Essential confirms $300M funding partners, Amazon and Best Buy retail availability

Essential has confirmed that they received $300 million in a funding round. The funding round comes from investors including Tencent, as well as Amazon’s Alexa Fund.

Essential also revealed new information about its retail launch, including retail partners Amazon and Best Buy who will be carrying the phone in the U.S.

 

[GamerCore]

This phone is going to be old news by the time it launches. The accessories are nice, but it's going to be a tough sell without proper marketing/brand recognition.

 

[admyrick]

Agreed. And with the Note 8/V30/Pixel 2 around the corner, it's not going to be able to do much.

 

[Hadron]

Depends on tastes: I don't personally see the Note 8 or V30 as rival devices to this because there is such a size difference. That may be a plus or a minus, depending on your preferences, but to me that difference is so large that it determines which I would would prefer by itself (in my case I do not want a phablet, so those 2 are irrelevant no matter what their features).

As for the Pixel 2, compared to the similar-sized device this has a much bigger display and a more interesting design, against the Pixel's known track record for software updates. They are also probably more comparable in that neither should be expected to sell in the numbers that Samsung flaghships do. The interesting bit will be putting it in front of ordinary customers, rather than us enthusiasts, and seeing how they react. Remember that it's only to us that a phone can be old news before it actually launches, most people will only hear about it when they see it in Best Buy for the first time.

 

[overlordror]

Does anyone even care about this phone now that the Galaxy Note 8, iPhone 8, LG V30 and the Pixel 2 are so close? They had a window of opportunity this summer with how sucky Moto's new flagships are and I feel like they blew it

Now they're going to be brushing up against flagships that have tons of marketing and brand power, they're going to get lost so quickly. Why pay $799 for a no name phone when you can get one of the phones I mentioned above for around the same price.

 

[face hair]

If it's sold to prime members exclusively lkke other Amazon phones, then it will do well. But if not, then it will be forgotten

 

[RICHKID]

Personally I think this phone will end up like BlackBerry. Just barely staying alive. But competition is great it keeps manufacturers pushing the envelope.

 

[Hadron]

If it's sold to prime members exclusively lkke other Amazon phones, then it will do well. But if not, then it will be forgotten

Why would selling it only to Prime members, as opposed to all Amazon customers, be a good thing?

I mean I can perhaps see how it might be a good thing for Amazon, who will do anything to get people to sign up for Prime (the "no I don't want to join Prime, just let me order the bloody goods" button gets increasingly hard to spot ), but I don't see any advantage to Essential in limiting distribution this way.