Used my Essential today to snap gorgeous 360 pics with the snap-on camera. I think they had a good approach that could've lead to building a good ecosystem.
Not sure what I'll upgrade to after carrying the Essential...
Drive it like you stole it.. and there's always LineageOS[0], so you can keep updating it basically forever, and since it was a flagship, the specs are still pretty solid, even compared to mid-tier phones.
It's pretty hard to find a phone that has the stock Android experience, no bloatware, and beautiful, powerful hardware for this kind of price ($150 on Ebay for grade-A used), let alone one that has an awesome 360 camera and can run nightly android builds.
I'm almost OK with doing that, but I think it's a tall order my partner (non-technical) who has been using an Essential.