Essential Phone

Android's creator builds a phone: $699, titanium, and about 90,000 buyers

Shut down
19902026

The Essential Phone, or PH-1, was the first product of Essential Products, the company Android co-creator Andy Rubin founded in 2015 and raised $330 million for at a $1.2 billion valuation. Announced on 30 May 2017 and shipped on 17 August 2017 at $699, with a titanium frame, an edge-to-edge screen and magnetic accessories, it sold poorly, was cut to $499 within weeks, and was discontinued in December 2018. Essential shut down on 12 February 2020.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2015
  2. November 2015 Launch
    Essential Products is founded

    Andy Rubin sets out to build a phone without compromises.

  3. 2017
  4. 30 May 2017 Feature
    The Essential Phone is announced

    Titanium, edge-to-edge screen, $699.

  5. 14 August 2017 Funding
    A $1.2 billion valuation

    $300 million raised before a single phone ships.

  6. 17 August 2017 Launch
    Shipping begins

    Late, through Sprint and Essential's own site.

  7. 22 October 2017 Decline
    Price cut to $499

    $200 credit for early buyers, two months in.

  8. 2018
  9. 25 October 2018 Decline
    Layoffs and the second phone cancelled

    About 30 percent of staff go; reports about Rubin's Google exit land the same month.

  10. 28 December 2018 Decline
    The PH-1 is discontinued

    Stock runs out; no successor.

  11. 2019
  12. 8 October 2019 Feature
    Project Gem

    A remote-control-shaped phone is teased.

  13. 2020
  14. 12 February 2020 Shutdown
    Essential shuts down

    "No clear path" for Gem; updates and services end.

The site through time

Browse essential.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2017 2018 2019 2020 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Essential Products 2015–2020 Founded Founded by Andy Rubin; about $330 million raised from Tencent, Amazon, Foxconn and others
Nothing 2021–2020 Acquisition Bought the Essential brand and trademarks after the shutdown

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: The Essential Phone shipped late, sold an estimated 88,000 units in 2017 and had its price cut by $200 within two months. Its successor was cancelled in 2018, the company failed to find a buyer, and a radical narrow phone called Gem never shipped. On 12 February 2020 Essential said it had "no clear path" to deliver Gem to customers and was shutting down, ending updates and its cloud services.

Our analysis: Essential was a phone built by the person who invented Android, funded like a unicorn before it shipped, and it lost to the boring reality that people buy phones from carriers and brands they know. The camera was weak, the launch was late, and the founder's reputation collapsed under reporting about his departure from Google. It was a beautiful object with no reason to exist except its maker's name.

History [edit]

Rubin's comeback

Andy Rubin co-created Android and ran it at Google until 2013; in 2015 he founded Essential Products in Palo Alto with the ambition of building the phone that Google and Apple would not: unlocked, unbranded, made of premium materials, upgradable through accessories. Investors including Tencent, Amazon and Foxconn put in about $330 million, and by August 2017 the company was valued at $1.2 billion before it had shipped anything.

The Essential Phone was announced on 30 May 2017: a titanium and ceramic body, a display that ran to the edges with a small notch cut for the camera months before the iPhone X, no logos anywhere, and two magnetic pins on the back for snap-on accessories, of which a 360-degree camera was the only one that appeared. It cost $699. It missed its 30-day shipping promise, then a second date, and finally shipped on 17 August 2017, in the United States through Sprint and unlocked from Essential's own site.

Ninety thousand

Reviews admired the hardware and disliked the camera and the software polish. Sales figures never came from the company; analyst estimates put 2017 shipments at around 88,000 units. On 22 October 2017 Essential cut the price to $499 and gave early buyers $200 in credit. In October 2018 the company laid off about 30 percent of its staff and confirmed it had cancelled the second phone; on 28 December 2018 the PH-1 was discontinued as stock ran out. Reports that Rubin had left Google in 2014 with a $90 million payout after a sexual misconduct allegation, published in October 2018, ended what remained of the brand's aura.

Gem

In October 2019 Rubin teased Project Gem, a tall, narrow phone the shape of a remote control with a new interface, and it looked as if Essential would try once more. It did not. On 12 February 2020 the company announced it was ceasing operations, saying there was "no clear path" to bring Gem to customers; the PH-1 received a final security update and its Newton Mail app, acquired in 2018, was shut down. Essential's remains were bought by Nothing, Carl Pei's company, in 2021, largely for the name and trademarks.

The domain today

essential.com now belongs to Nothing, which bought Essential's brand assets in 2021, and no longer serves the phone's pages.

Similar projects

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Sources [edit]

  1. Andy Rubin's Essential Phone is official The Verge 30 May 2017 [archived]
  2. Essential is now worth over a billion dollars before shipping a single phone The Verge 14 August 2017 [archived]
  3. Essential Phone review Engadget 24 August 2017 [archived]
  4. Essential Phone gets a $200 price cut two months after launch The Verge 22 October 2017 [archived]
  5. Andy Rubin's Essential Products is shutting down 9to5Google 12 February 2020 [archived]

Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).