Essential Phone gets listed on Best Buy, Sprint version costs $50 more than unlocked (Updated)

by Kaloyan C.

Aug 04, 2017, 8:11 AM

Essential Phone gets listed on Best Buy, Sprint version costs $50 more than unlocked (Updated)

UPDATE: Best Buy has removed the $749 pricing from the listing. It now only shows the Sprint Essential Phone as "Coming soon", which leads us to believe that the figure was either inaccurate or merely a placeholder.

When it comes to the whole "getting released in the promised timeframe" thing, Andy Rubin's Essential Phone is a bit of a failure — it's been just short of a month since we reported that the PH-1 is running late, and yet the device is still nowhere to be found.

However, we have seen a vague promise of the Phone being released "in a few weeks," and this might just turn out to be true this time. You see, the device has just been listed on Best Buy's website as "Coming Soon" — nothing too spectacular, but still a sign things are actively being worked on.

There are four different variants listed: the unlocked and Sprint versions, each in either Black Moon or Pure White. But what's more interesting is that, for whatever reason, Sprint's variants are both listed with a $749 price tag, which is $50 higher than the unlocked variants. Whether this is an error or some particularly unwise choice on Sprint's part, however, remains to be seen.

And while this still doesn't give us a concrete answer as to when the Phone will become available, it does show that the device will be available from actual retailers, instead of just through Sprint or Essential's own website.

In related news, the company's Twitter account recently posted a short GIF showing how its 360-degree camera accessory will snap to the Phone's back:

Future-proof is essential. It's as easy as a snap, and fun too! #thisisessential pic.twitter.com/e8ZiKQHRpS
— Essential (@essential) August 3, 2017

source: Best Buy (1, 2, 3, 4) via Android Police

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2 Comments

2. techbuttcheex

Posts: 205; Member since: Jul 25, 2015

Its called price fixing. The entire industry works together to keep phone prices sky high.

posted on Aug 06, 2017, 9:31 AM 0

1. ph00ny

Posts: 2086; Member since: May 26, 2011

Like i said in the previous post, i really really like the phone. Just not sure how well this new company will do in terms of updates, staying in business, etc