The Essential Phone A11 got certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Now, this certification just surfaced, but it dates back to July 14, and it lists ‘A11’ as the model number for this smartphone. Does this mean that Essential is already working on a second smartphone, even though its first one did not ship to consumers yet? This listing is somewhat confusing, as it is possible that we’re looking at the Essential PH-1 here, though that ‘A11’ model number complicates things, that’s for sure, as we did not see it before.
In any case, we cannot be sure that this is the Essential PH-1, but it makes sense, the device got certified by the FCC recently, and we’ve been waiting for this Wi-Fi certification, so chances are that this is, in fact, the Essential PH-1 which was announced by Essential back in May. The Essential PH-1 was actually expected to ship to consumers already, at least according to what Andy Rubin said when the phone was announced, but it seems like the company is still not ready to make that move. The Essential PH-1 is a rather interesting smartphone, mainly because of its design. This is a ‘bezel-less’ smartphone, well, not entirely bezel-less, but it is in line with the LG G6, Galaxy S8 and some other phones out there. Its front-facing camera breaks the design to a certain degree, but that’s what makes it rather unique. This phone comes with on-screen buttons, and a dual camera setup on the back, while it is made out of titanium and ceramic.
The Essential PH-1 actually comes with a set of really compelling specs as well. This smartphone sports a 5.71-inch 2560 x 1312 display, along with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of native storage. The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 835 64-bit octa-core processor, and it packs in a 3,040mAh battery. This phone comes with stereo speakers, and two 13-megapixel shooters are placed on its back, while an 8-megapixel snapper can be found on its front side. Android 7.1 Nougat comes pre-installed on this phone, and the device is expected to reach consumers in the near future, and according to yesterday’s report, it will land to Europe and Japan soon as well.