I've only spent a few hours with the Essential Phone and I can already unequivocally declare the screen awesome.
I'm not going to repeat all of ways the phone's amazing or falls short (you can read my colleague Karissa Bell's review of the phone for that). Instead, I want to draw attention to the display because it's unlike anything I've seen on a phone and I already love it.
Since the original Samsung Galaxy Note pioneered the phablet in 2011, phone screens and consequently their bodies have grown.
We all wanted bigger screens to read, watch videos, and play games, and so we dealt with the big-ass un-pocketable slabs of glass that phone makers released.
But that's all going to change soon. Big screens will come with much smaller bodies, thanks to edge-to-edge displays and the shrunken bezels surrounding them.
The Essential Phone one of the best examples of what that looks like. It has a 5.7-inch screen, but its dimensions are just barely larger than the iPhone 7. It's unbelievable how much smaller it is compared to the Google Pixel XL and iPhone 7, which both have 5.5-inch screens.
And while I really like the Galaxy S8's narrower body, it's just a tad too tall to truly love. Whenever I'm using the S8, I feel like I'm using a TV remote — I have to shimmy the dang thing down just so I can reach the buttons on top.
The Essential Phone size feels just right and it has me even more excited for the iPhone 8, which should measure about the same. Plus, it actually fits in my pocket and doesn't look like a brick in my pants.
Essential Phone, Galaxy S8, Google Pixel XL, and iPhone 7 Plus
The rounded corners were weird at first, but I'm already used to them. The oddest thing about the Essential Phone is the selfie camera cutout or "notch" that eats into the top part of the display. Some people really hate the inevitable notch-ageddon. But resisting it is futile because all phones will soon have notches so get used to it.
Honestly, I thought the notch would bug me a lot more, but it grew on me pretty quickly. Yes, some apps like Snapchat are screwed up with the status bar blocking the icons, but most apps actually wrap around the notch quite nicely or just leave the top part black.
The notch is gorge
Not only that, but the Essential Phone has the largest screen-to-body ratio out of any flagship phone: 84.9 percent. The Galaxy S8 has 83.5 percent, Pixel XL has 71.2 percent, and the iPhone 7 Plus has 67.7 percent. How is that not a win?
I really wish the phone's screen was OLED (it's only LCD), but maybe on version 2.0. Bottom line: The phone's screen is the prettiest on any phone. That might change with the Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone 8, but for now it's the screen to die for.
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