So far Andy Rubin’s Essential smartphone has been available for pre-order only from the Essential website for $699 a pop. Now a report coming out of USA Today reveals one of the major US carriers will also be selling the phone.
According to the information. Sprint will exclusively carry the Essential phone in its stores. The partnership between Andy Rubin’s new company and the nation’s no. 4 wireless carrier makes sense given Rubin’s friendship with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. SoftBank owns 83% of Sprint and Rubin is also is an adviser for SoftBank Vision Fund.
As an exclusive partner for Essential, Sprint is planning a big “hero launch” for the product.
“We are planning to make this Essential phone very prominent in our stores and will have a premium space to showcase it.”
Sprint Chief Marketing Officer, Roger Solé
Pricing of the Essential phone at Sprint is currently unknown.
For those who don’t remember, the Essential phone is a premium handset that is offered with modular accessories like a 360-degree camera that can shoot 4K 360 videos at 30fps. The handset carries a 5.71-inch display with 19:10 aspect ratio and 2,560 x 1,312 resolution, a Snapdragon 835 processor and a main dual-camera assembly.
The Essential will be available in four coloring options including Black Moon, Stellar Gray, Pure White and Ocean Depths, but right now only the Black Moon and Pure White models are available for pre-order. Hopefully, customers will be able to find all the variants at Sprint.
