Essential is a US company that was floated by Andy Rubin the co-creator of Android OS. The company keeps making smartphones in small quantities and experiments with new form factors. The latest device showcased, called Project Gem, looks more like a TV remote than a smartphone. Andy Rubin himself has tweeted the images of this new smartphone.
The buttons appear to be quite large in size and the apps on the UI seem like cards. As mentioned, the shape of the device as seen in the image being held in the palm of an individual shows a very rectangular design going beyond the ones you may be accustomed to seeing on the Sony Xperia smartphones.
The image shows a fingerprint scanner in the rear as well. There is a single camera in the rear. The panel itself looks quite shiny and glossy. The colours seem to change when the phone is turned.
The only information that is available is that the Project Gem will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730SoC and that the operating system will be Android. But here’s a catch. Some experts feel the phone is running on an open source software called MicroG, which cannot host the Google Play Store apps. Even the Map function could be a clone of Google Maps and not the original.
The apps displayed on the screen look unique and not usually seen in the regular smartphones in the market. They are much larger in size and are seen as boxes unlike the round app-like feel you get in the devices you would be using. Each of these boxes represents the function it is carrying, whether it is the Gallery or Maps or Spotify.
Lastly, the fingerprint scanner in the rear panel also doubles as a button to activate the voice command mode. This means, you press your finger and issue voice commands to the phone to perform the functions.
Observers feel the images shared by Andy Rubin on Twitter has only raised a lot of questions instead of providing any final information.