Essential Skips Android 8.0, to Release Android 8.1 Instead

Essential started testing Android 8.0 for its PH-1 smartphone back in November of last year. After nearly 3 months since the release of the first beta, the company recently announced that it will not be releasing Android 8.0 to non-beta users.

Essential is skipping the release of Android 8.0 for Android 8.1 due to instability concerns. The company thinks the stability issues will be addressed in Android 8.1, although it will be delaying the release of Android 8.x for its PH-1 device by a couple of weeks. “Through your testing and feedback, we discovered several stability issues in Oreo 8.0 that we believe will be addressed in Oreo 8.1. So we’ve made the decision to focus our energy on Oreo 8.10 instead of releasing 8.0, which will push the public release of Oreo back a couple weeks,” the firm announced via a tweet.

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The delay will still likely be a big deal for many PH-1 owners, as most of the early adopters of Essential’s first Android phone are Android enthusiasts. The stability issues mentioned by Essential are particularly interesting, mainly because of the fact that Essential’s version of Android doesn’t differ too much from a pure Android experience. Either way, if you happen to the PH-1, you can either wait a few more weeks for the public release of the Android Oreo update or get the beta builds here. 

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Conversation 4 comments

  • Nicholas Kathrein

    31 January, 2018 - 2:24 pm

    <p>If Essential want's to be taken seriously they'll have to keep the updates consistently coming.</p>

  • harmjr

    Premium Member
    31 January, 2018 - 3:49 pm

    <p>I got a me an Essential Phone and I like it <em>but its no Galaxy</em>. I would not recommend to anyone except for enthusiast or people on a budget willing to deal with minor bugs. I am too hoping this update will fix some issues. I dont typically do beta's anymore been burned once.</p><p><br></p><p>My issues with this Phone are </p><p>1. It freezes up but you dont know and once you realize the only way to fix is to reboot. This is typically in a Web Browser, Chrome or IE also Flipboard.</p><p>2. Camera if you are taking a lot of photos I mean like at weeding or bday party after about 100 photo the phones slows down and you end up rebooting.</p><p>3. Using the camera like #2 really kills the battery.</p><p>4. out of the box you lose 15Gb of space for OS and recovery.</p><p>5. Bluetooth when connected to my car stereo and headset, it will skip.</p><p>6. No visual voicemail app. You get a notice in the status bar but it does not tell you who left you a message. </p><p>7. No VoLTE you cannot make a call and then try to use data such as looking up a map and have them both work at the same time.</p><p><br></p><p>My Likes: </p><p>1. Screen its the same size at as my Note 3 was but much smaller body. If you have small hands this is great.</p><p>2.Quick charging</p><p>3.Basic android no bloat ware.</p><p>4. 360 camera and its snap on and automatically activates the app.</p><p>5. Using Google Assistant is super fast and easy.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      01 February, 2018 - 2:38 am

      <blockquote><a href="#241908"><em>In reply to harmjr:</em></a></blockquote><p>My Hauwei Mate 10 Pro came with Oreo installed, but yes, the amount of storage swiped by the system was around 16GB, still, with all of my apps installed and some data downloaded (I only got the phone on Tuesday), there is still around 102GB free.</p><p>But this has always been the case, I had a baby Sony Experia with 8GB storage a couple of years ago as a company pool phone for travel to Russia, only around 1,5GB was available for the user.</p>

  • Martin Pelletier

    Premium Member
    31 January, 2018 - 6:28 pm

    <p>I hope the company survive and can get another phone this year. It seem promising.</p>

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