Recently, the Essential PH-1 or Essential Phone got a $200 price cut, dropping it from $699 a pop to $499.
Now as it turns out, you can get it to go even lower to $299, but it's not exactly as easy as 1-2-3.
How To Get The Essential PH-1 For $299
It all boils down to this: You need to get your hands on a Friends & Family code. Essential's giving it away to early adopters of the Essential PH-1 who bought it at its original $699 price from the smartphone maker itself, Amazon, Best Buy, or Sprint, and they'll have to make a request for it via the company's official page before Nov. 15.
There, all Essential needs to know is an email address, where the phone was purchased, and the serial number and IMEI of the unit.
Obviously, this is the key in getting an Essential PH-1 for $299.
This goes without saying, but if you're not one of the many users who snagged the phone right away, then you're going to have to find someone who is to get a Friends & Family code, which is where the difficulty lies.
That's pretty much it, though, and it's all smooth sailing once you manage to get ahold of a code — you just have to order the $499 phone using it to drop the price to $299.
Essential's Friends & Family Code
As a refresher, Essential announced the Friends & Family code at the same time as the $200 price drop, and now it has started rolling it out to users who claimed it.
Codes are being delivered @AndroidPolice @droid_life :) pic.twitter.com/z5l6xvm1FR — Joe SPOOKester (@WinDroidGuy) October 28, 2017
As explained earlier, you can use it toward another Essential PH-1, which is what the company is encouraging users to do. For those who don't want another handset, you can grab the $199 Essential 360 Camera instead, which is more or less a freebie this way.
Now for a few things to take note of, Essential is accepting requests for the Friends & Family code only until Nov. 15, and each one will just last until Dec. 15, not to mention that it can be used only once. In other words, this deal of sorts is time limited.
Some may argue that the Essential PH-1 is way too much at $699, but at $299, it's a steal. Even at its current standard price of $499, it's a bang for the buck.
