Newsletter 
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Samsung Galaxy S8 announcement, Andy Rubin’s upcoming smartphone was reconfirmed to run Android OS by none other than Alphabet’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt. For readers who may be unfamiliar with Andy Rubin’s latest plans, the Android co-founder recently revealed that his new company ‘Essential’ is working on a bezel-free smartphone. The device was teased in a recent tweet by Andy Rubin himself, and even more recently – as in yesterday, March 29th – the same tweet was passed along by Eric Schmidt who has confirmed that the device will be powered by Google’s Android operating system.
Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt did not reveal any other details regarding the Essential smartphone, however, he dubbed it as one of the “phenomenal new choices” coming very soon for Android enthusiasts, thus confirming that the device will run Android OS out of the box. But if anything, timing is what made Eric Schmidt’s tweet that much more intriguing, as it was posted around the time the Samsung Galaxy S8 was being introduced by the South Korean tech giant in New York. The aforementioned flagship is a bezel-free device boasting a so-called Infinity display, and the Essential smartphone is also expected to carry a bezel-less panel, as teased by Andy Rubin a few days ago. But getting back to the operating system, the idea that the Essential smartphone will be powered by Android is not entirely surprising. The smartphone was previously spotted in the Geekbench database bearing model number ‘Essential FIH-PM1’ and the benchmarking website did reveal that the device runs Android 7.0 Nougat. Nevertheless, by the time the Essential FIH-PM1 hits the shelves, it may be treated with a slightly newer Android OS version, not to mention that the operating system could be coupled with a proprietary user interface.
Spec-wise, the Essential smartphone is expected to carry an unspecified Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU clocked at 1.9 GHz, along with 4 GB of RAM – according to Geekbench. Other details remain largely unknown, but it’s evident that the Essential is meant to become a high-end device, meaning that it will compete with other Android flagship phones including Google’s own Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. Whether or not it will manage to break into the increasingly crowded Android marketplace remains to be seen, but there seems to be some hype building up given that Android co-founder Andy Rubin is the person leading Essential forward.
