This is a Crypto Phone. Don’t Buy It.

"The price plummeted from $1000 to $600 in less than a year" Wow it really is crypto inspired.

ok i won’t buy it as your titles states

Whenever a product is made of titanium, I just roll my eyes. Its completely unnecessary in consumer products. Its cost to manufacture vs. the material property benefits isn't worth it. Its all just marketing.

Spot-on review and analysis, sums up my own feelings on this phone as well. I had the Essential PH-1 from 2017 to 2020, basically until shortly after Essential collapsed, and I grew tired of firmware and software issues (partially caused by me modding it, but the bootloader/firmware was also really buggy) and the suboptimal camera. With GCam, the camera was relatively capable actually, but it was still a night and day difference when I upgraded to the Pixel 5. That phone was also way more stable and is still usable as a backup today, whereas the PH-1, while it works, has gotten kind of slow. But man, I miss that build quality and the feel of holding it. The titanium, the ceramic, the ridiculous weight, it's something that made this phone seem nearly luxurious to use. I wish phones like these would have more success in this world.

So they corrected some of the issues that doomed the original essential phone... to make room for some new features that will doom this phone. Lovely

Before, Cryptophones were about encrypted data and now they're about crypto currency

Lol, the Bonk on the phone is worth more than the phone itself now 😂

the fact that this phone initially cost half as much as my PC is insane.

I couldn’t imagine building a business model around this.

I'm surprised MKBHD reviewed this device — I was at Solana's exclusive launch event for this phone and it was interesting to see how divided even the hardcore community was

really liked the essential phone during that time, especially the minimal black area for the front camera. However, the ceramic back makes it super slippery and made it fall on the floor several times, which then caused the screen to crack. Unfortunately, there was no way to fix that by that time.

Dropped a like just for the slick af editing at 6:54. Fantastic production quality as always, Marques

I legit thought he was holding the new Fairphone 5. 😅

I love the fact that you can't market bad products

I absolutely loved my PH-1, had it imported to the UK. It lasted for about 3 and a half years, with 1 screen replacement and battery replacement, and now stuck in bootloop.

To think that "upper mid range" is now at the $1000 mark now i was expecting like $700 but then again like you said after a year it dropped to $600 which sounds more mid range to me, on the other hand you can get a pixel 7 for roughly the same price and get a better experience.

That build material list has me interested though, I want to see it durability tested at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7

Having a custom ROM for this phone would at the very least give it some better use than what it is designed for.

Thanks for the big arrow in the thumbnail Marq, i couldn't see the phone without it!

Literal bottom signal