Essential PH-1: The phone that never gets boring
The Essential PH-1 is the new standard in mobile telephony, promises the manufacturer. But does the company, which was founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, deliver what it promises? I have the answers.
In my First Look, for which I opened a box more or less as research, I talk about metal and plastic. That's not correct. The edges of the Essential PH-1 are made of titanium and the back is made of hardened ceramic. That's important. Because if there's one thing I won't, can't or ever will deny about the phone, it's that the Essential feels extremely good in the hand.
It's been a long time since I've carried around a phone that gave me so much pleasure every time I picked it up. With most test devices, this joy fades, but the Essential never gets boring to touch. It's a mixture of material and industrial design that makes it so. The titanium is always pleasantly cool and lukewarm, the ceramic is always at room temperature. The edges convey the feeling that I'm really holding something strong, something well thought-out and something elegant in my hand.
Apropos, I don't know if you already know this, but it took me far too long to realise it: The name of the phone is a play on words.
- PH-1
- PH-One
- Phone
Nothing to the point, but I appreciate good puns.
The invincible software, with one exception
The Essential PH-1 largely runs stock Android, i.e. the pure version of Android provided by Google. With one exception, which I'll come to in a moment. Overall, Essential has really only limited itself to essential things in the context of its PH-1s. I look in vain for bells and whistles.
This is nice in the sense that the entire computing power of the phone is utilised on a small amount of software. This means that I as a user can expect far more from the phone than others. In theory, a manufacturer can use less powerful processors and less RAM without compromising the speed of the phone - as Nokia is doing with its new phones.
The PH-1 doesn't skimp on the hardware. With a Snapdragon 835 processor and 4GB of RAM, paired with the lean software, it can take a beating. I would even say that at this point in smartphone development, late October 2017, it can handle anything I can throw at it. It never slows down, charging times are extremely short, if noticeable by eye at all. Using the phone in everyday life, just like the act of touching it, is a lot of fun.
The crux with the camera
All is well until here. Then I'll try out the camera. I've already heard from the international press that the camera is rubbish. "Can't be", I thought to myself, because with a 13MP dual rear camera, it can't be rubbish. Especially not because everything else on the PH-1 has been thought through down to the last detail, planned and installed with precision. Why would Andy Rubin's company skimp on the camera?
The first photos with the Essential PH-1 are really not impressive. Why? It doesn't match the rest of the device at all. The CPU, RAM and software are kept strong and lean, the code optimised so that the 3040mAh battery could just as easily last forever. What's wrong here?
For the highly interested: high-resolution images
- Horny the unicorn photographed with the Essential PH-1
- Horny the unicorn photographed with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8
The problem is not the camera. The problem is the camera app. Essential has developed its own camera app. This is probably because the app should also be able to cope with the add-ons. The PH-1 has two magnetic connectors on the back that allow you to connect modules to the phone wirelessly. Fortunately, Essential has not only focussed on this feature, as experience has shown that the concept of the modular smartphone is somewhat difficult and has never really worked as a blockbuster. Only one add-on is known so far: A 360-degree camera. It is this add-on that probably makes the camera app necessary.
At the end of testing on 27 October 2017, the camera app was at version 0.1.073. This is just short of a functional demo, if I look at common versioning conventions. Should never have been released like this, but I guess Essential was keen on the Christmas market. Hence the app has a number of quirks.
- My settings are not saved. Every time I open the camera app, I have to switch HDR back on manually
- The app is terribly slow. Practically nothing works without waiting
- Saving images takes forever, about two seconds, and it's always like this
- The app rarely crashes, but it does crash
Crap, right?
Not quite. Because this is where it gets weird again. If you want to record videos, then the camera is comparatively good again. It still lags behind other flagships, but the video recording function works well.
Here's a video with the Essential PH-1 and our mascot.
Here's the same shot again for comparison with the Sony a7s ii and a 24-70mm lens.
Of course, the comparison is a bit off because I'm more or less comparing a potato with a Rolls Royce, but you can see what I mean. The Essential video is actually quite okay. As a little bonus: Horny once fell off a skateboard.
Why you shouldn't write off the phone anyway
So, we're slowly coming to the end. But we don't want to leave it at "all good, except camera". Because Essential has repeatedly proven during the test phase that the development of its software is still ongoing. When setting it up, I spent 90 minutes installing updates and upgrades and every now and then a bug fix or something similar would come in during the test.
Because the problem is not the hardware. As far as we can tell, the camera problem is purely a software problem. And software can get updates and upgrades. So my hope is that Essential will continue to work on the camera app and roll out a good version of the app very soon. Until then, I have found a reasonable workaround: The Google Camera, because Android is still Android and therefore there is no app compulsion.
All in all, the Essential Phone is one of the best phones of the year in terms of handling and hardware, but leaves a somewhat bitter aftertaste because of the camera app.
But Essential, as a new manufacturer on the market, is making good progress. If Essential continues like this, the market will be one supplier of well-designed, elegant phones richer and the competition will have someone else to worry about. <p
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Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.