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Comment by claydavisss | Hacker News Reader

Still can't figure out what space they are looking to occupy.

The Pixel phones have staked out the expensive-but-good market for "pure" Android snobs.

Samsung has staked out the best-hardware-early market with deep ties to cell providers.

OnePlus has staked out the cheaper-but-surprisingly-good market previously held by the Nexus line.

Where does Essential fit? Rubin never answered this question. Outside of a few tech people, no one knows Essential exists...even OnePlus runs ads.

I suspect Rubin thought he could just build some brand buzz and flip the whole company?

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The Essential phone handily beats OnePlus at $500 or $450. It was priced at $750 I believe on launch and failed completely there.

Essential also seemingly spent a lot of time, money, and internal phone volume on their add on feature. A complete waste as anybody with an ounce of sense could have told you. Drop that work, add in an audio jack or a second USBC port, sell at $500 and they would have done reasonably well for a first product.

I'd get the OnePlus even at that price range; it may not be as nice looking, but it's at least sort of repairable. If you break your essential they make you buy a new one at a slight discount. ifixit gave the essential a 1/10 for repair ability.

Completely agree that the lack of easy repair is a valid criticism of the Essential phone.

Yeah, headphone jack and wireless charging are the only things missing from making ph1 the top. If they'd had a headphone jack and wireless charging and sold at 400 originally they would have killed the market

> I suspect Rubin thought he could just build some brand buzz and flip the whole company?

That's what happened last time (Android Inc was sold in less than 2 years, and hadn't even launched a phone yet)

Only because Google decided to go shopping.

Which was probably triggered by Apple (see Android prototypes pre- and post-acquisition and this becomes clear). Like many, he thought he could replicate previous success, but he may have hit one home run by being in the right place at the right time.

And even then it wasn't really that innovative, I holded off to Symbian until Nokia lost it.

> The Pixel phones have staked out the expensive-but-good market for "pure" Android snobs.

Is anyone making phones for pure Android snobs that don't brainlessly copy all of Apple's attention-grab ideas? I really want an easily-rootable pure-Android device, but I need it to have a goddamn headphone jack. No ugly notch would be nice, too, and maybe a user-replaceable battery (yes, I realize the ship has sailed on that one).

https://www.android.com/one/

Well if you want to put lineage on than go OnePlus. If you want pure android go with Android One phones.

Its funny everybody talking about 500usd phones. If you go android there are so many great sub 200usd phones from xiaomi and huawei.

I have Xiaomi m1a1 that is android one phone meaning its stock android with regular updates. After some time i put linageos on it. I payed 170usd for it. Iam not sure why would anyone need better phone. I mean it is great. It even has two lenses so you can do depth of field photos.

I’m not sure the Pixel phones are expensive but good. They have been notorious for hardware problems, and the hardware quality has been ok, but not quite like a Samsung or Apple device.

I’d say that Google don’t know how to make a fantastic Android phone, they know how to make a Googly phone, and I’m not convinced that’s what hardcore Android users want. Historically that meant “stock Android”, but now it means it’s more and more Googly.

I think it may no longer be possible for a new entrant into the market to compete on quality. Samsung and Apple are operating at such a high economies of scale that no one else can match them at a price point anywhere near.

Essential is a great reasonably priced phone ($350, not $699) with an excellent battery life, very quick updates and no bloatware.

It definitely beats OnePlus. The problem is that instead of re-iterating, Essential started chasing the new gimmick - connected home and it has no money or install base to compete with Google/Amazon/Apple.

> It definitely beats OnePlus.

Vs. a OnePlus 6 it has a smaller screen, worse camera, one fewer sim slot, lacks a headphone jack, half the RAM, a slower processor, no face recognition, and a smaller battery.

In what way is it superior? Just screen resolution?

OnePlus 6 is a year newer. Essential was launched in August 2017, not 2018. Its competitor was OnePlus 5.

I had the original one plus, and liked it. But they blew up their os deal and since then it hasn't been as compelling.

I want pure android without monitoring my behavior - I"m paying for the phone, damnit. I know it's an almost lost cause - that's one reason I like the ph-1.

With the one plus I was always worried about them copying my actions since they are not a pure android, and the danger of a company that is in china. There were some incorrect stories about them sending data to china, but there was at least a legitimate story about sending data there: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/oneplus-data-leak-fix,news-2596...

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