[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] cb474:
Whatever those sensors were originally intended for, they have been used in the best phone cameras for some time now. Samsung started using sensors like that in 2013 and Nokia, really the inventor of the modern high quality phone camera, started doing it in 2007. So Essential knew what they were doing (or not doing as the case may be).

I agree that there are trade offs with design. But Essential didn't say: in order to have a perfectly flat back we decided not to use the state of the art sensors found in other top phone cameras and do something that we think is good enough for standard users. Instead they went out of their way to promote the camera as what would be one of the stand out features of the phone. The even specifically hyped how great it's low light peformance would be. But anyone who knew the sensors they were using (without OIS) could have predicted it would not be as good as they claimed. In fact, the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus tried the exact same configuration a year before, two IMX258 sensors, one RGB the other Monochrome, with no OIS, and that camera had the exact same performance problems. So no one can say with a straight face that they didn't know what would happen.

Not only am I disappointed in the substandard performance of the camera in the Essential Phone (for a contemporary flagship), but I think Essential was totally dishonest in how they promoted this phone and apparently thought their stupid customers and reviewers wouldn't notice. Which also contradicts their claim they would be a different kind of consumer friendly company. To me, the whole clearly dishonest camera hyping episode reveals that Essential is a very different, not so nice, kind of company than they claimed and it makes me very skeptical of their claims about everything else in the phone and that they plan to do.

So I think the way things unfolded is a little different than simply Essential decided to make a design trade off.

Also, Essential has made an awful lot of design trade offs. No 3.5 mm jack. No stereo speakers. No water proofing. No sd card. And now a subpar camera. At some point it's not worth it. I was willing to live with those other things, even though I was not excited about them (especially the 3.5 mm jack). But at least the features that are there should live up to the quality the phone claims to have and the camera just does not come close.

Lastly, I really don't get it, the obsession with the perfectly flat back. The great thing about the Esssential design is the front; it's the bezeless screen and fitting a relatively large screen in a phone much smaller than usual. Secondarly the titanium and ceramic are nice touches. But who gives sh.. about the perfectly flat back? Seriously. I don't think this would have affected anyone's perception of the phone. It would have taken a very minor hump to get an IMX378 in there and without the two sensors taking up more space, they could have had OIS. It also would have fit the Essential branding. They could have said: "We are not jumping on the dual camera gimmick band wagon (since dual cameras pretty much are a gimmick, all the different ways it's done). Large sensors and OIS are what makes cameras good. So that's what we're doing. Just the 'essential' things."

In the end, the flat back just seems like a misguided obsession of Rubin himself in his desire to make his fantasy personal perfect phone.