Andy Rubin's Essential Phone Will Be a Sprint Exclusive

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The Android founder's modular phone will also be available unlocked through the company's website.

Andy Rubin's Essential Phone has a rather interesting carrier surprise.

The Essential's all-screen front and magnetic connectors make it stand out. Credit: Essential Products

(Image credit: The Essential's all-screen front and magnetic connectors make it stand out. Credit: Essential Products)

The news comes just weeks after Rubin unveiled the new Essential Phone, along with a smart home device called Essential Home. The Essential Phone has a 5.7-inch screen that nearly entirely covers its face. It also runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and comes with a dual-camera array. But the most interesting feature is that the Essential phone will support all sorts of magnetic add-ons.

So, why did Essential choose Sprint as its carrier partner? The answer might surprise you.

"We like to bet with where we think the market is going as opposed to where the market was," de Masi told USA Today. "I feel like we are a new brand and a new consumer electronics company and we are partnering with the network of the future."

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The justification might be a little difficult to understand. Sprint, after all, is the smallest of the major U.S. carriers and has been handily beaten by its closest rival T-Mobile for years. It also finished last among the big four carriers in our recent nationwide speed testing.

Perhaps de Masi has been impressed by Sprint's 5G roadmap, but the network isn't launching until 2019. 

As USA Today points out, however, Essential's decision to choose Sprint might have more to do with its founder than the so-called "network of the future."

Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank owns 83 percent of Sprint. Rubin, Essential's founder, serves as an advisor to the SoftBank Vision Fund.

Whether the move will ultimately help or hurt Essential is unknown. However, the Essential Phone is designed to work with any network and can be purchased unlocked from the company, so if you don't want to run your handset on Sprint's network, you're not required to do so.

Essential will sell its Phone for $699 through its website. Sprint hasn't yet announced pricing through its stores.

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Don Reisinger

Don Reisinger is CEO and founder of D2 Tech Agency. A communications strategist, consultant, and copywriter, Don has also written for many leading technology and business publications including CNET, Fortune Magazine, The New York Times, Forbes, Computerworld, Digital Trends, TechCrunch and Slashgear. He has also written for Tom's Guide for many years, contributing hundreds of articles on everything from phones to games to streaming and smart home.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • steelscrap
    The phone's dead on arrival. We've seen other phones with carrier exclusivity fail. This is a shockingly bad decision by Rubin.
    Reply
  • Barbara_41
    That is to bad. I will NEVER go back to Sprint. I guess you do not care about customer service and the fact that most of the c.r.'s are in another country. My point value for your phone is 0 as you hooked up with a 0 company.
    Reply
  • Scath
    Shocker. It wasn't due to the Sprint roadmap, doesn't matter if they come out with 5G, real change is internal. That takes years.
    Reply
  • Ronald_67
    Guess Essential really is not worried selling a good amount of phones. Sprint, that's ridiculous. Bad move And...bad move.
    Reply
  • Xesez
    This is a terrible move. The phone's creator just killed it. I wonder how much cash Sprint paid him for the exclusivity. Sometimes that's all that counts. Screw the users with an inferior network, who cares!...right? Bad move...really bad. This phone is dead.
    Reply