The OSOM OV1 will be the first phone from OSOM products. But in a lot of ways it will be the sequel to an older phone that had a bit of a cult following: the Essential PH-1.

OSOM is a startup founded by former Essential employees after that company went belly up. And the OV1 picks up where the PH-1 left off in a lot of ways. After teasing the phone last year, OSOM is now starting to reveal more details about its design, materials and specs.

The new phone has a stainless steel frame, titanium buttons and a titanium camera section, and a Gorilla Glass Victus-covered display. The back of the phone is ceramic, made from a material called zirconia. That’s the same material used for the Essential PH-1, and it did give the phone a striking look.

The OSOM OV1 will be able in three color options: matte black, glossy white, and a third color that the company will reveal at a later date.

What really made the Essential PH-1 stand out, though, was its software support. The company, which was founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, earned a reputation for releasing major Android OS updates and monthly security updates as soon as they were available. In fact, sometimes updates would roll out to the Essential PH-1 before they were available for Google’s own Pixel devices.

Rubin is not affiliated with OSOM. The startup’s founder and CEO is Jason Keats, and he provided some new images and details about the phone to Android Police, 9to5Google, and other tech news sites this week.

The new phone is expected to take a lot of the good stuff from the PH-1 and build on it. The Essential PH-1 had a lousy camera, for example. The OSOM V1 should take better photos thanks to a new 48MP + 12MP dual camera system as well as a 16MP front-facing camera.

The OSOM V1 is also a bigger phone, and the company makes use of the extra size for a larger battery and improved antenna performance. There will also be an Ultra wideband (UWB) antenna and dual SIM card slots. There’s support for sub-6GHz 5G networks and NFC connectivity.

OSOM has also indicated that it expects privacy to be a stand-out feature of the phone. It’s expected to ship with Android-based software, but it’s unclear what version of the software it will run, what additional privacy features will be built in, or if that will have an impact on how quickly the company rolls out OS updates.

One feature OSOM is ready to talk about is a new “Secure Data Cable” with a switch that lets you disable data transfer so the cable can only be used for charging. This disconnects the pins used for transferring data, allowing you to safely plug your phone into a laptop or other gadget without worrying that you’re getting more than power from the connected device.

The phone will be powered by an unspecified Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series processor. The company had originally planned to ship the OV1 with a Snapdragon 888 processor, but decided to delay the launch date a bit to upgrade the processor, which is why the OSOM OV1 is now expected to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2022 rather than this summer, as previously expected.

Update: It looks like the phone will most likely ship with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, as Qualcomm specifically stated that OSOM would be one of the companies to ship a phone with that new chip after the processor launches later this year.

Update 2: Yep.

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