Essential PH-1 – a Minimalist Smartphone by the Founder of Android
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It’s hard to find a pure Android experience nowadays. The Essential PH-1 phone is a flagship phone that has that minimalist design and features and can go heads-on with some of the top smartphone brands.
What is the Essential Phone?
The Essential PH-1 phone is a new smartphone brand made by the co-founder of Android Andy Rubin. You’ll find the most vanilla version of Android installed on it. The PH-1 is one elegantly crafted smart device, With an edge-to-edge gorilla glass screen and its body made of titanium and ceramic this phone can take a hit or occasional drop to the floor without any damage.
I can get used to this
You’ll get a comfortable 128GB of storage space and a top-notch front and rear camera. Accessories snap to the phone with a magnet. One such example is the 360 degree camera which comes for free with your purchase. With this you can shoot some pretty decent 360 videos which no other smartphone offers currently.
Essential Phone Features
- Titanium body
- Ceramic back
- Gorilla glass screen
- 4GB RAM
- 128 GB storage space
- 13MP rear camera, 8MP front camera
- Fingerprint reader
- Includes 360 degree camera (accessory)
- Includes free earphones
- Includes carrying case
Can you still buy the Essential Phone?
Update (October 2026): Essential shut down in February 2020. The PH-1 got its last update, the February 2020 security patch, and no support after that. The next phone, Project Gem, was cancelled. In 2021, Carl Pei’s company Nothing bought the Essential brand, and today Nothing uses the name for features on its own phones. There is no Essential Phone 2. If you want a simple phone today, look at our best minimalist phones instead.
You may still find a used PH-1 for sale, but without security updates since 2020, I wouldn’t use one as a daily phone.