[Essential Phone Questions & Answers] FallN:
At the current pricing of between $145 - $499, the Essential phone is a no-brainer must buy.

Since the OP had Project Fi which runs in the back of Sprint (and TMO), I will suggest what I suggested to my very own brother:

1. Port out of Fi to Sprint to the BYOD Free Year Unlimited Plan.

2. Open a new normal line for $60 or $40, then immediately buy an Essential phone for $25 down/$5 a month.

3. When you get the Essential, put your BYOD SIM in it and have Sprint move your BYOD service to the Essential.

4. Pay off the entirety of the Essential phone lease of 18 x $5 + $30 POP = $120 + Tax for a total overall cost of the phone = $145+ tax!!!

5. Cancel the $60/$40 line before the 14 Satisfaction Guarantee expires.

6. Get a FREE YEAR of service from Sprint and a brand new Essential phone for $145+ tax!!

7. Profit!

Note: Sprint is offering a FREE 360 camera with purchase so go ahead and profit some more! LOL!

Lastly, this is exactly what I did so I know this works. If you don't want to deal with Sprint or the few extra steps then simply buy the Essential phone straight from Amazon, Best Buy or Essential's website for $399 - $499.

The Essential phone is just too good of a deal right now to pass up.

Cheers.

---------- Post added at 03:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 PM ----------

I got my Essential phone through Sprint for $145 + NYC tax for a grand total of $167.17.

I'm coming back to Android after a stint with iPhones and I can tell you that my Essential has had ZERO problems (so far).

I think those with issues were early adopters or haven't updated to the latest firmware that Essential had been pushing out left and right at an insane pace.

I got about 6 updates out of the box, first boot, from Essential that has GREATLY improved performance and stability from when the phone was first released, including the camera!

The camera has a teeny ways to go before it's absolutely perfect but that will be solved in 1-2 more updates. In the meantime, I alternate between the stock Essential camera app and the Google HDR+ camera app, depending on what I'm doing and the effect I'm going for. But the stock Essential camera app is indeed decent and far improved from the first version.

Battery life has been AMAZING! The Essential gets about 5 hours of SOT! I've even pushed the Essential battery past 5+ hours SOT with low power mode and/or disabling BT or other radios I'm not actively using.

Battery life has been superb! No one can even argue that it's not. Period.

The screen is stellar, crisp and colorful. I've used OLED, AMOLED, POLED and Super AMOLED smartphones before from Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc and I can say that it's hard to tell the Essential phone ISN'T an OLED because the colors are bright and saturated but not super fake looking, overly candy colored and extremely unnatural like many OLEDs suffer from.

The Essential has a QHD 2K screen too and you can definitely see the sharpness and crispness. I've downloaded and played some 4k videos and they literally look like real 4k videos on the Essential.

The screen, including the little notch, are a joy to look at and use.

TL;DR: Older versions of the Essential software and camera was buggy but that is no longer the case with all the new updates Essential had pushed to the phone.

The Essential phone and native camera app are now ready for prime time. It's defiantly a solid phone now.

Cheers