Essential Phone: That's what the first reviews of the smartphone say

In the meantime, the first English technology blogs have received an Essential Phone as a test device. Now the first test reports came online, in which you can also see pictures of the finished device and there are nice first judgments about the device. You can also find out something about the specs of the cell phone in these. All of this is known now.

Housing

Back: The fingerprint magnet

As with the Xiaomi Mi Mix, the back of the smartphone is made of ceramic and not glass, as I expected. Unfortunately, it is supposed to magically attract fingerprints. The fingerprint sensor can still be found in the same, central position on the back. In my opinion, it belongs there or on the front.

In the upper area of ​​the back you can find connectors in the form of two pins for the modules that can be plugged into the smartphone. They transmit the necessary data to the smartphone via Bluetooth, and the power is supplied via the pins just mentioned. Unfortunately, only a 360 degree camera is currently available as an extension. Further modules are currently still in development.

camera

Essential uses a dual setup for the camera. One lens should only take black and white images and the second camera should take the colors. This means that you can take photos with a nice boke effect and also change the focus afterwards. In addition, the dual camera generally makes photos sharper. An HDR mode is also supported. In addition, it should be worse than that of the Google Pixel devices.

The frame

Conventional aluminum is used as the material for the frame. There is also only one monospeaker and one USB-C connector. A jack port was not installed. In addition, the entire case is not waterproof. But the whole device should be very shockproof.

Front: (Almost) nothing, except for the display

The front of the Essential Phone is mostly taken up by the 5,71-inch display with Quad HD+ resolution. Unfortunately, an LCD panel was installed here. AMOLED, for example, would use less power and display colors more naturally. What is special, however, is that this display, despite its size, comes in the conventional 16:9 format. Therefore, it has a different form factor than the Samsung Galaxy S8 (Plus) with the 18:9 display and a similar display size. Nevertheless, you should still be able to use it with one hand without any problems. There is only a recess in the display for the front camera. I couldn't find out where the earpiece is.

The chic front of the Essential Phone (Image: © 2017 The Verge / YouTube)

Inner workings

Specs: At flagship level

The Essential Phone is powered by Qualcomm's latest processor, the Snapdragon 835. It is supported by 4GB of RAM. To complete the overall picture, there is also 128GB of internal memory. Unfortunately, this cannot be expanded. Different memory options like those offered by Apple and Google would have been nice. The Bluetooth chip is a generation 5.0 chip. I couldn't find out whether you can use it to control two wireless devices at the same time. A 3040mAh battery provides enough power. This is supposed to last for up to seven hours of screen-on time. All in all, the specs correspond to a typical flagship in 2017.

The software: Stock Android

How could it be otherwise? The Android founder has chosen Stock Android version 7.1.1 for his first smartphone. The Pixel Launcher is used as a launcher without any adjustments. You will also quickly find that there is no bloatware installed on this phone. Not even an app from Google. That is really commendable.

Since the front camera protrudes into the display, something had to be solved in the software. The normal status bar is on the home screen in this area, so nothing had to be adjusted here. In apps, games and videos, the entire screen content slides below the height of the front camera. That doesn't look very nice, because then there is simply a large, empty bar. However, you have to consider that this is currently the best solution. Let's see how Apple solves that with the iPhone 8 and the recess.

Conclusion: it can come!

The Essential Phone has definitely earned its place in the market. The combination of good specs and stock Android suggests that this smartphone will be very durable. You have to decide for yourself whether you see the missing jack plug as a counterpoint. The same applies to the non-existent IP certification. The only real points of criticism would be the monospeaker instead of the stereo speaker, the non-expandable memory and the back, which magically attracts fingerprints.

If I could, I would even prefer it to a Samsung Galaxy S8 (Plus) for software reasons. It remains to be seen whether I still think that way after the presentation of the Galaxy Note 8.