The Essential PH-1 smartphone made by Andy Rubin’s self-titled startup has been certified by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this month, with the agency publishing a set of extensive testing documentation on Monday. The device that passed through the telecommunications regulator bore the model number A11 and was filed under the FCC ID of 2ALBB-A11, the documents show, without revealing any new details about the handset.
Originally announced in late May, the Essential PH-1 is an Android-powered device that the founder of Android said will address a number of widespread issues associated with Google’s ubiquitous operating system, including planned obsolescence, needless software fragmentation, and bloatware. The smartphone boasts an unconventional design that virtually eliminates all bezels except for the bottom one, with its front-facing camera module being situated in the 5.71-inch display panel. The screen featured on the Essential PH-1 sports a resolution of 2560 by 1312 pixels and is of the LTPS IPS LCD variety, protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5. The handset is powered by the Snapdragon 835, the first 10nm silicon ever produced by Qualcomm which is equipped with the Adreno 540 GPU and eight Kyro cores configured in two sets of four, with the high-performance cluster clocked at a maximum frequency of 2.45GHz. The Essential PH-1 also sports 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal flash memory that isn’t expandable, Rubin’s company previously revealed.
The Palo Alto, California-based consumer electronics manufacturer is currently offering pre-orders for its first mobile phone that starts at $699. The device is somewhat modular in nature, boasting magnetic pins that can be used for attaching a variety of accessories to its back panel, including a 360-degree camera that can currently be ordered for as little as $50. Essential said that it’s planning to introduce more first-party accessories for the device at some point in the future but has yet to provide more specific details on the matter. Likewise, while the Essential PH-1 is currently said to be released in the U.S. at some point this summer, no firm launch date has yet been given by its creators. More information on the domestic and global availability of the device should follow in the coming weeks.
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