Essential Phone PH-1 update: June 2024
Essential Phone PH-1 June Update:
- Updated to LineageOS 21 (Android 14)
- Installed Magisk Delta for performance enhancement and battery governor
- Looking forward in buying the 360° camera attachment
- Phone cases for this are hard to come by except for dad/auntie style wallet cases
- Phone is still going strong in 2024 and just had a new lease on life after the A14 update
Loving the Essential Phone PH-1 on its current state. I'm glad there's still a bunch of devs happily providing updates to this Andy Rubin classic. They're the true heroes of this story.
However, my biggest gripe about this phone is the scarceness of available options for a phone case. I've been rocking the PH-1 for quite a while now, and I've yet to find a suitable case for this gem of a smartphone. For now, I'mma keep wielding this naked.
The ceramic glass on this is very tough. Dropped this phone accidentally four times and the PH-1 emerge victorious with no battle scars to be found. This is the testament to this phone's immaculate build quality. No wonder Apple has this on their latest iPhones. But I think the PH-1's ceramic back is thicker.
I may want to take this for repairs for internal cleaning, refluxing and applying new glue, but I am skeptical, and this phone may end up in the BuhayTechnician Facebook group— an anxious phone technician looking for sources on where to find replacement on my phone's backglass.
Despite only registering around 250,000 points on AnTuTu, the phone's performance doesn't feel like one. It feels like a Snapdragon 855 for me at least. It's way too smooth for that it's almost a crime. And because this is rooted, I was able to unlock higher graphics options on certain games like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Diablo: Immortal (with the latter needed to be sideloaded in order to run, since it refuses to appear on Play Store because of 'incompatibility issues'). My main usage for this will be for emulation.
Will I be selling it? Hell no. Not until I get the most out of it and prepped it with case, tempered glass, and all. What will be the price? Given its status, it is not cheap when I bought it. So it will be even more expensive when I sell it. Maybe if I manage to get ahold of the exclusive green backplate colorway, that'll raise the price.
Again, I'm not a buy and sell collector, but I think there's a time and date for which you need to give up some of your things to move on to new experiences (and 'newer' things). That's a thing only a smartphone enthusiast can understand.
