After a long pause, it seems like Essential is back with their second generation of smartphones. This one is nothing like the original Essential PH-1. They're calling it the Project GEM & though this is definitely not a final name, this one actually looks pretty weird. It's a completely different form factor compared to well, any other smartphone that is available right now. It's tall like, really tall but, the width is way narrow.
Andy Rubin also shared some images & a video of the Project GEM smartphone on his personal twitter account. We got to know two important things from there.
The UI isn't staying stock-ish anymore. They're tuning the UI to work with this kind of form factor.
The colors on the back shift when you look at them from different angles.
Specifications? Well, they haven't confirmed anything on that. What we can see though is, a display that probably has a higher aspect ratio than 21:9, a Hole-punch type selfie camera, a single rear camera, a color shifting glossy back & what seems like a regular fingerprint scanner instead of an in-display one.
Images: Andy Rubin & Essential (Twitter)
So, is this the upcoming Essential Phone 2? Well, probably yes! Now, would you like a phone with a form factor like this? Well, that's completely up to you. But, at least this time Essential may launch their new phone in more countries so, the availability will probably be better.
The Essential PH-1 didn't really do well but, it did introduced the Notch that so many smartphones have today. So, it looks like Essential is trying to set another trend for the industry here, But, will it work this time? Well, we need to wait for the consumer availability to get an answer to that.