The Essential Phone Is A Beautiful Example Of Everything That's Wrong With Android

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. An Android phone maker comes along with a hot new premium handset that promises to deliver everything we’ve always wanted: speed, good looks, and performance. This time around it’s Andy Rubin’s Essential Phone, the latest handset vying for hundreds of your hard-earned dollars with the promise of offering the most complete Android experience around.

- Michael Simon

But for all of its flashy features and pretty curves, the Essential Phone will likely face the same uphill battles encountered by other unlocked phones: namely an OS that doesn’t stay fresh, a gimmicky ecosystem that falls short of its promise, and limited carrier support.

It also lacks a headphone jack. Rubin’s new phone may be a gorgeous, advanced piece of tech, but it still risks falling into the same pitfalls that took down many a hyped Android phone. And while Rubin might be selling Essential as something different, it has a tough row to hoe if it hopes to avoid them.

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The Essential Phone is presented as a prototype from the future, but the truth is we’ve seen these gimmicks before, with varying results. The magnetic modular connector was a bust for the LG G5 but slightly more successful on the Moto Z. The thin, asymmetrical bezel makes it look something like the Mi Mix (though I can’t stop wondering why it needed to force that weird camera cutout). Even the dual camera system, which Essential claims is the world’s thinnest, is fairly ho-hum these days.

But what’s most interesting is the companion home speaker. The renders we’ve seen look fantastic, and Essential says the speaker automatically connects to new and existing devices. It will also support Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, making it seem like the home speaker to rule them all.