossible to hide. It just doesn’t feel right.
To get a true, crafted feel, we selected unusual materials: titanium and ceramic. Each offers its own challenges, and our task was developing new processes to get them right. But the end result is worth it.
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.
Phablet
Essential Phone
Big screen,
small phone
small phone
Camera
Better focus with
depth tracking
depth tracking
Optimized low light
performance
performance
We understand that you won’t use a 360 camera to capture every moment in your life. That’s why we put so much effort into developing one of the world’s best phone cameras.
The result is the world’s thinnest dual camera system built for a phone. It uses both color and monochrome sensors that can capture up to 200% more light than traditional phone cameras. This results in stunning images that are rich in color and detail, even in low light. The phone also offers a true ‘monochrome’ mode.
The front-facing camera is capable of producing 8MP still photos and 4K video, all in a compact form factor designed to blend seamlessly into our Full Display™.
Interview
Yazhu Ling
— Lead Imaging Quality Engineer
A tale of two sensors
I've dedicated the last 6 years of my career helping people to take better pictures, and I have been fortunate to witness the revolution of mobile photography from the front row. It’s mind-blowing how much mobile photography has progressed, but as the sector starts to mature and commoditize, the pace of image quality improvement also stagger. The industry is calling for out of box thinking and bolder innovations.
Read moreSpecifications
Model Name
Essential PH-1
Materials
Titanium body
Ceramic back
Corning Gorilla Glass 5 cover glass
Dimensions
Height: 141.5mm
Width: 71.1mm
Thickness: 7.8mm
Weight: < 185 grams
Display
Resolution: 2560 x 1312 QHD
Aspect Ratio: 19:10
Diagonal Size: 5.71” with radiused corners
Brightness: 500 nits (typical)
Contrast Ratio: > 1000:1 (typical)
Technology: CGS / LTPS
Human Input + Sensors
10 finger multitouch: palm and water-error rejection
Fingerprint reader: fastest available technology
Proximity / Ambient light sensor
Volume buttons, Power button
Environmental pressure sensor (barometer)
Accelerometer, Magnetometer and Gyroscope
Audio
Microphone: 4x microphones with noise cancellation and beam forming
Low Audio: (earpiece)
High Audio: (loudspeaker)
Support Qualcomm® aptX™ HD
Rear Camera
13MP Dual RGB + Mono camera with image fusion technology
13MP True Monochrome mode
f/1.85 lens
Hybrid Auto Focus combing Contrast, Phase Detect and IR Laser Assist Focus
Video at 4K 30fps, 1080p 60fps or 720p 120fps
Front Camera
8MP resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio
f/2.20 fixed hyperfocal lens
Video at 4K 30fps, 1080p 60fps or 720p 120fps
Battery
3040mAh
Fast charging via USB
Memory & Storage
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 128GB UFS 2.1
Connectivity
Bluetooth: 5.0
WiFi: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with MIMO
NFC: yes
Positioning: GPS and GLONASS
Network / Bands
UMTS/HSPA+: 1, 2, 4, 5 6, 8
GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
CDMA EV-DO Rev. A: 0, 1, 10
FDD-LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 66
TDD-LTE: 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43
TD-SCDMA: 34, 39
System Architecture / OS
Android
Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835
CPU: Kryo 280 Octa-core (2.45GHz Quad + 1.9GHz Quad), 64 bit, 10nm processor
GPU: Adreno 540, 710MHz, 64bit
Ports
USB Type-C
60GHz, 6 Gbps Wireless Accessory Connector
2x accessory power pins
NanoSIM tray with pin eject
Water and Dust Resistant
IP54
Essential Phone
Unlocked phone. Compatible with all carriers. No traps. 128GB.
Shipping to select regions included
Secure payment
From:$499.00
A friendly face
for your home
for your home
A new home base
Home devices are complicated to set up, they don't play well with one another, and there are too many separate applications to manage. We don't think that's right, so we’re busy bringing an entirely new type of product to the world. One that easily connects and interacts with the products you already have.
Learn more