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Typing this from an Essential. I'm pretty sad. I've had four Nexuses, a Galaxy S and an iPhone and this is probably my favourite. It's camera-problems are well
by martythemaniak 8y ago
Typing this from an Essential.
I'm pretty sad. I've had four Nexuses, a Galaxy S and an iPhone and this is probably my favourite. It's camera-problems are well-known, but I really do think it's the best-designed phone on the market today.
Some high notes:
- the notch predates the iPhone X and looks even better because it's so small. The one on the X is so large, they may as well have not bothered.
- The glass-ceramic-titanium is slippery, but a joy to behold. I love the heavy, blocky feel and love idly flipping it around in my hand (I guess I don't need a fidget spinner). The flat sides also have the advantage letting you leave it straight-up on it's sides (ie for camera shots) while simultaneously being rounded enough to be easy to hold.
- flat, unbranded back and general layout is basically what every phone should have.
- The module extension system is probably the best of all the ones that have been tried. I have the 360 camera and it works great.
- speaking of the camera, I love 360 photos. I kickestarted a failed 360 Camera (Bubl) etc, I used to spend a ton of time making photospheres, their camera was fantastic. I love taking photos with it and people actually like looking at them.
- If they had managed to get rid of the chin and shrank the notch a bit (the status bar is 2x as tall as regular Android because of it) on their second phone, it would have been a perfect.
- Apart form the physical stuff, the updates came fast, the storage was generous (128GB) and the UI was uncluttered.
I hope they get picked up by someone, they have a lot of good stuff going for them.
- dbbk 8y agoThe notch is smaller because it's just a camera lens. The iPhone X basically has a Kinect in its notch. They're not really directly comparable.
- yathern 8y agoOf course you can compare them! They're both phones with a notch! You can also separately compare their face detection capability. But that doesn't disallow you from saying one notch is smaller than the other.
- huangc10 8y agoI think he meant given that the features are not the same, it's hard to compare the physical aspects (and more technically, product specifications) "fairly".
- salvar 8y agoI really don't think anyone was trying to disallow people from saying that one notch is smaller than the other.
- hbosch 8y agoMuch like comparing an oven to a microwave.
- ehsankia 8y agoExcept if you don't want/use face-unlock, then you're left with a huge useless notch... Other than maybe providing better snapchat filter, all those sensors don't do much. I much prefer just having a fingerprint sensor that's smaller and doesn't cover my screen.
- Jaruzel 8y agoUntil someone gets into your phone using your finger while you are sleeping. Or muggers steal your phone AND cut off your finger with a cigar cutter so they can unlock it. Having a PIN is much more secure, as bandits can't use your appendages to get into your phone. I really don't get why people jumped on the bio-metrics bandwagon so quickly. If my Password or PIN gets compromised I can change it. if your fingerprint, or iris gets cloned there's nothing you can do. Bio-metric security looks cool in movies, but in real life it's an utterly pointless less-secure gimmick.
- titanomachy 8y agoThis kind of shit isn't even close to the threat model that 99% of users care about. If you're the kind of person who needs to worry about Mossad breaking into your phone, you know who you are and you're not using fingerprint unlock.
- Jaruzel 8y agoI have a fine collection of tin foil hats, would you like one? Seriously though.. Fast Forward 20 years and the Social Media platform that everyone uses has just 'accidentally' leaked 1bn users bio-metric data to a 3rd party. Good luck re-securing your identity after that. My point is still valid, you can't change your eyeballs, fingers or face if your bio-metrics get leaked.
- dwighttk 8y agoI think you can add a few .9999s to that.
- lagadu 8y ago
- coreypreston 8y agoI also enjoy the same things about the essential phone as you. It looks like Zune has a new friend.
- tannhaeuser 8y agoWait, are you saying its notch is better than the iPhone's? I must confess I haven't considered the possibility that the form and size of the notch could be a differentiator. I thought the notch is a design dead-end if there ever was one, but maybe Apple are on to something; after all Apple sure knows a hell of a lot more about design trade-offs than me.
- nashashmi 8y agoTyping from an essential, the notch is not really a design plus but more of a compromise to giving the user full emersive experience in phone viewing. It is to get the screen into the rounded corners. The front camera is like saying ... Fine! Apple does this really well by minimizing the thickness of the notch, filling all four corners with screen, and creating UI concepts that could blissfully integrate the weird screen shape.
- on_and_off 8y agoI really really really hope this is a dead end we will wake up from. Right now I feel this is more about everybody copying Apple because let's be honest, this is what many OEMs do .. Is it really worth not having stereo front facing speakers and having to add a hole on the screen in order to have it kinda cover the whole front of the phone ? Am I the only one that looks at the front design of the phone once or twice during the first week and then focus on the content, not the slight chrome around it ?
- darkerside 8y agoOnce you've experienced it, it's hard to go back to a phone that doesn't have it.
- pedalpete 8y agoCan you explain why? What benefit does it have? It is there to house a part which they weren't able to place anywhere else? Or is there really something that the notch "does"?
- legohead 8y agoI was gonna get one, but no headphone jack :\