Anyone have any experience or opinions on the Essential smart phone? This is the new phone from Andy Rubin (one of the creators of Android). It looks pretty interesting but I'm a little wary because it's such a new product. I'm venturing into Android territory for the first time in many years. Apple lost me with their "engineered slowdown". My company issued iPhone 6 now performs like garbage. Apple has lost me as a customer with that BS.

Any other android phone opinions are welcome. The Galaxy Note 8 and LG v30 are also possibilities so if anyone has those any experience with those I'm interested in your impressions.

Thanks.

You asked the right guy!

It's an EXCELLENT device for the money. The specs compare to any high end flagship for half the price - if there are negatives they are the slightly inferior camera (compared to Pixel 2 / Galaxy S8) and the lack of a headphone jack.

The software is very nearly stock android so the phone is FAST and updates come very quickly. It's nearly a full-screen phone too, which is neat.

I bought a new phone recently and have been an Android fan for many years. I do not think you need to spend $800 to get an excellent phone. Here are what I'd recommend you looking at for far less and very little sacrifice in performance.

ESSENTIAL - You know this one. Stellar option around $400. Excellent specs. If you are OK with no headphone jack, this is a winner.

ONEPLUS 5T - Lesser known, but modern design, outstanding specs, lean version of Android (so, like Essential, updates are fast and phone is very smooth) and a brand new phone. Has a headphone jack! Released end of November. About $500.

HUAWEI MATE 9 - Released Jan '17 in the US so about a year old, $399 on Amazon. Has a headphone jack and, a monster battery, an excellent camera, and a custom operating system that is simple and very helpful. I ended up buying this one and I've LOVED it. I can get 9hr of screen time over two days before it needs a charge.

Can't go wrong with any of those 3, but I am SHOCKED at how much I am enjoying the Mate 9. I use headphones a lot and didn't want to dick around with a USB-C adaptor, so I wasn't interested in the essential (and I wanted the giant Mate 9 battery.) If you don't ever use headphones, essential could be the way to go.

Oh, and don't bother with LG phones. They just don't win in any category besides, theoretically, headphone sound quality on the V30. Inferior in just about everything else - lousy screens, average battery life, clumsy UI. There's just no reason to get one at prices that compare with the Pixel 2 and Note 8 / Galaxy S8.

FYI, here are side-by-side comparisons of the specs:
https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?&idPhone1=8710&idPhone2=8712&idPhone3=8505#*,h931,n950u

I was doing the side-by-side comparisons of the Samsung Galaxy 6, Moto G5 Plus and LG G5 to replace our Nexus 5 phones (we purchase ours outright and do the pre-paid plan with T-Mobile for $30 per phone) and ended up with the Moto G5 Plus ($170 at Costco) which has a battery that is slightly smaller than the three of the ones you mention and I can get 2 days easy out of the battery.

Thanks for the info, guys. I was able to get my hands on an Essential. Looked nice and felt nice, but for some reason the one I was able to check out was acting very squirrely. Apps, camera, etc would open impressively quickly, but then would just close for no apparent reason. Opened the camera and at first the viewfinder seemed fine, then it got very dark. Maybe the demo had been abused, but It was enough put me off from it from it, plus the sales guy seemed to want to steer me away. The only thing he would say about it is that "it's ok", and then referenced camera issues. He mostly was talking up the Samsungs or the Moto Z2. The Huawei and OnePlus weren't there to be looked at.

I need to move pretty quickly on getting a personal cell as my employer has implemented a new "no personal use of company cell phones" policy (even though they had been ok with it for the past ten years). I'll probably just go the safe route and end up with a Galaxy.

Thanks again for the input.

    Ursus Galaxy devices are great. But, the Mate 9 and OP5t are about as good for half the money. With the OP5t especially, I'd expect much better performance over the life of the phone with a clean version of Android versus the clutter that Samsung loads on their phones.

    My wife's OP1 (three+ years old) still had great battery life and moved pretty well as recently as two weeks ago. Replaced voluntarily, but it was still chugging along.