Well, none of them have been massive successes so I am not sure it is worth comparing them to Essential. For long, Google has mostly sold nexuses in order to h

Well, none of them have been massive successes so I am not sure it is worth comparing them to Essential. For long, Google has mostly sold nexuses in order to have demonstration devices of what Android could/should be. Also, they needed dev devices for their engineers working on the next Android version anyway so it made sense to go the extra mile and sell a couple of them as well. I don't think any of them has ever been low budget (below 200$); some have been middle budgets and some other high. The Nexus 4 has been introduced at 300$ IIRC but it was not the rule by any length.