The Essential Phone is launching as a Sprint exclusive, but will still work on other carriers
USA Today is reporting that Andy Rubin’s Essential Phone has a launch partner in the US: Sprint. That’s not exactly a surprise, when we asked the four major US carriers whether they’d support the Essential phone, three of them offered tepid statements saying it would operate just fine on their network, but Sprint said that “More specific information will be provided at a later date.” That was a hint, it turns out.
This launch “exclusive” isn’t quite as exclusive as others, because the Essential Phone is packed with enough radios to work across multiple networks — and Essential will be selling the phone unlocked.
Rubin said at the Code conference that he’s trying very hard to not install carrier apps on the Essential Phone when it…
