Android’s creator, Andy Rubin, started up his own company, Essential and their first phone was the Essential PH-1. The phone had a few software issues early on but has since become a very solid phone — it is usually the first non-Pixel phone to see security and version updates. Now it looks like a successor is just about ready.
At nearly two years since its release Andy Rubin has hinted, and fairly strongly at that, that they have their next smartphone ready to go. Replying to a Tweet that is nearly a year old Andy has said words to the effect that something is ready to be announced:
Don't just re-tweet it @Arubin, announce something! This was the first Android phone I didn't have to do a factory wipe on after a year (or less!), and it's still going strong since day 1 release.
— Will Pinner (@wpinner) September 5, 2018
It is very strange that Andy Rubin would reply to a year-old Tweet, and one about this — considering that he must receive a lot of mentions in his Twitter feed each and every day, let alone one from September of last year.
Back in February we reported that a new Essential possibly had a new phone with a novel selfie camera — under the display. Recently we saw from OPPO and Xiaomi that this solution is not so novel after all so it would not surprise us if they ended up being the first to market with it.
Essential were the first to market with a notch, which is still only just being matched in size by some manufacturers now so we know that Essential like to push the boundaries of what is possible. Hopefully they do with this as well. Android needs another player who can match it with the big guys.
Anyone else ready for an Essential PH-2?
Lets hope Essential learn from their last phone by selling it in more global markets sooner and by making a phone that is not difficult to manufacture. They lost trust when they acted like a stupid startup greedily chasing wealth and looking to unexpectedly switch to not making phones, so they will need to convince potential buyers of updates and phone manufacturing stability. Also, their detractors only reviewed the phone when it came out and not after the updates had fixed/improved the phone, giving buyers a false impression of its capabilities.
As long as it doesn’t come with the glitches that the first phone had.