Essential admits the PH-1’s camera was bad, promises it will ‘do better’ on second-gen

As far as hardware goes, I’ve yet to find a phone I love more than the Essential Phone. Unfortunately, like for many others, its biggest deal breaker was the sub-par camera. This week, Essential admitted how poor that camera was, and made a big promise for the second-generation of the PH-1.

Last year in my review of the Essential Phone, I called the results from this camera “washed out and dull,” and a “noisy dumpster fire” when in low-light. Admittedly, the many, many camera updates Essential pushed out fixed things quite a bit, making it at least a respectable camera by the end of the year, at least for a $500 phone.

These days, though, neither of those are good enough to compete with the likes of phones such as the Google Pixel 2, Galaxy S9, or Huawei P20 Pro. Thankfully, Essential is putting extra focus on the camera for its second-generation hardware.

Speaking to Business Insider, an Essential representative acknowledged the poor performance of the original camera, and talked about how the company is trying to fix that with the second-generation.

In general, one thing that we got hit hard with was the quality of our camera, and we’re really looking forward to improving that with our next-gen, making sure that we’re listening to our customers and their pain points. We’re going to make it better for you. We can say, we heard you and we’re going to do it better on the second-gen for sure.

In an interview, the representative didn’t confirm many other details about this coming second-generation hardware, beyond the fact that the modular pins on the back used for the 360-degree camera will still be present.

9to5Google’s Take

Essential is an underdog going into 2018. The company sold very few devices with its first-generation model, and things are only getting more competitive this year. Hardware-wise, I’d personally be fine if the same design was present. It’s gorgeous and premium and the unique colors are sure to grab attention. Improvements to the camera will undoubtedly make more people take this phone seriously, but things like water-resistance and improved software are going to be needed right alongside that.

What would it take for you to buy the second-gen Essential Phone? Drop a comment below and let us know!

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