Oliver Haslam on October 9, 2019, 8:03 pm

Essential Shows Off New GEM Phone With An Unusually Narrow And Tall Form Factor

Essential hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, but it looks like it has a new phone in the works after CEO Andy Rubin shared photos of the device on Twitter.

Essential subsequently shared more photos via its official Twitter account, too.

The series of images show what appears to be a tall and narrow candy-bar-like smartphone with a customized interface. A front-facing hole punch camera can be seen as can a speaker grill. Beyond that there isn’t much to describe beyond the rather gorgeous looking colors this phone appears to be in.

Around the back is a large camera as well as a couple of dimples which some have suggested are there to aid grip. We’re not sure anything this shape could be too difficult to hold, but we’ll have to wait and see.

An Essential statement confirmed the product, with GEM appearing to be the project name the phones are currently living under.

We’ve been working on a new device that’s now in early testing with our team outside the lab. We look forward to sharing more in the near future.

The images show basic apps like Maps, Camera, and Phone but it’s that form factor we’re most interested in.

All of this is of course clouded by the presence of Rubin. He was accused of sexual impropriety at Google and then received a $90 million golden handshake as he left the company. He subsequently went dark, but now he seems to have surfaced to plug a new phone.

How you feel about that is up to you, of course. Rubin denies the accusations.