Andy Rubin’s $749 Essential phone misses shipping dates without any official explanation

tech2 News StaffJul 11, 2017 17:26:57 IST

Andy Rubin's Essential Phone has missed its deadline for shipping, with no information forthcoming from the company on the reasons for the delay. The company has not responded to queries by the media, or pre-order buyers, according to a report in The Verge. According to the official website, the phone is currently shipping to select regions in the United States, but still allows user to "reserve" a phone. The phone is encased in a titanium body, and Essential is so confident about the durability of the product that they will not be providing cases for the smartphone.

Andy Rubin used to work as an engineer for Apple, and was the SVP of Android at Google. Rubin is the founder of Essential. The procedure for getting a device involved reserving a phone, with or without the 360 degree camera. Those who reserved the phones would get emails from Essential when their devices were ready, with the shipping and delivery information. The blackout of information from the manufacturer on the status of the devices leaves those who have reserved the phone in a lurch. The international release date of the device has not been announced yet.

The device was first announced back in January, and is available with the world's smallest 360 degree camera as a $50 accessory. The phone sports a 5.7 inch QHD display in the 19:10 aspect ratio. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 835 CPU and supported by a Adreno 540 GPU. There is 128 GB of storage on board, along with 4GB of RAM. There are a total of four cameras on the device. The back of the device has two 13 MP RGB sensors, along with a 13 MP monochromatic sensor. Information from all the three cameras on the back will be used to capture images, using a propriety 'image fusion technology'. The device can shoot 4K video at 30fps, 1080p video at 60fps, and 720p video at 120fps.