Essential Phone Halo Gray Variant Launched, Comes With Amazon Alexa Assistant Built-In

Essential Products, the makers of the Essential Phone, on Friday announced the launch of new variant of smartphone - Halo Gray. Earlier this week, Essential Phone got three new colour variants - Copper Black, Ocean Depths, and Stellar Gray. While the Halo Gray variant looks very similar to Stellar, there is one big difference between the phones. The newest Halo Gray variant comes with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant built-in, and costs less.

"In case three new Essential Phone colours weren't enough, today we're unveiling Halo Gray, the first Essential Phone to come with Alexa built-in. Halo Gray is available for pre-order exclusively from Amazon starting today," the company announced on Twitter.

As detailed by Essential, the new Halo Gray variant is now available for pre-orders via Amazon.com, and will go on sale from February 21. While the new colour variants - Copper Black, Ocean Depths, and Stellar Gray - all cost $599 (roughly Rs. 38,500), and the new Halo Gray version with Amazon Alexa built-in is being sold at just $449.99 (roughly Rs. 28,900). The older colour variants, Black Moon and Pure White, both cost $499 (roughly Rs. 32,100) on the Essential Products site, but Amazon has listed them at $449.99.

All six colour variants of the Essential Phone PH-1 come unlocked and have identical specifications. Essential has sold less than 90,000 units of its debut handset in the six months following launch, IDC reported earlier this month.

The Essential Phone features an edge-to-edge display and a modular system that lets users attach accessories such as a 360-degree camera. Coming to the specifications, the Essential Phone sports a 5.7-inch edge-to-edge QHD (1312x2560 pixels) display with 19:10 aspect ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. It is powered by the 64-bit Snapdragon 835 octa-core (2.45GHz Quad + 1.9GHz Quad) processor with Adreno 540 GPU and 4GB RAM. Internal storage option is at 128GB.

There's a 13-megapixel dual camera setup at the back with RGB and monochrome capabilities in each lens, with hybrid autofocus, phase detect, IR Laser Assist Focus, and 4K video support. At the front there is an 8-megapixel selfie sensor with f/2.2 aperture, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 4K video support here as well. The battery is at 3040mAh with fast charging support. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Bluetooth v5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, NFC, GPS, USB Type-C port, Nano-SIM support, and GLONASS. The dimensions of the Essential Phone are at 141.5x72.2x7.8mm, and the smartphone weighs less than 185 grams.