Which would you get: Essential Phone or OnePlus 5T?

It's a cool phone, sure, but it launched at the ambitious price of $699. For a first product that is only noticed by us smartphone geeks, that's rather risque. Talking about actually launching — the phone took its sweet time between announcement, pre-orders, and actual shipping. All of those factors made the Essential Phone... not very popular. Just 4 months after launch, it's already down to $450 over at amazon — quite a bargain, really.
Then, we have the OnePlus 5T — a phone with humble beginnings. Its ancestor — the OnePlus One was the first “flagship killer”, with its top-tier hardware, and mind-boggling $300 price-tag. The company has grown since and so has its pricing. Its latest warrior, the OnePlus 5T, starts at $499. So, it's actually more expensive than the Essential Phone — who would've seen that one coming, right?
With all that said — which of these two phones would you rather buy, considering they are only $50 apart?
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