First off I’d like to start this review by saying I was a previous mod on the official Essential Subreddit and in no way is my review going to be biased by that fact.

These are my experiences with the phone throughout the time I got it to the time I sadly had to get rid of it.

I’d also like to thank the mods and my friends of /r/Essential for helping me proofread this and providing criticism.

Let’s start off then shall we!

Essential as a company

I truly believe Essential had a great vision when I first heard of them, a stock android experience with high end specs lead by Andy Rubin, what could go wrong there?

Well I believe a lot went wrong here in terms over promising of stuff they’d not actually be able to accomplish as a new startup, we’ve still yet to see any mod besides the camera which is a bit saddening when the whole plan was one per quarter but I’ll get more into that later, on top of that though they need to learn to give out generous release dates and release before, not consistently breaking promises.

Other than the downfalls of promises past, Essential has managed to prove that they can keep software supported and do seem to care about improving the PH-1 experience which is a huge plus for early adopters that are still around.

Early Adoption Woes

As someone who bought the phone when it first came out at TELUS MSRP of $1050, I can straight up tell you it wasn’t worth that, even now after updates I wouldn’t pay that much.

The main issue with that pricing at launch is the software experience was so half baked it felt like an alpha, constant crashes, forced reboots, etc.

But after a few updates it got better, the price drop to $500 helped a lot in regard to what the actual value of the phone should be, this also brought way more people onto the phone which in turn helped the company gather more info to fix stuff.

All in all, the early experience of the phone did leave a bitter taste in my mouth but it’s been nice seeing Essential continue to at least attempt to fix community problems.

The Problems we’re left with

Essential has fixed so many issues with the phone since launch including palm rejection and allowing scroll issues to be tuned.

But what a lot are left with still is spotty reception that doesn’t seem to be a software issue that can be fixed, time and time again Essential has said 8.1 would be the fix but a lot are still left with a pretty big issue of not being able to use their phone as a phone.

Another issue that’s pretty big is the amount of people that get phones with issues, Quality Control is something Essential needs to work on badly before their second phone generation gets released, too many people come here with issues that seem to be isolated, a good example of this that even I experienced was the ghost touches which ended up being a faulty touch screen, I’ve seen quite a few people with that issue alone.

And lastly the camera, I’m not going to stay on this subject long since we all know what it is at this point, but this is something that still has a lot of room for improvement when other flagships can get absolutely amazing photos every time with no effort.

In my case I had to go through 3 RMAs for different issues and could never get a perfectly working PH-1 from Essential, this is the case with a few of the other mods here on /r/Essential, it’s been a rocky ride of exchanges, things randomly just not working anymore, and hardware defects.

I had to deal with ghost taps on two phones, and in the end a phone that just completely gave up all forms of signal and killed itself.

The accessories, or lack thereof

This is one of the reasons I considered the phone in the first place, accessories every quarter and a phone that could fit your needs whatever that may be.

But as of today we’ve yet to see any mod other than the launch 360 camera, with the dock also seemingly in limbo, we’ve also not seen anything come from third parties yet either that consumers can buy.

This was a big disappointment to myself and I’m sure quite a bit of other people who were looking forward to the dock, HQ DAC, and beyond.

Instead we’re left with some expensive earbuds, a 360 camera, and a plastic camera case.

The Beautiful Build

If I could pick one thing that would bring me back to this phone time and time again, it would be the build quality.

The Essential Phone felt amazing and very high quality in my hands and was a pleasure to look at.

The colors later on, even if a bit more expensive than I’d like to see, looked amazing on the phone and are something i’d love to see make a comeback for this gen and next gen.

This is one thing I’d love to see in the next generation of Essential’s Phone, Titanium, Ceramic, and one of the most beautiful bezel-less designs I’ve seen to date on a phone.

No logos, no trade info engraved, it was just a pure slate of beauty and perfect weight.

The Conclusion

Would I recommend this phone to someone new to android as a whole? Not at all.

Would I recommend it to someone who can put up with tinkering and a first gen experience? Absolutely.

The PH-1 at it’s current price is a nice deal to those looking for a Nexus replacement with top of the line specs, the issues are there, especially if you are on t-mobile, but having been with this phone since launch, the issues that can be fixed will improve.

I hope to see Essential succeed as a company and I also hope to come back for their next generation, but until then I’ll be using a Pixel 2 XL as I need my phone to just work without worry.