Essential phone launching as Sprint exclusive

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Essential phone that is the brainchild of Android co-founder Andy Rubin now has an exclusive U.S. carrier — Sprint, USA Today reveals.

“We like to bet with where we think the market is going as opposed to where the market was,” Essential President Niccolo de Masi told USA TODAY. “I feel like we are a new brand and a new consumer electronics company and we are partnering with the network of the future.”

Sprint has been making progress in advancing its network but it still trails Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile in subscribers.

De Masi points as well to the friendship Rubin has with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. SoftBank owns 83% of Sprint and Rubin is an advisor to the SoftBank Vision Fund.

The nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier hasn’t announced its own pricing yet. You’ll be able to get the device unlocked on Essential’s website for $699 and for $50 extra, get an accessory 360 camera. It launches sometime in the late summer.

If you want to touch and feel the phone, or quiz a sales person before reaching a buying decision, Sprint outlets will be the place to do it. Most phones are purchased at retail stores in the U.S., says de Masi.

Neither Sprint nor Essential would disclose how long their exclusive partnership in the U.S. will last. But de Masi says the decision to go with just a single carrier in the U.S. was strategic. "It's certainly conscious for us to work with partners that can make an investment in supporting our brand ambitions...(and) it's an approach that obviously Andy Rubin has been very successful with in the past as well as a lot of our management team."