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Tour the space where the Essential Phone was created

Aug 19, 20179:02 AM EDT |

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Niccolo De Massi

Essential president Niccolo De Massi talks about the company's partnership with Sprint and Telus. Before joining Essential, De Massi was the CEO of Glu Mobile, the studio behind Kim Kardashian: Hollywood

Essential 360 Camera Prototypes

Essential went through a lot iterations before it finalized the design of the Essential 360 Camera. Andy Rubin jokes that one of the big challenges in creating the company's 360 Camera was to stop it from going up in flames. You can also see the different ceramic colours the company tired out. One major issue with ceramics is that it's difficult to get colours consistent between batches.

Xiaoyu Miao

Principal engineer Xiaoyu Miao explains to a group of journalists how the Essential 360 Camera works. On the phone's screen you can see Yazhu Ling, Essential's lead image quality engineer.

Iteration Process

Partway through the accessory's iteration process, Essential realized it needed to incorporate active cooling into the camera; most of the image processing and de-warping is done in-camera, not on the phone.

Closes up of Essential 360 Camera lens

A closeup of one of the fish-eye lenses used by the Essential 360 Camera

Essential Prototype

A near-final prototype of the Essential Phone, showing the insides of the handset.

Boston Dynamics Spot robot

It just so happens that Playground has a Boston Dynamics Spot robot in its lab. Sadly the company did not let the little bugger roam free.

Essential display

Select Telus locations will have Essential Kiosks up to showcase the company's first phone. The kiosks will incorporate concrete into their design.

Earlier this week, MobileSyrup got the special opportunity to visit Playground, the home of Essential.

Essential was co-founded by Andy Rubin, one of the creators of Google’s Android operating system. During the visit, we got the opportunity to talk to some of the engineers that worked on the Essential Phone to find out what part they played in its creation. Essential is made up of approximately 100 employees, a far call from the tens of thousands of engineers and designers that work on devices from Apple and Samsung.

We were also lucky enough to be allowed to take photographs of the space, which we’re sharing here. Each photo includes an accompanying caption that provides context as to what you’re seeing.

Telus opened pre-orders for the Essential Phone earlier today. The handset is available for $290 on a two-year Premium Plus contract. Off-contract, the Essential Phone is priced at $1050 in Canada.

We’re still working on our full review of the Essential Phone. In the meantime, you can check out our initial hands-on, if you would like to learn more about the phone. We’re also giving one Essential Phone away.

MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.

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