Andy Rubin's Modular Essential phone announced

[randomhkkid]

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/30/15711170/essential-phone-announcement-price-android-andy-rubin

 

https://www.essential.com/

 

 

 

 

Full Specs

Spoiler

 

Highlights

$699 or $749 with 360 add-on

Android (7.1?)

Qualcomm 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage

19:10 Display 2560x1312 @5.71" IPS LCD

3040mAh battery

Fingerprint reader

Bluetooth 5

No headphone jack

USB-C

Dual 13MP rear cameras - RGB plus Monochrome a la Huawei P10

8MP front camera with 4K video capabilities

Titanium and ceramic build

Modular 6Gbps contacts on the rear for accessories - Launching with a 360 degree camera attachment and dock

 

 

More details at CODE conference tonight 

6pm PT

[captain cactus]

What's modular about it? Don't see anything modular at all.

 

Also, no 3.5mm jack so no thanks.

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

What's modular about it? Don't see anything modular at all.

you can attatch a singular add on on the back it seems  not verry impressive

[Cheezdoodlez]

So we are just getting to the point were USB-C is getting adopted on a larger scale. And now they wanna replace it. No thanks.

[randomhkkid]

6 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

So we are just getting to the point were USB-C is getting adopted on a larger scale. And now they wanna replace it. No thanks.

It has both, sorry was struggling to copy the full spec sheet

[Cheezdoodlez]

Just now, randomhkkid said:

It has both, sorry was struggling to copy the full spec sheet

I was commenting on the article itself and more specifically this quote.

Quote

Both connect to the phone with small metal pogo pins. They won’t entirely replace USB-C for most people, but Essential is clearly hoping that they could someday.

Yeah. Nope. Can we just USB-C all the things and be happy? 

[Blebekblebek]

2 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

I was commenting on the article itself and more specifically this quote.

Yeah. Nope. Can we just USB-C all the things and be happy? 

How's make one individual happy if they don't have USB-C ?

[patrick3027]

Everyone will forget about this thing after the Oneplus 5 launches for $250 less and a headphone jack. 

[Spenser1337]

Why do we care about the headphone jack again?

[mrchow19910319]

Just face it,. headphone jacks arent coming back just like the optical drive we used to have.... 

[captain cactus]

1 hour ago, Spenser1337 said:

Why do we care about the headphone jack again?

... because my Sennheiser Momentum cans work just dandy? What, do I suddenly need to get an adapter just for my $199 headphones to work?

 

To hell with it. No reason to suddenly jump onto this "digital audio" thing which is snakeoil anyway. Nothing wrong with the 3.5mm plug. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's suddenly bad. Hell, I'd rather have companies develop some really high quality DACs and amps for smartphones/tablets rather than spend that R&D money on making it 0.1mm thinner yet again.

[Spenser1337]

Just now, lots of unexplainable lag said:

... because my Sennheiser Momentum cans work just dandy? What, do I suddenly need to get an adapter just for my $199 headphones to work?

 

To hell with it. No reason to suddenly jump onto this "digital audio" thing which is snakeoil anyway. Nothing wrong with the 3.5mm plug. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's suddenly bad. Hell, I'd rather have companies develop some really high quality DACs and amps for smartphones/tablets rather than spend that R&D money on making it 0.1mm thinner yet again.

I'm not saying the 3.5mm jack is bad I'm just asking why we care about it if the phone company gives you an adapter and wireless earbuds with the phone. Seems like a win win

[mynameisjuan]

God that phone is gorgeous, especially the white one. Almost makes me regret my S8+ but I need the headphone jack as I use it so often.

[dizmo]

Hmmm looks great. Definitely on my potential upgrade list, though the battery size is a little disappointing. Hopefully testing shows that it's right up there with the best, and they have some sexy cases to go along with it.

Wish Asus had released some phones.

 

4 hours ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

What's modular about it? Don't see anything modular at all.

 

Also, no 3.5mm jack so no thanks.

That thing you can attach to it via those pins? It's a module. Hence, modular.

4 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

you can attatch a singular add on on the back it seems  not verry impressive

I'm hoping DXOMark makes an accessory for it. Turn it into a photo beast.

It's also a new product from a new company. You don't go whole hog with the accessories when the product they're attached to is unproven

4 hours ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

So we are just getting to the point were USB-C is getting adopted on a larger scale. And now they wanna replace it. No thanks.

I'm all for people trying something different. That's how we get innovation and improvements.

Reading the phone spec it looks like those pins are for accessories.

2 hours ago, patrick3027 said:

Everyone will forget about this thing after the Oneplus 5 launches for $250 less and a headphone jack. 

I'm pretty stoked on the OP5, but I don't think it'll be $449. With the rumored spec I'd imagine we'll see a starting price of $499 - $549.

30 minutes ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

-snip-

To hell with it. No reason to suddenly jump onto this "digital audio" thing which is snakeoil anyway. Nothing wrong with the 3.5mm plug. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's suddenly bad. Hell, I'd rather have companies develop some really high quality DACs and amps for smartphones/tablets rather than spend that R&D money on making it 0.1mm thinner yet again.

Your logic there is flawed. The companies that make high quality DACs aren't the same ones that produce the cell phone, so they're not wasting any money in that regard.

 

Here's an idea: You don't like that they're doing that, vote with your wallet and buy any one of the hundreds of other phones that are released this year, and leave phones like this for those of us that don't need a headphone jack.

[Bananasplit_00]

8 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Hmmm looks great. Definitely on my potential upgrade list, though the battery size is a little disappointing. Hopefully testing shows that it's right up there with the best, and they have some sexy cases to go along with it.

Wish Asus had released some phones.

 

That thing you can attach to it via those pins? It's a module. Hence, modular.

I'm hoping DXOMark makes an accessory for it. Turn it into a photo beast.

It's also a new product from a new company. You don't go whole hog with the accessories when the product they're attached to is unproven

I'm all for people trying something different. That's how we get innovation and improvements.

I'm pretty stoked on the OP5, but I don't think it'll be $449. With the rumored spec I'd imagine we'll see a starting price of $499 - $549.

Your logic there is flawed. The companies that make high quality DACs aren't the same ones that produce the cell phone, so they're not wasting any money in that regard.

 

Here's an idea: You don't like that they're doing that, vote with your wallet and buy any one of the hundreds of other phones that are released this year, and leave phones like this for those of us that don't need a headphone jack.

i just found calling it modular when you cant even remove anything was a bit poor. i really liked project Ara but that turned out dead but thats what i would call  a modular phone, this is a phone with a fancy accesory port.

[dizmo]

Just now, Bananasplit_00 said:

i just found calling it modular when you cant even remove anything was a bit poor. i really liked project Ara but that turned out dead but thats what i would call  a modular phone, this is a phone with a fancy accesory port.

One can argue semantics all day long.

You can remove the camera accessory, no?

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, dizmo said:

One can argue semantics all day long.

You can remove the camera accessory, no?

yah but that dosent make it a modular phone, haveing a mouse for your computer dosent make it modular does it?(computers are a bad comparason seeing as they ARE modular in most cases but still)

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

yah but that dosent make it a modular phone, haveing a mouse for your computer dosent make it modular does it?(computers are a bad comparason seeing as they ARE modular in most cases but still)

My point is what's modular to you, isn't necessarily modular to someone else. Modular does not only mean "a phone with removable system components.". The only reason you think that is because Ara was the first phone to use that word.

[mrchow19910319]

Still not t h i n enough. 

Should be this thin: as thin as my eyes. 

Spoiler

 

[goodtofufriday]

2 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Just face it,. headphone jacks arent coming back just like the optical drive we used to have.... 

We have a better system in in place that replaced cds as a media.

 

We dont have that for headphones. Batteries with Meh hours? Bluetooth that drains my cells already limited battery? Limited power to the cans?

No thanks.

 

[mrchow19910319]

Just now, goodtofufriday said:

 

my point is that we actually don't have a say in this. 

just imagine how many people swear "will never buy a laptop without a cd drive"/ "i will never buy X product from X company, if enough people stop buying it, they will change their mind." 

 

It can happen in other filed of things... but in tech, I don't think so. 

We either use dongle, or use bluetooth headphones. We adapt, we can't decide where the trend goes. 

[VerticalDiscussions]

WOAH!

 

Wheres the AMOLED display!?

 

 

Wheres the headphone jack!?!?

 

 

Fast charging what? The battery size is "okay" but is at least the highly antecipated Quick Charge 4.0 standard from Qualcomm?

 

But honestly, that titanium and ceramic body sounds "Balls to the wall" awesome and without a headphone jack, this better be light and water resistant with at least IP67 rating.

 

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

We have a better system in in place that replaced cds as a media.

 

We dont have that for headphones. Batteries with Meh hours? Bluetooth that drains my cells already limited battery? Limited power to the cans?

No thanks.

 

Batteries on good Bluetooth headphones can last up to 20 hours. That's pretty far from meh. 

Bluetooth doesn't drain that much more of your battery, especially the newer iterations. 

Phones aren't designed to run "cans". You should be running an amp. 

2 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

my point is that we actually don't have a say in this. 

just imagine how many people swear "will never buy a laptop without a cd drive"/ "i will never buy X product from X company, if enough people stop buying it, they will change their mind." 

 

It can happen in other filed of things... but in tech, I don't think so. 

We either use dongle, or use bluetooth headphones. We adapt, we can't decide where the trend goes. 

I get what you're saying, but it's not always true. If enough people stopped buying phones without a headphone jack, or if two similar phones showed drastically different sales numbers because of that one feature, it would stay. Case and point, the microSD slot on Samsungs. I think it's simply showing that not as many people care as the enthusiasts will lead you to believe. 

1 hour ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

WOAH!

 

Wheres the AMOLED display!?

 

 

Wheres the headphone jack!?

Fast charging what? The battery size is "okay" but is at least the highly antecipated Quick Charge 4.0 standard from Qualcomm?

 

But honestly, that titanium and ceramic body sounds "Balls to the wall" awesome and without a headphone jack, this better be light and water resistant with at least IP67 rating.

 

Actually some people prefer a good IPS display over AMOLED. 

 

I wish the battery had been bigger, but the phone is on the small side so I can understand why it's not a nice 3500mah.

 

I'm surprised they didn't announce any kind of ingress protection but maybe we'll find out about that tonight. 

[HugoPilot]

I really like this phone. Only thing is the 3.5mm jack, but hey! We have an adapter for it.

[VerticalDiscussions]

56 minutes ago, dizmo said:

-snip-

So far, Apple has delivered the best IPS displays according to Displaymate (i presume they are trustable, heck everyone seems to trust them with an arm and leg).

 

Hopefully Andy Rubin figured that out and added a punchy and a colour accurate mode under its display settings on the phone, as long as the display itself is excellent. The lack of HDR support seems a little unforgivable at this point for such a pricey phone.

 

I agree with the battery, but i suppose the module concept exists for a reason and that this fast charging isnt actually QC 2.0, that would be ridiculous.

 

We shall wait and see xD.