Product test
Essential PH-1: The phone that never gets boring
by Dominik Bärlocher
Essential at MWC: Finally the full line-up and in green
28.2.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
The Essential PH-1 was launched on the market with much praise, but probably failed due to its camera. Even rarer than a decent camera app, however, is the green model and the camera attachment. We were able to test both at the Mobile World Congress.
It was probably the camera that broke the Essential PH-1's back. Even if the workmanship is better than some other phones, it was delivered with a camera app that was just above demo status.
The update came too late. In order to save the rest of the company's reputation and to avoid having to throw devices in the bin, Essential has dramatically lowered the prices. The camera add-on for the modular phone - yes, Essential is also one of the almost esoteric smartphone designers who believe in the modular concept - is rare.
The tail that is not tucked
The prediction of experts and scene observers was something like this: "Essential will go down in smartphone history as a curiosity" and there will never be a successor to the PH-1.
But Essential is not pulling its tail. Essential is paying its respects at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at a small stand that is all black and white. More out of personal curiosity than professional obligation, video producer Stephanie Tresch and I visit the stand. There's not much going on. The demo area, where one of the company's devices can be viewed, is only visible once you know where it is.
I look into the room and know: there must be a video here. Because I spot two things that made Essential a big splash back then:
- The green phone with a golden rim
- The camera module
The camera module is something I would have liked to have tested at the time of the review, if only to see how the PH-1's modular system works. The fact that there's a green PH-1 lying around is a really nice coincidence. The green is a little brighter and a little more pastel than I expected from the pictures. I was expecting a rich, beautiful forest green. Something like dense fir trees.
360 degrees of guilt
The camera attachment is probably the reason why Essential has refrained from using Google's stock camera. This is because with an attachment, the software must be able to ignore the on-board camera and interpret the signals from the external camera. In the case of 360-degree cameras such as the 200 US dollar attachable Essentials, the images from two cameras must also be combined to form a spherical image. The whole thing also has to happen as close to real time as possible.
The camera app on the Essential PH-1 was rubbish at launch. The update came too late. Many blame the attachment.
The opportunity is too good: I test the attachment briefly. In any case, there's not enough time for an in-depth test at a trade fair, but a bit of testing is fine.
Click, light, crash
Since the Essential PH-1 is flat at the back and the camera has no physical indentations or protrusions, you have to aim a little so that the golden pins of the attachment come to rest on the connectors on the back of the phone. The module is held in place magnetically, but the magnet is not an exact science. So you can mount the attachment incorrectly. It's very easy. I don't even try to attach the camera somehow and then push the attachment into position. It could scratch the back. Shouldn't, but could.
The whole thing is a minor concern, however, because attaching the attachment works much better the second time.
Once the connectors are connected, the 360-degree camera is activated. As the camera itself does not have its own battery supply, it is powered by the PH-1. This is a bit of a drain on the device's battery life, but a representative Essentials lets us know that it's not particularly bad or limiting. A blue LED on the attachment switches on and off as soon as the hardware and software have found each other. The camera app then automatically switches to 360-degree mode.
But: If you have the camera app open when you attach the attachment to the PH-1, the app crashes. When you restart it, however, everything runs smoothly.
Has Essential still not learnt anything from the camera fiasco despite the update?
I really want to have the Essential PH-1. But here the hope of "the whole camera debacle was just because the 360-degree camera must work so great" seems to be dashed. I want the Essential PH-2 or whatever the successor to the PH-1 will be called. I want Essential to succeed. And now this. The app crashes. Fuck.
But now...
Well, when the 360-degree camera works, it works properly. The world is displayed in 360 degrees in real time and without any significant delay. The settings in the app are kept to a minimum, as is usual for Essential. You see a kind of compass in the top right-hand corner that tells you where you are in relation to the PH-1 in the picture and you can choose between 4K and whatever the default setting is. Done.
The stitching, i.e. the merging of the images at the camera boundaries, is imperceptible unless you quickly swipe through the image and quickly rotate the image sphere. This is somewhat impressive, but somehow it doesn't really inspire enthusiasm.
Of course, the Essential PH-1 still feels almost perfect in my hand. The camera attachment doesn't make much of a difference, even if the perfect balance is somewhat disturbed until you get used to it.
The stale aftertaste remains. I'm slowly running out of goodwill. A promised update to Oreo 8.1 has so far only been reserved for beta testers like me, the 360-degree camera is functional, but the teething troubles, which are no longer teething troubles, remain.
Essential, you need to do better. Really. See you again with Android 8.1. Bah.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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