Gadgetory

what's going on guys Travers consumer and today we're gonna be taking a look at the essential phone and deciding if it's dope or no and the first thing we're gonna talk about is the design now this thing is packin a 5.7 inch quad HD display and it's actually on a pretty small compact body which i think is the perfect combination it makes it really easy to reach the entire screen navigating the phone is super simple I can do it one-handed I really really like that especially coming off a phone like the note 8 now what kind of sets this phone apart from all the other phones out there right now are those incredible bezels or lack thereof now there are a ton of phones out there right now that are decreasing the size of the bezels but this phone itself doesn't even have any top bezels it actually has a little cutout for the front facing camera aside from that you're pretty much all screen now it does have a little bezel at the bottom but that just makes it a lot easier to hold and even though it has that front facing camera up there you think it sticks out like a sore thumb but it does not you get used to it really quickly and that all apps bleed into the top of the screen they actually have something to have some borders so you might not even notice it sometimes but I do have to say I am a bit spoiled by some of the phones that I've been messing with recently that have OLED displays like the LG v 30 the Galaxy Note 8 this has an LCD display and honestly it just isn't as vibrant as some of the phones that I've been messing around with and it also doesn't get as bright I don't know it just feels a bit faded if I wasn't using this one that probably wouldn't notice anything and think it's just a fine display but just the fact that there are other phones on the market right now that have those other displays and that's where it seems the smartphone world is going I kind of wish I had it here now something that's a bit special about this phone is the fact that it has a titanium frame which should make it quite a bit more durable if you drop it you there's a big concern that that big screen right there might get shattered but that titanium frame was supposed to help it absorb some impact and be a lot more durable than aluminium and honestly I really do like the feel of the titanium it's a bit heftier but I actually like this it feels way more solid and premium than a lot of the phones that are used to right now I actually don't mind a bit of half and this feels very comfortable to hold in one hand so definitely get some points there and taking a look at the back of the phone you think that is made out of Gorilla Glass but it's actually polished ceramic which actually helps to look really really nice even doubles as a mirror if you ever need it but one thing about it is that it is a fingerprint magnet and you guys know that drives me absolutely insane you got to keep a microfiber cloth on this thing at all times if you wanted to look in pristine condition so if you don't want to deal with that I highly suggest getting a skin on it obviously you guys know me I love the Dragons Kandy brand has there are a ton of skins to choose from you can switch up the style of the phone I'll have the links down below in the description for you guys to check it out but for this phone or any phone that's a fingerprint magnet you definitely want something like this and it actually even helps with the grip of the phone too but for all I got in it this is a good-looking phone it's very solid feels very premium so shout out to essential for actually getting it right on their first try design-wise now this is called the essential phone and you think with a name like that it has all of the essential features that somebody would want in a smart phone but not so much you do get things like a fingerprint scanner USB type-c even stock Android but they decided to go against having a headphone jack which blows it blows my mind guys for me as a headphone enthusiast that is an essential feature all headphones are not bluetooth yet there are tons of good headphones I still need a headphone jack so that is one essential feature that's missing it's also missing water resistance that's a feature we're seeing on a ton of phones nowadays so the fact that's missing as well kind of mind-boggling and while it does come with 128 gigs of storage there's no micro SD card slot so some of those things that we kind of come to expect nowadays in 2017 this guy doesn't have the essential phone is missing some essential features go figure it's also missing wireless charging which based on its design is kind of surprising as a $700 Android phone in 2017 it's missing quite a few features I don't know if they're trying to follow the Apple route but Apple plays by their own rules and if you're gonna be an Android phone at that price range you expect a bit more now this is running a practically stock version of Android with the Android 7 dot that one and that is always a bonus you get stalked Android that means it's gonna be super quick very smooth no skin gotta love that quick updates as well and with a snapdragon 835 processor as well as four gigs of ram performance is not gonna be an issue this thing is buttery smooth I've had no performance issues with it whatsoever but where performance can be a bit hit or miss has to be with the camera up front we've got an 8 megapixel front facing camera which honestly I was able to get some pretty decent selfies out of it can record in 4k which I don't know if you want to use that for it but you actually have a somewhat decent camera up front but in the back you've got 2 13 megapixel cameras one is actually a standard lens the other is a mono lens so it's in black and white and together it's supposed to improve the image quality I don't know how much impact it actually has because the shots that I got were pretty hit or miss I tend to see a lot of noise with some of my shots which I wasn't too crazy about you definitely don't want to zoom in on some of these shots which just kind of sucks especially at this price tag and it's decent if you're looking to take black and white shots I rarely ever do so outside of testing it I probably wouldn't ever go for it but it's there I know there have been complaints about the UI and it being very slow to go into different modes and access different settings but unless you really need to capture a moment super quickly in a specific fashion it probably won't have much of an impact on you but still this is a pretty mediocre camera at a $700 price range or in flagship territory so you definitely want your camera to stand out and offer something that the other competition does not and I don't think that this does that so definitely loses some points there and this is actually a modular phone so to the right of the rear cameras and the microphone you have an area where you can add on modular accessories they're held together by magnets right now there's like a 360 camera out there right now I heard is not so good I don't have my hands on it so I can't say for sure but it is kind of cool that you're able to add on things to your phone I don't know how well supported its gonna be and how many things are gonna come out with but that's a nice little feature but probably not one that's gonna make you go and buy the phone now something I like about this phone is that it includes some pretty high quality accessories you had a high quality branded USB type-c cable you even get a headphone jack adapter which I would have preferred to see in the actual phone but they do give you that and you also get the wall adapter which actually has no branding on it whatsoever just like the phone so that's actually kind of nice too now I think we painted a pretty good picture of what the essential phone is and what is capable of so the question is if it's dope or no and honestly I gotta say nope it's just missing way too many things especially at that price range 700 bucks you can go out and grab a Galaxy s8 now you get access to us SD card awesome camera a really good design waterproof there's just way too much competition out there at this price range I've had this been a bit cheaper it would have been maybe a dope because it is an awesome phone great design feels very premium but it's just missing too much as of right now hopefully in the next iteration we'll be able to see things that we come to expect on a flagship on the essential phone too so hopefully that happens but as of right now I gotta stick with the nope but this is a good first tried by essential phone I really like what they did with the looks of the phone but they gotta just hit include those essential features but that about wraps it up guys hopefully you enjoyed this video if you did be the cool guy girl that gives us video thumbs up and I'll catch you guys in the next one till then is your average consumer base