Essential Phone : A prime example how to drop the ball.

[+Warwagon MVC]

After thinking about the Essential phone there are so many things they could have done to make that phone extremely attractive. Since there are already TONS of other phones to chose from, how do you differentiate yourself from everyone else?

 

First, I would design it with a removable battery, everyone else is moving away from it, i'd be moving towards it. Add a Micro SD card slot to the phone and also have wireless charging.  Support all major cell phone networks. (I see it now works on Verizon)

 

I'd buy that phone. 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Allowing replaceable batteries allows for the slew of lower-quality batteries that 3rd parties sell.  This, in turn (certainly coupled with wireless charging) increases your support costs in at least the diagnosis of battery issues.

[+Warwagon MVC]

3 minutes ago, Nefarious Trigger said:

Allowing replaceable batteries allows for the slew of lower-quality batteries that 3rd parties sell.  This, in turn (certainly coupled with wireless charging) increases your support costs in at least the diagnosis of battery issues.

Then just have them send it in and charge them for it. By the time a user is putting in 3rd party batteries in the device is probably already out of warranty.

[tsupersonic]

Essential to me would be headphone jack, a microSD card (if offering 32 or 64GB internal storage), amazing camera, OLED display w/ minimal bezels, fast security / OS updates. Non-removable battery is a thing of the past, as long as you have quick charge and decent battery capacity (3200 mAh+).

 

They dropped the ball when the release date kept getting pushed out, and having a high price tag. What new player in the game can charge so much for a phone when the brand is unknown (I don't care that Rubin is behind the company). 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

4 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Then just have them send it in and charge them for it. By the time a user is putting in 3rd party batteries in the device is probably already out of warranty.

Charge people's phones for them?

[+Warwagon MVC]

1 minute ago, Nefarious Trigger said:

Charge people's phones for them?

lol very funny. Charge as in $$$

[DConnell Member]

20 minutes ago, warwagon said:

After thinking about the Essential phone there are so many things they could have done to make that phone extremely attractive. Since there are already TONS of other phones to chose from, how do you differentiate yourself from everyone else?

 

First, I would design it with a removable battery, everyone else is moving away from it, i'd be moving towards it. Add a Micro SD card slot to the phone and also have wireless charging.  Support all major cell phone networks. (I see it now works on Verizon)

 

I'd buy that phone. 

And offer a charging station with a slot for a spare battery. My first phone had that, and it was awesome to only be without my phone for the time it took to swap batteries!

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

1 hour ago, warwagon said:

lol very funny. Charge as in $$$

Aaaaah, gotcha!

[+Warwagon MVC]

1 hour ago, tsupersonic said:

Essential to me would be headphone jack, a microSD card (if offering 32 or 64GB internal storage), amazing camera, OLED display w/ minimal bezels, fast security / OS updates. Non-removable battery is a thing of the past, as long as you have quick charge and decent battery capacity (3200 mAh+). 

1

I think you meant to say removable batteries. But the reason I liked them is then I could buy a phone cheap off ebay, and if the battery was crap I could just buy a new one for cheap.

[tsupersonic]

22 minutes ago, warwagon said:

I think you meant to say removable batteries. But the reason I liked them is then I could buy a phone cheap off ebay, and if the battery was crap I could just buy a new one for cheap.

D'oh yeah. You can also do this to non-removable batteries, but obviously a bit harder than a removable battery.

[+Warwagon MVC]

19 minutes ago, tsupersonic said:

D'oh yeah. You can also do this to non-removable batteries, but obviously a bit harder than a removable battery.

ya, I can take the phone apart, but it would be easier if I could just remove the battery by taking the back off.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Having a removable battery is a big plus to me.

 

I would also like to see hardware switches for disabling the microphone(s) and camera(s), and radios (cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth).

 

Aside from on/off and volume rocker, I'd like to see 3-4 buttons which could be assigned functions by the user.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[PGHammer]

On 12/15/2017 at 11:33 AM, Nefarious Trigger said:

Allowing replaceable batteries allows for the slew of lower-quality batteries that 3rd parties sell.  This, in turn (certainly coupled with wireless charging) increases your support costs in at least the diagnosis of battery issues.

That is an issue with ODMs themselves - it's not as if there aren't differences between battery ODMs.

For example, has anyone looked at Duracell Technologies?  They are, in fact, a long-time third-party battery OEM for Samsung (as far as older Samsung devices go, they are - all too often - the ONLY non-Samsung battery supplier).  However, I will wager that nobody looks at third-party battery ODMs - and that is entirely due to the ODMs themselves discouraging that practice (that does include Samsung, by the way).  Besides, it's not as if first-party batteries are necessarily all that clean - the Note 7, for example.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

1 hour ago, PGHammer said:

That is an issue with ODMs themselves

That's as may be, you know that people will go running to their phone suppliers, who clearly don't want that hassle.

[Timi Cantisano Veteran]

I think they were a bit full of themselves with the pricing. Also, the launch totally killed them, it reminded me of Nokia from the early 2000s, when they would announce something and it wouldn't arrive for another 6 months.