The latest Essential Phone update has started rolling out, looking to make a variety of improvements and fix certain vulnerabilities on the smartphone.
The Essential Phone has recently been the subject of headlines due to its apparent failure. However, that will not stop Essential from rolling out the necessary updates to keep improving the user experience for its customers.
Essential Phone Update: What's In It?
Essential Phone Build NMJ20D is not a major update, but it does make a few important changes to the device's software.
First of all, the new Essential Phone update improves the touch response of the device's nearly bezel-less display. The touch response issue has been present for a while, and users affected by the problem have claimed that the update has fixed it.
In addition to improvements to the touch capabilities of the front display, the update also adds gestures to the fingerprint sensor at the back. Once the update is installed, users will be able to pull down the notification tray by swiping on the rear fingerprint sensor.
The Essential Phone update also shores up the device's security features. The update installs the October 2017 Android security patch, while also patching the KRACK vulnerability. KRACK, revealed by researchers earlier this month, is an exploit that allows hackers to steal sensitive information of Wi-Fi networks. Researchers estimated that about 41 percent of all Android devices are vulnerable to KRACK.
The update also made improvements to touch scrolling, while adding unnamed performance and bug fixes. The update has a size of 74.8 MB.
Essential Phone Update Troubles
Essential Phone Build NMJ20D, however, is not perfect. There have been some reports on a variety of issues after installing the update. These include notifications appearing under the front-facing camera, apps not going full-screen, and broken navigation. The Google Newsstand and Google Assistant also no longer occupy the full display for some affected users.
Essential Phone owners will benefit a lot from installing the latest update. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do but to simply hope that the smartphone does not develop problems after installing the update.
Is The Essential Phone A Failure?
Essential will continue to roll out update for the Essential Phone, even in the face of allegations that the device is not a success. The $200 Essential Phone discount is said to be the proof behind this claim.
There is even a way to be able to purchase the Essential Phone for $299, showing that Essential might be starting to get desperate in pushing out the smartphone to customers.
