Essential, a smartphone brand formed by Android founder Andy Rubin, shut the shop earlier this year just after launching one smartphone — Essential PH-1. With all the future plans of the company scrapped, its former designer has shared images of devices which could have been PH-2 and PH-3 smartphones.

Kevin Hoffman was working with Essential as a lead designer on the company’s sequel smartphones which never saw the light of day. He has shared images of the company’s new devices via design process and also reveals why they never got launched.

The design of the Essential PH-2 seems like a natural progress for the PH-1 with the company keeping the rear design same, having two cameras, magnetic pin attachments, and a fingerprint sensor. It also would have been IP68 rated in a move of the company listening to its users demand.

The phone was killed off in its second round of EVT testing. Hoffman says that Andy Rubin himself pulled the plug of this PH-2 smartphone in favor of Essential Home product line, which also never made its way to the market.

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The Essential PH-3 smartphone is said to have been in works this year as well. Given that the product was designed with low build-of-material cost, the company was aiming for the budget segment with this phone.

The company would have used bead-blasted machined aluminium for the body, a 2.5D front glass, and an OLED display. The images also show a triple-camera setup on the back and the frame was flat as a “homage to the original PH1 Essential phone design language.”

The smartphone never made it to the market given that it was in the early stages of development when the company closed its doors last month. Although the company struggled with sales and controversies related to Andy Rubin‘s past, Essential has a very strong track record when it comes to Android updates.

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Next year may be the year of the under-display camera seeing as manufacturers have tried all the other possible designs such as pop-up, notch, punch-hole, and flip. OPPO and Xiaomi already showed us working prototypes a few months ago. Now a patent suggests Essential may be joining the list.

The American company has filed a patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office titled Optical Sensors Disposed Beneath The Display Of An Electronic Device. This new patent for the under-display camera technology confirms the drawings that surfaced on the web back in February that the Essential PH-2 may have its selfie camera under the screen.

The patent was published on October 17 and it states that the upper portion of the display will have a variable transparency area. This should be for the camera and should be active when the camera needs to be used. We don’t know how Essential intends to pull it off but it sounds interesting.

There are speculations that the in-display camera tech may show up in the long-awaited successor to the Essential PH-1. However, Essential is focused on another device for the time being and this one has a punch-hole display for the front-facing camera.

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Essential Products, the manufacturer of the impressive Essential PH-1 smartphone, is back in the headlines after announcing a new smartphone to the guys at XDA. The Essential PH-1 that was announced in August 2017 is no longer available for purchase in the market. Now that the company has confirmed that its next product is in early stages of testing, it may launch a new smartphone in the next few months.

According to the Essential spokesperson, “the Essential team is working on a new product, which is currently in the early stages of testing”. The statement came after XDA conducted an independent investigation by gathering evidence hinting at the new device. The smartphone was spotted testing with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 SoC. It is running on the July build of Android Q, with an open source alternative to Google Play Services.

It is possible that the hardware is currently being used only for testing purposes and the production variant might feature an entirely different powerhouse. In a post last year, Bloomberg claimed that the next smartphone from Essential would be ‘AI-powered’. The device was rumored to be able to answer messages automatically. It was expected to feature a smaller display while most interactions would be over voice commands. Essential has neither confirmed nor denied those rumors as of now.

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The company has created quite a benchmark for themselves with the Essential PH-1. In the past two years the PH-1 has received monthly security patches and every major OS upgrade on the same day that Google released them. Essential drew heavy criticism for the high price tag and the weak camera setup on the PH-1. The device launched at $699 and even the $200 price reduction later on did not help pickup sales.

The Essential PH-1 is a unique smartphone, built with premium materials like ceramic and titanium. Two materials that no other mass-produced smartphone manufacturer bothers using. The device offered virtually near-stock Android experience devoid of bloatware and is among the handful of devices currently running on Android 10. Rumors of the second-generation PH-2 was quashed in December 2018 when Essential confirmed plans to shelve the device due to disappointing sales figures.

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The first Essential Phone may not have been a commercial success, but the brand managed to garner a decent fan following. It was said that the company had canceled the development of its second generation model last year owing to weak sales. Despite these reports, it looks like the Essential PH-2 may meet us after all.

Recently, Essential founder Andy Rubin, who has been reclusive on Twitter since late last year replied to a tweet asking a fellow Essential fan to ‘Hang Tight’. He further said that the company ‘Will make an announcement’. Given that this reply from the Android co-founder was to a discussion about the Essential 2, it could be a big hint that there’s a new phone incoming.

Last year, Andy Rubin had to face several sexual harassment allegations during his time at Google. Ever since the scandal, he has been very reclusive and has tweeted just four times this year. So when he decided to reply to a nine-month-old tweet all of a sudden, it has to mean there’s something big coming our way. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure whether it’s the Essential PH-2 or some other consumer product.

Despite the criticism received by the first Essential PH-1 model for its sub-par camera and expensive price tag, it is still loved by a lot of fans because of its prompt updates. Even the phone’s design was ahead of its time. So, the second generation could finally hit the sweet spot especially if it comes with powerful camera setup. However, there still isn’t any conclusive evidence that Andy Rubin’s comments were for a new smartphone. So, we’ll have to wait for more details.

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Essential Phone, which was well talked but didn’t fare well in terms of sales, is reportedly working on its successor, dubbed Essential PH-2. Now, new details have surfaced online, revealing the phone’s display information and design.

According to the latest report, a new set of drawings have surfaced online, which suggests that the smartphone will come with a display that can go transparent, getting rid of all the notches and moving parts on the device.

The patent design further suggests that the Essential Phone PH-2 will have at least one camera sensor and one light sensor placed under the display. The report suggests that device will come with an OLED panel and become semitransparent on command when selfie camera is opened.

There’s also a second set of drawings which reveals that the handset will have an under-display fingerprint sensor, something which most of the flagship smartphones are now offering. It’s noteworthy that the name PH-2 was earlier spotted in a document of a US smartphone carrier but no other details related to the device are known at this time.

We are also expecting the smartphone to come with a near stock version of the latest Android operating system, which in this case could be the Android 9 Pie. We also expect the phone to come powered by Qualcomm’s flagship chipset.

Recently, it was reported that the company is working on a second device, which the company labeled as a “mobile product”. However, this second device might possibly be the leaked tiny phone that employs AI (artificial intelligence) to answer text messages and e-mails.

Currently, there is no word regarding the launch timeline of the smartphone. However, it’s highly unlikely that the patented device is the same device that was recently reported to have an AI-powered system to answer messages.

Read More: Essential is reportedly working on an AI phone that automatically responds to messages

Essential launched its first phone, the PH-1 more than a year ago, which didn’t do well due to a number of issues. Earlier reports indicated that the company canceled plans of a successor and even suspended some other hardware devices it had in development. However, it seems that the situation has changed and the company has now kicked-off development.

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