Essential teases a new weirdly tall smartphone

After being out of the news for over a year, Essential’s CEO Andy Rubin has taken Twitter to introduce a new smartphone. Andy Rubin co-founded Essential after leaving Google and after releasing the first Essential phone, there were rumours that Andy might sell the company and move on.

However, he has revealed a new project that Essential has been working on and that should bury the acquisition rumours. The new concept shared by Rubin shows a rather odd design. The smartphone is really tall and slim and looks to be running something similar to Android but with a lot of widgets. This is certainly a new design compared to what we are accustomed to seeing.

https://twitter.com/Arubin/status/1181688552070889473

New UI for radically different formfactor pic.twitter.com/Es8hFrTuxx

— Andy Rubin (@Arubin) October 8, 2019

Personally, I don’t know if I really like it considering it might be hard for one-handed operations, not to mention the limited use case scenarios. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that the device is actually a prototype being tested by Essential.

We’ve been working on a new device that’s now in early testing with our team outside the lab. We look forward to sharing more in the near future.

– Essential

We've been working on a new device to reframe your perspective on mobile. It's now in early testing with our team outside the lab. Look forward to sharing more in the near future! #ProjectGEM pic.twitter.com/BnVy7yM2Kj

— Essential (@essential) October 9, 2019

We can’t possibly think of a good reason why the company decided to change the design drastically. An educated guess might be that Essential is planning to design a device similar to the Palm phone which didn’t actually work too well for the company. Unfortunately, there is no ETA on the launch or any other details about the phone so we will have to wait for Essential to talk more about it in the future.