The first Essential phone had a few software issues at first but due to their continued development and extremely fast updates it has garnered quite the following. After cancelling a second phone last year Andy Rubin’s Essential now finally has a second generation device in testing.
XDA Developers have been in contact with Essential after noticing bit and pieces of varying substance pointing towards a new Essential phone in the offing. They received a statement from an official Essential spokesperson who said that:
We’ve previously shared that the Essential team is working on a new device. It is now in early testing and we look forward to sharing more details in the future.
That statement itself doesn’t give much away but it does say that Essential are finally working on another device — which may or may not be a phone. They have submitted fixes for boot animations being cutoff in 90 and 270 degrees (landscape) pointing towards a device that sits landscape, such as a tablet.
There is also some evidence that it may not come with Google apps but we suspect that it will and the testing with microg is just part of their generalised testing. A consumer product without Google apps in the western world is likely to be dead in the water — Huawei will be hoping to prove me wrong on that with the Mate 30.
The device itself is expected to run a mid-range Snapdragon 730 processor pointing towards a tablet — their fans are generally hard core Android fans and thus their phone market would also be flagship specs.
It has been a long time since Essential looked to shake up the market with the release of their PH-One but we are certainly hoping that it will be worth the wait. Don’t hold your breath on it being another phone though — even if it is another phone it is only in early testing so will at best be several months away from release.