Essential Phone by Andy Rubin, (co-founder and former CEO of Android Inc. and Danger Inc.) has received the second price cut within 5 months of its launch in August 2017. When launched in the USA it cost $699 or $749 with 360-degree camera included. Surprisingly last month it received first price slash by $200. Now it’s available at $449.99 after it has received another price cut, as available on Best Buy on both Black Moon and Pure White color variants.
If you calculate, that’s a discount of $250 over the phone’s launch price and that too within 5 months period. And given that if you have Friends and Family code in tow, you can even get more discount.
On the company’s official website it’s still sold at $499.99 and the new price is not event reflected on Amazon.com as well. So, as of now, this offer is only available at Best Buy. The Essential 360 Degree camera is still sold at $199.99.
Representatives from Essential during the first price cut said that the discount is due to fierce competition in the market and will allow them to better penetrate into the market, currently dominated by Samsung and Apple. But second price cut within few weeks makes us believe that the phone is seeing low sales. It usually happens in two cases – due to stock clearance before a new successor model is launched and other due to disappointing sales.
Once again reminding of Essential PH-1 Specifications, it has 5.71-inch LTPS IPS LCD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on top providing Quad HD resolution. It’s built with Front glass and ceramic back with a titanium frame and runs on Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box and will get the Android Oreo update by the end of the year.
Under the hood, the first generation Essential Phone is powered by an Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset coupled with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. It has dual 13 mega pixel rear facing camera with f/1.9 aperture and 8 mega pixel front facing snapper with f/2.2 aperture.