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Essential Announces $200 (29%) Discount on Phones -- Price Dropped To $499 (cnet.com) 106

Posted by EditorDavid from the Android-announcements dept.
An anonymous reader quote CNET: The heavily hyped, Andy Rubin-backed Essential phone launched late in August. Now, two months later, its price has been cut from $699 to $499. The news was announced in a Sunday blog post by company president Niccolo de Masi. He said the price cut comes in lieu of the company spending money on an expensive marketing campaign. "We could have created a massive TV campaign to capture your attention," Masi wrote, "but we think making it easier for people to get their hands on our first products is a better way to get to know us." A spokesperson added to this, telling CNET, "We've heard from many people that once they got their hands on an Essential Phone they were hooked by the device's unique look and feel... it was a strategic decision to invest in bold pricing to get our products into more hands instead of traditional marketing such as TV to generate awareness and word of mouth."
"There is really no other way to read the move except as a signal that it wasn't selling well at $699," counters the Verge, "especially given that the only U.S. carrier stores it's available in have 'Sprint' above the door. It certainly doesn't help that it now has to face the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL head-to-head."

"To help salve the burn that customers who paid the full price might be feeling, the company is offering a $200 Essential Store 'friends & family code' to be used towards the purchase of another phone or a module."
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Essential Announces $200 (29%) Discount on Phones -- Price Dropped To $499 More

Essential Announces $200 (29%) Discount on Phones -- Price Dropped To $499

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  • Unique look and feel? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @06:38AM (#55416763) Journal
    It's an Android phone, that looks and feels like an Android phone. What makes it unique? Reading their web site, I'm not seeing anything compelling. Anyone bought one and found something unique in it?

    • Re:Unique look and feel? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @06:44AM (#55416779) Homepage

      looks and feels like an Android phone. What makes it unique?

      That's exactly what I'm looking for. A plain, ordinary Android phone. My current and last phones were both Nexus phones. At $499, I would actually consider one of these.

      • Re: Unique look and feel? (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Well-built plain Android phones with decent hardware can be bought for much less than $499.

        • What would you recommend? Currently i buy used top end phones from ebay, but I'd rather get new.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

          Maybe, but if this thing gets decent software support - and is unlockable so that it can run LineageOS - it's a pretty good deal at that price. Better hardware than the One Plus 5. I got a ZTE Axon 7 last year when the midrange 'flagships' were coming on strong. Hardware is great for the price, but ZTE has backtracked on their promise of openness, to the point that I don't know if my 11 month old phone is going to get any more security patches - let alone OS upgrades. It might (and I'm still hopeful), b

        • True. But the Essential phone has flagship-level hardware - Snapdragon 835, 4GB RAM, 128GB flash, above-1080p display with small bezels. At $699 it was ho-hum because it was around the same price as other phones with similar specs, and those other phones come from companies with a longer track record. At $499 the Essential is a good value if you want that class of hardware, and it should get a lot more attention from potential buyers.
      • I don't think that's the market that they're going for, because if that's what you want then just look at the installed base for LineageOS and pick one of the ones with a lot of users (I'm still using a first-gen Moto G) - something like one of the onePlus line is well supported by LineageOS and has decent hardware.

        • I've just switched my Nexus 4 (running Android 7.1.2 perfectly well) for a Xiaomi Mi A1. It's not as high spec as the Essential but it's pretty reasonable and only costs $220. While the Nexus hasn't really needed replacing, I've fancied something new for a while (mostly for more space and 4g) but couldn't find anything I thought was an equivalent deal to the Nexus 4 at the time of purchase - decent but not top spec, unlocked (network and bootloader), sensibly priced, no oem bloat and going to get a good use

          • And so it's a non-Essential phone.

            It's my belief that for now, Xiaomi, even LG and (used) Samsungs are a great value, and aren't captive to a single carrier, and no one worries about them going out of business after a firesale of their phones.

            The battle of The Phones is now officially over, just like you can't cram even more stuff into a laptop without adding two zeros to the left of the decimal price point. But organizations will convince investors that they have some new secret sauce that is going to prop

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by piojo ( 995934 )

              I've had LG and Samsung, to my lasting regret. OnePlus has good value for money, and the best user interface (both hardware and software) I've seen on a phone. I haven't tried Xiaomi or Meizu--I don't remember what made me choose OnePlus over Xiaomi and Meizu, but there's not really anything I don't like about this phone, and I'm picky as hell.

              (LG: manufacture phones that fry themselves after a few months due to a motherboard defect, then refuse to repair them for the cost of parts.)

        • That's definitely not the market they're going for, but it's exactly the one they'll get. Reducing price to generate buzz on a flagship device just makes it a very popular mid-range phone.

      • Re:Unique look and feel? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PPalmgren ( 1009823 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @07:10AM (#55416843)

        Motorola has a good hold on that market. Their android skinning is very limited and their phones have already been in that ballpark. I was interested in the essential phone, but at the price compared to my Moto Z it just wasn't worth it.

        • I'm seeing that at $625 from Verizon when linked from Motorola's site.

          You can buy an Android One version of the Moto X4 from Google's Project Fi for $399 and it's stock Android, no skinning. And will have the support of the Nexus/Pixels in terms of patches for two years.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I just bought a OnePlus 5 and at the time the price point of the essential turned me off.

        At this new price I would've considered it.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @07:54AM (#55416961)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Unique look and feel? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @09:22AM (#55417287)

        I would consider one if it had a headphone jack.

        I might buy one if it had stereo speakers. My current phone has both of these and I find them such useful features I'll never buy a phone again without them.

        As it is, as soon as I saw the lack of the jack, I just said "nope" and moved on.

        Way to have "courage," Essenial. Courage to remove features before you've even established yourself.

        • I have computers and speakers everywhere. I also still have an iPod. If removing jacks I don't need will save money or improve durability, that's fine for a lot of people. It takes no courage for me to say that my phone is a portable communications device and not a multimedia center. The only time I use it for audio is via USB for Android Auto. And I'd probably use a separate device were it not for being able to answer calls and reply to texts by voice.

    • Here's a video review of the phone:
      https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]

      The attachable wireless modules are unique, and it has a 360 degree camera option. It has a 5.7" screen and a smaller body than 5.5" screen Androids and iPhones. No bloatware isn't unique, but it's better than most Android phones. Interesting and functional materials.

      Their home page highlights these differences:
      https://www.essential.com/ [essential.com]

      More than the current features is the promise of seamless integration with other devices.
      https://www.wire [wired.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      I think the phone display is pretty neat looking. That would be the selling point for me assuming I hadn't bought a phone just recently.

    • Anyone bought one and found something unique in it?

      It ships with a black blemish at the top of the screen making it look defective out of the box.

    • I agree. Although the one "unique" feature I would like to see the most in an Android phone is a USB port that will last as long as the rest of the phone does. My latest Android is a Nexus 5x. It's barely 1 year old, the phone still works great, but the USB cable won't stay plugged in if someone breathes on it. Every Android phone I've ever had has eventually had the same problem, so I try to be really careful when plugging/unplugging it, but it didn't help. I had also hoped that either the Google-branded p

      • Sounds like the problem is you. Also, I've had good experience with magnetic USB for headphones I plug in multiple times a day. The small obtrusion from the receptacle is fine for headphones, not sure about a phone where your hand may cover it and not feel great. If plug is at bottom, probably not an issue.
      • I have a Moto G, first generation, which I bought a few months after it was launched. The USB port is still working fine, and it's plugged in overnight for charging every day. Maybe you're inserting the cable too hard? Micro USB was designed to be more resilient than the older mini USB, and seems pretty solid to me.

  • Overpriced, over hyped NOBODY (Score:3)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @07:53AM (#55416959)
    Outside the "tech" blogsphere, no one knows who this guy or his company is. Price it at 350-400 dollars, they MIGHT sell a few more.
  • I like the clean look, however, can't even get it here in Europe. Even if I'd wanted, ignoring the missing headphone jack and sub-par camera for that hefty original price. For 499 I might further look over those sub-optimal points, but still can't get it anywhere here, anyways.
  • I'd spend the money on the marketing campaign. Nobody I know outside of tech knows what it is.
  • Is it just me or does a price cut that big this close to launch sound an awful lot like they made a lot more devices than they could sell and are now trying to clear out inventory? Nice for those looking to buy a high end android device cheap, but can't be all that great for their bottom line.

    Price cuts like this are pretty much always the result of companies overstating demand at the initial price and often include a warehouse full of unsold inventory. They either plan on making back the money on connec

  • Utterly un-repairable (Score:5, Informative)

    by sremick ( 91371 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @09:37AM (#55417381)

    A junk phone that is pretty much completely unrepairable? iFixit score of 1: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardow... [ifixit.com]

    Locked bootloader, no headphone jack, no MicroSD slot, zero repairability... the Essential Phone is lacking a ton of "essential" things.

    Lower the price all you want, I'm not buying this piece of shit.

  • j/k (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cloud.pt ( 3412475 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @09:37AM (#55417387)

    Many around here would still prefer to pay full price if it brought them a headphone jack, replaceable battery, uSD support, IP67 or above, dual SIM and OLED tech, and maybe 2-4 extra GB of RAM. Hell, I bet they would even pay iPhone X 256GB numbers.

    Now seriously, with all of the above, that would make this a perfect phone.Not just essential.

    • Except that kind of phone only costs $200 to $400. See Xiaomi, Motorola, and Nokia, among others. The replaceable battery is a little more rare as glue tends to be involved, or you need to remove the frame to get at the battery connector.

      • I love Xiaomi. Yet none of their cheap phones have bezel-less displays, and their Mix phones always have shortcomings. No uSD and jack come to mind, or waterproofing. OLED neither. They still don't have an available 8GB RAM device other than the non-existing Mix 2 Special Edition.

        And all of their phones, with the mild exception of the Mi A1, have a horrible Android experience called MIUI and make it very VERY hard to unlock the bootloader, with antics involving VPNs to China, PC Connection shenanigans, aski

  • Overpriced device moved on hype alone (Score:5, Informative)

    by XSportSeeker ( 4641865 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:16AM (#55417603)

    Well, of course this happened.

    Let's see here. It's an Android phone that has ALMOST vanilla Android... but it still has to go through Essencial for updates, so it's vanilla Android with one of the biggest problems of non-vanilla Android.

    The phone suffered delays, left early adopters angry, and had major camera issues on release.
    The flashy stuff about it is either useless, surface level only or cosmetic, or just following trends.
    Ceramics body makes the device more brittle and heavy (poor combination) without offering any protection advantage other than being a bit more scratch proof. Same for titanium. Essencially, you are much more prone to damage this camera than most others in the market.
    The Moto Mod style port only has a 360 camera to show, which is something most people don't care about.
    Doesn't have a headphone jack or an SD card reader, make it less than "essencial".
    And of course, the company didn't pay attention to one of the most essencial parts of a phone: the camera.
    I just hope that at least it gets nice reception and has a good fast Wi-fi chip in it. Otherwise, there doesn't really seem to be anything essencial about it.

    The death knell was the price. And I'm honestly not sure if lowering at this point in time will do it any favors. Some people will reconsider, but the hype is over, and generous people already said that "well, perhaps the next model". Not so generous people will be skipping the brand altogether.

    Too little, too late.

    • Ceramics body makes the device more brittle and heavy (poor combination) without offering any protection advantage other than being a bit more scratch proof. Same for titanium. Essencially, you are much more prone to damage this camera than most others in the market.

      Where are you getting your materials info from? The body isn't ceramic, it is titanium. The back is ceramic. Not that I think that either ceramics or glass is a good choice (I had to replace my fire sale Fire phone after shattering the glass back), but metal often isn't an option - think wireless charging, for example. But not everyone accepts plastic (as used on my Nexus S and now on my Nexus 5X), and so you're down to breakables.

      Do you have a source indicating that ceramic back is heavier, or weaker,

  • An idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Monday October 23, 2017 @12:24PM (#55418411) Homepage

    There's definitely a market for a Nexus replacement (stock Android, fast updates, medium price ~$400-500 and close to top specs) and I'm curious why companies shun this idea.

    The closest we get now is OnePlus but it's not without its quirks.

    • The Moto X [bestbuy.com] ($399) is filling the Nexus void. Also available on Project Fi with a potential trade-in.

      • Currently $115 for my 5X that I bought on sale for $250. I'll stick to the 5X, which got its 'official' Oreo update yesterday (I've been running the stable beta version.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hydrian ( 183536 )

      There's definitely a market for a Nexus replacement (stock Android, fast updates, medium price ~$400-500 and close to top specs) and I'm curious why companies shun this idea.

      Why manufactures don't want to do this? Because there's little profit margin...
      * The bill of materials (BOM) is a larger portion of the overall cost of the product.
      * Moderately priced phone with almost all of the features that the consumer wants would undercut their flag ship devices that have bigger margins.
      * Stock Android doesn't let them make something that's uniquely theirs so you come back to them. It doesn't build brand.
      * More (fast) updates mean greater development / QA cost with no real benefit to t

  • Essential may have over committed on build or their suppliers offering discounts since over estimated demand and have excess capacity or a mix. Regardless A media marketing blitz spending would have poor returns, price typically a safer bet. Lame spin doctoring but what else can they say? Good luck even at $499 the nice features are not so compelling to make up for its short comings ( poor camera:( Expensive lesson for a new device company. Prioritize features and pricing tier. They did some good things

  • I think 500 bucks is a fair enough price of an Android smartphone brand with no history and premium hardware feature. At this price, the smartphone lies almost in the same niche where Google's Nexus phones and the Oneplus phones used to be. Having said that, personally I am not buying once of these because there is no headphone jack. Sorry folks, whoever you are, buy you will never convince me that not having a headphone jack is actually some kind of progress or good for consumers.

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