back to article Essentially invisible: Android big-daddy Andy Rubin's hypetastic mobe 'flops in first month'

Android co-inventor Andy Rubin's much-hyped Essential Phone has thus far been a flop with consumers in its first weeks on the market, it is estimated. According to numbers provided to El Reg by analyst firm BayStreet Research, since it began shipping pre-orders in late August, and in stores since mid-September, with the …

  1. big_D Silver badge

    One problem would be that you can't actually buy one, unless you are in America and on Sprint.

    In Germany, I can reserve one, for use on Sprint... Sprint isn't even available in Germany!

    How many of those millions of iPhones and billions of Android devices are on Sprint? That would be a fairer comparison.

    But he seems to be taking the Microsoft way of doing things, release it in the USA and then wait for the press to declare it a failure, because it is selling in low numbers, but they neglect to mention that it is artificially restricted to a very small market, whilst comparing sales to global sales for other devices...

    Why do US companies seem to think that the world stops at the US borders?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No matter how you slice it, those numbers indicate a flop. If it is only being distributed by a single carrier in the US despite all the hype, it was doomed to failure before it started. Either he made that choice deliberately which was stupid, or that's the only carrier he could find who even wanted it.

      When its "great feature" was that stupid 360* camera attachment, it was obvious all the hype was undeserved.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed, whilst the clickbait press might be keen to call it a flop, this phone is a solid contender to be my next phone buy (it's between essential and the Sony XZ1).

      However, unless I can buy it in the UK, then it's moot and Sony are getting my cash.

      And yes, I am one of the seemingly small population that buys an unlocked phone outright, and pair it up with a £8 month SIM, rather than spunking £50 a month for 2 years....

      1. Timmy B

        "And yes, I am one of the seemingly small population that buys an unlocked phone outright"

        Me too. But oneplus for me. Quite happy with my OP3.

      2. big_D Silver badge

        Most of the people I know, here in Germany, are buying their phone outright, and carrier free.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Most of the people I know, here in Germany, are buying their phone outright, and carrier free.

          UK's moving the same way, but slowly. At start of this year about 27% of phones were connected on SIM only deals (ie user provides their own phone), but there's been a steady increase, with estimates that by the end of the year it will be around 31-34%. Whilst it is best to be careful with market forecasts, the people doing that expect that by 2021 more than half of UK contracts will be SIM only.

          There's a couple of things that make the UK a bit slower to adopt this than Europe - first the UK public are absolute suckers for credit, and second Apple have a much higher market share in the UK. With Apple's high prices, buying an iphone on credit bundled with a 24 month contract tends to be more popular than finding many hundreds of quid to buy it outright.

          1. ilmari

            Was out shopping for a new phone for my elderly father. At some point he had wandered off into the shop of the third largest operator.

            When I informed the shopkeeper that yes, that's exactly the phone for him (a Doro), we can't really buy it since we do need to use the competing operator for coverage concerbs.

            The shopkeeper cheerfully said he's happy to sell the phone even if we put competitor's SIM in it.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I was interested but the fact there is no waterproofing, no removable storage and no headphone socket turned me off.

        I know you can use an adapter for earbuds, but I generally just have a few headphones in my drawer in various locations and just grab them when I want to use them. I don't want to be carrying earbuds around with me or having to carry an adapter everywhere.

        Also, I feel the name of the company is weak. It makes it sound budget and low end. I tend to think of Essential as something that has the bare minimum. Clearly this phone is trying to compete in the high end.

        1. DropBear

          My brain has this funny glitch where every time the Essential gets mentioned I start hearing the "bear necessities" sung by Baloo in my head...

          1. Teiwaz

            bear necessities

            At this point in life, I've come to accept that any time a company touts something as 'an essential' - I know I don't need it...

      4. Gio Ciampa

        re: I am one of the seemingly small population

        I must be the other one then...

        ...excuse me while I dither over what (mid-range) handset to get next...

      5. Dabooka

        Buying an unlocked phone outright

        Actually there's more of us than you think and if my circle is anything to go by, that number is increasing at a right old rate. I think it's helped by retention deals appearing be pretty piss poor of late.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My understanding, was that it was a soft launch, and they were supply constrained.

      They even stated this themselves.

      https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/17/16161436/essential-phone-android-updates-2-years

      "Rubin claims that the Essential Phone is available “starting today” from Essential’s website, Sprint, and Best Buy. But it seems to be a soft, ongoing launch; "

    4. Dan McIntyre

      Why do US companies seem to think that the world stops at the US borders?

      Not just companies. I'm a big Tim McGraw fan (american country singer/songwriter) and last year he had a "world" tour - which consisted of a list of American cities.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Lets not forget World Series Baseball

        1. Elmer Phud

          yeah bun no but yeah but

          You do know why it's called the World Series?

          1. Dabooka

            Re: yeah bun no but yeah but

            @Elmer Phud

            I was led to believe the World Times newspaper sponsoring it. Although I mentioned that on here yonks ago and got down voted (I think)

          2. Nick

            Re: yeah bun no but yeah but

            Re. World Series - Snopes isn't always reliable, but this seems credible: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp

            "Negative evidence is easily uncovered by reading accounts of the first few World Series in the major newspapers of the era. The first several contests between the two league champions were reported under a variety of titles — “championship series,” “world championship series,” “world’s series” — before eventually becoming standardized in name as the “World Series.” If the name had derived from the New York World‘s sponsorship, it would have been known as nothing but the “World Series” from the very beginning (and as far back as 1884)."

        2. BebopWeBop

          Lets not forget World Series Baseball

          A Little history - it was named after a newspaper apparently (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_World) - and before you criticise the newspapers name - remember that many countries have newspapers with 'world' or even 'globe' in them. Not, however, to say that the US rather like the moniker (newspaper dead since 1931)

    5. Richard Jukes

      I would imagine for the same reason that some US rapper believes that the earth is flat.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I would imagine for the same reason that some US rapper believes that the earth is flat.

        But the important thing is that the bloke has sought funding to prove his idea. That's the scientific method, of repeating observations to confirm a hypothesis.

        I'll bet you lot just ACCEPT that the earth is round, and you've not checked. Of course, Rap-man's bold project might turn up important surprises, for example that the earth is in fact a cube, as depicted on the Chris Rea's Road to Hell album cover.

        As for those ISS videos, they're just made up by the same studio that did the moon landings, Chris Hadfield is really a jobbing actor, but at least that's better than Tim Peake, who never existed, and was a CGI creation, motion captured by Andy Serkis. The giveaway in Peake's madeup case was that the studio outsourced the programme credits to a cheap offshore graphics house, and they wrote it down as Major Tim, when EVERYBODY knows that it should be Major Tom. But for that one typographical slip, we'd all believe Tim Peake was real.

        1. BebopWeBop

          I'll bet you lot just ACCEPT that the earth is round, and you've not checked. Of course, Rap-man's bold project might turn up important surprises, for example that the earth is in fact a cube, as depicted on the Chris Rea's Road to Hell album cover.

          Actually we did a rather convincing experiment at High School

  2. NonSSL-Login

    First I heard of these

    I might have wanted one of these if they were decent but I have never heard of the brand or phone.

    Their brand awareness marketing must have been localised to America or everywhere except here.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: First I heard of these

      Untrue, I was aware, and waiting to buy one.

    2. Cursorkeys

      Re: First I heard of these

      Same, first I've heard of it and I've been looking at new phones to get for a month or so.

      Think my next one will be a Xiaomi Mi Mix 2, specs of a top end western phone at half the price. Pretty thing too.

      1. aeonturnip

        Re: First I heard of these

        Hadn't seen the Mi Mix 2. Nice hardware and body, but the camera appears to suck, and its lack of wireless charging, water resistance and expandable storage kill it stone dead for me.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: First I heard of these

      but I have never heard of the brand or phone.

      Sounds like you're a gift to marketeers everywhere. There's plenty of makes of phone that have little or no brand presence in Western markets, offer comparable or better specifications and much better value. There's some stonking good devices at bargain prices, particularly in the mid-market. Consider names like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Meizu, Elephone, etc etc. The website techadvisor.co.uk does a nice niche line in reviewing some of these.

      You can buy as a personal import (so do your research, set it up yourself, wait for delivery, pay the import duties), or in several cases there's small UK based importers bringing them in, configuring them, and selling via Ebay, in which case you pay a bit more, but it works out of the box, arrives quickly, you don't have any import duty concerns, and you are protected by Ebay, Paypal guarantees, by UK consumer law, and (depending on how you pay) by the Consumer Credit Act.

      I'm running a Xiaomi and it is a really, really good phone. Anybody who is thinking about buying the expensive brands being promoted in the UK and EU should check that they really are getting something extra for the money (and maybe they do, but they should make sure they know what that extra is). There's little wrong with most products of the big brands - its just that those companies have to recover the high costs of UK branding, promotion, an official presence and head office, a sales force, "bribes" to MNOs, they tend to be corporations with higher overheads, and often they are exploiting a UK willingness to pay high prices via regional pricing, or models that are "only available in the UK/EU".

      1. NonSSL-Login

        Re: First I heard of these

        No need to preach here, I had an OnePlus One and also a Xiomi. Using a Oneplus 3 now and tbh, only a decent camera, maybe the dual ones for better depth and tricks with the camera, would make me upgrade. Oneplus is too pricey with new phones now though.

  3. LewisRage

    Shame it's not available here

    It sounds great frankly. I've seen it being marked *down* because it comes only with base android and a single additional app (The camera).

    Given the amount of unremovable* manufacturer guff I normally have to deal with on a phone that sounds refreshing.

    It's got a nice screen and powerful innards, what more,really, do you want?

    *there are always ways of course, it'd just be nice not to have to piss about with it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Shame it's not available here

      It's got a nice screen and powerful innards, what more,really, do you want?

      About three hundred quid in change?

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: Shame it's not available here

        About three hundred quid in change?

        Well said!

        I hadn't even got as far as finding it was impossible to buy in the UK, it had looked interesting right up until I saw the price, and at that was the end of my interest.

  4. Naselus

    Not sure what the fuss was about

    It's not exactly blowing the world away with it's specs and the pricetag is on the hefty side. Honestly, I don't really see why you'd prefer this over a similarly priced Sony/Sammy/HTC model, let alone a similar spec, half price Chinese brand.

  5. jimborae

    The biggest problems with this phone are the very high price tag, very poor software implementation and frankly appalling camera. And it's missing a few Essentials....

  6. Duffy Moon

    Evidently not that essential

    I'm still disappointed that what turned out to be a camera, wasn't a detachable drone.

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