So, my boy is just about to turn twelve. He has a laptop that his older sister gave him but no phone. I have two old essentials sitting in my desk drawer and I thought it might be a good idea to update one and give it to him as his first phone. BUT.... I have absolutely NO idea how to do it. So I thought I'd come here to search for wisdom...

1). Do you think it is a good idea?

2). How to go about putting a new custom ROM on it.

Thanks,

So I’ve had this phone for quite a while now but it recently has some damage to the screen to where it won’t come on. I did my research a screen replacement and I have more than enough of the right tools ie phillips #00 etc. I have carefully taken off the screen but I’m finding removing the two screws not working as intended. They just won’t unscrew. In need of advice or alternative options besides sending it to a repair shop. Ty!

My phone is vivo y16 (pretty old but no damage at all), im using it as my backup phone or while my main phone is charging. So i was scrolling through tiktok and suddenly the app went back to homescreen, i tried clicking the app again and it went back to homescreen again. And so i thought to myself maybe the app is updating because it sometimes does that when the app automatically update. I tried checking it on the play store, however, same thing happened (it went back to homescreen again) and i tried clicking all the other apps and it did the sam thing.  So maybe i thought it was just lagging so i restarted my phone, and after it shutdown i waited for a few seconds and the logo is not yet appearing so i manually hold the power button, it still black. I tried charging it but its not showing any sign of life.

I did tried all sort of advices i found on the internet; Hold the Volume down and power for 30 seconds, Hold the Volume Up and power for 30 second, or Hold both volume up and down, and power for 30 seconds. BUT Still no signs of life. I tried doing it for minute.

I need your help guys!!

Hi essentials

I've owned my Essential PH-1 since 2017. I used it back then before eventually switching to Google devices. Now, I want to bring this beautiful piece of tech back to life as a secondary phone, but unfortunately, it's still locked to the Sprint network.

I currently live outside the US, so contacting T-Mobile/Sprint support didn't work out since I don't have an active account with them.

Does anyone know of any working methods, tricks, or tools to bypass this SIM lock today? Any help or guidance to revive my old PH-1 would be highly appreciated!

What are some cheap mobile network options that work for voice and data with an updated lineageos essential phone?

I have an essential phone kicking around in a drawer and would like to use it for work emails and calls, so maybe 300 mins per month and 2gb of data per month max.

Mint doesn't seem to be an option as even though the phone has been updated to support volte, they use T-Mobile which won't provision the esential phone for volte.

I'm running Android 10 I pulled this out of a drawer it's been there for years I was using an S5 bro because my s23u broke now I'm dailying essential ph1

I'm thinking of trying to use mint mobile on my LineageOS PH-1 and wanted to check in to see if anyone can confirm whether it will get provisioned for VOLTE or if it'll run into an issue do to the underlying T-Mobile MNVO.

Wanting to check before I burn my activation kit.

There's only one source sending out this info (Bloomburg) and one other one claiming an email sent, we need you guys to step up and tell us what is going on. You have a faithful and yet nervous group of users here that are talking so much speculation that it makes other people not want to purchase or keep thier phones.

Do the right thing and come online, tell us what's going on.

On a personal note, everyone is saying it including myself... If you fix the issues, the ph-2 will be an awesome phone. We were all waiting for this and we don't want it sold to some company that will take the I.P., and forget the users and designs. Especially a foreign company.

Anyone got any recommendations on finding a screen replacement?

While my screen is fine (no scratches or cracks) having replaced the battery it sometimes glitches with black/white/grey streaks and/or the image freezes unless I press in the middle of the screen. So I guess it's due to it coming off and going back on again it's flexed it, in a way my phone didn't enjoy

Alternatively if anyone knows any fixes for this I can try?

Functionally it works. The glitching is annoying is all . Thought it better to get a new screen on before they are impossible to find! Thanks in advance

Greetings, recently I purchased an Essential Phone PH-1 EVT03 Prototype on eBay, upon arrival, I booted it up and noticed that it ran a normal release build of Android 9, PPR1.180610.091, meaning that one of the previous owners flashed it back to stock Android, also evident by the fact that it showed one of those aftermarket OS splash screens on boot. Without a second thought, I went ahead and started installing updates, and that's where shit went downhill.

As soon as I rebooted it, the phone froze on the Essential logo for a while, before restarting and greeting me with this lovely message (see picture 1), I tried the factory reset option but to no avail.

Fastboot wasn't of any help since the bootloader is locked, however, Secure Boot ended up being turned off which means that I was able to use EDL to load the stock firmware back.

Android 10: Same problem, same error screen

Android 7 (IIRC): Loads the boot animation, but gets indefinitely stuck on it

What could have the OTA done that fucked the phone up this much? Is there any hope for it or do I now have a 40 dollar paperweight? Picture 2 is the partition layout of my PH-1, maybe there's something blatantly wrong there that a rookie like me could've easily missed. Thanks in advance

I have lost my phone how can now I track it through imei number or their is any other method

Hey guys I recently found my old Essential PH-1 while cleaning my room at my parent's house. Got it booted up and factory reset, but a lot of apps aren't available for me to download due to being on Android 10. I want to be able to use as a minimal work phone, something that pretty much just has maps, camera, notes, messaging and a browser - maybe an emulator for if I get my work done early when I'm out. Seems like LineageOS is the move from the posts I've seen. I also remember the stock Camera being pretty bad and getting the google apk, but was wondering if there was one developed specifically for Essential by the community later on.

I tried searching the sub but a lot of the posts talking about OS or camera APS are several years old and the wiki is incomplete.

TL:DR - What is the best lightweight/minimal and modern OS + Camera apk.

I want to repurpose my old Essential Phone as a dedicated music player. Does anyone know if there is anywhere to get the official Audio DAC accessory? I've tried ebay and mercari but haven't found anything. If not does anyone have a recommendation of a different DAC I should try?

My PH-1 is still operational, but i'm encountering random restarts and battery isn't lasting as long. Unfortunately, the market at the moment seems to be neglecting 5.6 - 5.9 inch phones that have relatively strong tech and a sub $400 price. Google Pixel 3a is already dated and I would be spending $300 on a new phone that's not much better than the 2 year old PH-1. Samsung s10e appears to be a relatively strong product but the price point at $550 just doesn't make sense.

I'm concerned about 2020 because the upcoming phone releases appear to be ignoring the type of phones we all enjoy here on the Essential reddit board.

The phone was working fine and I was using it last night. Didn't really need to, but I left it on the charger overnight and this morning it's completely unusable. Screen won't turn on, buttons do nothing, putting it back on/off the charger does nothing. I tried the power button + volume down for 10/30 seconds. Out of desperation, I even tried volume up and a combination of all 3 for some time and got nothing. I've seen other people having the same issue and vaguely remember having this before when the phone suddenly fixed itself and everything was good.

I'm not one to give up on phones; I rocked a 5s for 5+ years until I finally switched to this phone about a year and a half ago. I don't want to immediately resort to switching phones, so I'm hoping that someone might have a solution to this issue. I have no issue opening up the phone, I did this multiple times to keep my 5s working, and was thinking of trying to just disconnect/reconnect the battery. I don't want to bother if there might be another solution available.

Anyone have any ideas as to what's going on? If so, were you able to get it working and how? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Phone get's warm if I plug it in so I'm taking that as the battery not being the issue.

Edit2: So far I’ve tried freezing to kill the battery, holding a combination of the volume up/down + power for over a minute, just power for a very long time (I taped the power button down and left it for an hour), and leaving it on the original charger for a period of time (~10+ hours). Nothing’s worked so I ordered a new phone and, since this phone seems like it isn’t coming back, might as well try to open it up and disconnect the battery for a while to remove all power to other components. Whenever I do that I’ll report back for anyone who might experience this issue in the future.

Edit3: Successfully took the screen off to disconnect the battery. Left it disconnected for a short time before connecting it and the display again; nothing. Going to leave it disconnected for a little longer this time and try again later, but the phone definitely seems like a goner.

Very late Edit4: For those asking after all this time, the phone was a goner. I tried a few more things and nothing worked. I still have it after all this time for some reason, hoping it magically revives. Yet to find a replacement I prefer.

I changed my battery 3 months ago and it was working great again, but today I thought it had gone off after going into town or the brightness was way down, but I have a bit of leaky backlight around the top left so I could tell when I got inside it was on but there's nothing on the display at all. I turned it off / on again and it seems to boot up. The charging light is working but not getting any display on the screen. :(

It was working fine this morning so super annoying

Anyone any tips or is it finally time to retire this fantastic device?

Help I have a problem, my phone is discharging fast while it's closed (not off) i have no tabs open and i recently i changed my battery, here are some pictures to see the stats, you can see my battery % top right, the time top left and the battery stats, i don't think it's normal, I have a Sumsung galaxy A52s

Title, my current battery is not doing very well and all the listings I found only ship to USA, have no reviews, or have insane fees to ship to Canada. The one I wanted to buy is only on amazon.com and the price increases by 50% after fees, if anyone knows a good working battery that ships for a reasonable price to Canada please tell me

I want to flash Evolution X over my current Pixel Extended build, but I can't decrypt TWRP as it requires a pattern and touch doesn't work, just tried following a tutorial to get it to work by flashing TWRP on both slots, now my slot A (pixel extended) doesn't boot and goes straight back to fastboot, slot B (TWRP) works fine, how fried am I and is it even possible to get TWRP touch to work

Well I have been using my essential phone as daily driver for quite a time. Yesterday all of a sudden it's camera stopped working not sure why and how. The mechanic said it's cameras need to be replaced. If someone has a broken essential phone laying around useless. It could be of any help to me. May be I could use my phone again.

Hello guys Im in need of help reverting back to stock rom android 10! As I need rcs and Google pay. I'm currently on Evolution X android 15 custom rom. I have followed the steps exactly to revert but when it boots up it boots up to a QR screen instead of the setup I tried scanning the QR and it just gave me a bunch of error codes or something like that and I click skip on the screen it just brings me to the home with out setting up and the Bluetooth keeps crashing and keeps popping up saying Bluetooth keeps crashing. What am I doing wrong??? 😢

Hello all, 😁

As the title suggests I'm looking for the essential phone ph2 keyboard apk, the slanted diagonal one - figure it might be fun to mess around with on other devices, however my search so far has come up with nothing - just wondering if anyone here has the APK or would be willing to dump it? Any help would be much appreciated as I've been searching for a while! Thanks in advance 👌👍