The Essential Phone was the first smartphone to ship with a notch in the display and it was the first phone from the startup created by Android founder Andy Rubin. It was also not exactly a huge success in the market, and the company’s had a bit of a rough year… but that hasn’t stopped Essential from offering timely software and security updates — my wife’s Essential PH-1 often gets Android updates before my Pixel 2.

Anyway, it looks like Essential is ready to move on to new things — the company has discontinued the Essential PH-1, but the company isn’t throwing in the towel just yet — Essential has released a statement promising that the company will continue to support its first phone while working on new products.

Earlier today Droid Life noted that the Essential Phone is out of stock at the Essential website and at most other stores. Now Android Police and 9to5Google have both posted articles with a statement from Essential confirming that the phone is sold out and that it will not be restocked.

The company says “we are now hard at work on our next mobile product and will continue to sell accessories and provide speedy software updates and customer support to our existing community.”

Rumor has it Essential is developing a phone that uses AI to respond to phone calls and text messages for you, but it’s unclear if that’s the “next mobile product” mentioned in the statement of if the company is working on something else.

Meanwhile, Essential also recently laid off nearly a third of its workforce, which is bound to have an impact on the company’s operations moving forward.

 

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

10 replies on “Essential Phone is essentially discontinued… but new “mobile product” is in the works”

    1. Okay, the down votes have caused me to want to rephrase that. I am pretty sure we can all agree on this:

      The iPhone’s notch is better than any other smartphone’s notch.

      1. Apple also invented touch screen, slide to unlock, dual SIM phones, high resolution mobile screens… etc.

    1. No it wasn’t. Essential Phone was announced May 2017 and the Sharp Aquos S2 was announced August 2017, but they were both released in August.

      1. Well. The article says it was the fist to ship, not first announced, so to see if it’s right or wrong we’d have to check the exact day of August each shipped. But that’s too much nitpicking for my tastes (personally I have the impression the s2 was first but am too lazy to check.

        1. Technically, the 2015 LG V10 was the first phone with a “notch”.
          Samsung’s copying the design for its 2019 Galaxy phones (aka Infinity-O).

Comments are closed.