Essential promises its next phone will have a better camera

Pretty much everyone was underwhelmed with the camera on the first Essential Phone, but the good news is that the handset's makers are listening to your complaints and have plans for a serious upgrade to the optics and software for their second smartphone.

Speaking to Business Insider, Essential's head of industrial design Linda Jiang says that the team has been listening to feedback from its customers and wasn't very happy with the way the camera turned out. When it comes to the Essential Phone 2, "we're going to do it better" says Jiang.

"In general, one thing that we got hit hard with was the quality of our camera, and we're really looking forward to improving that with our next-gen, making sure that we’re listening to our customers and their pain points," says Jiang. "We're going to make it better for you."

Snap happy

Of course the camera around the back is a key feature of any phone – it can help the really premium handsets stand out from the also-rans more than the processor or RAM or anything else. The likes of Google, Apple, Samsung and Huawei focus on it a lot.

Jiang didn't reveal when the next Essential Phone is going to make an appearance, but if the company follows the same yearly cycle as its rivals, then we'd be looking at sometime during May 2018. She did confirm that any accessories you bought for the Essential Phone 1 will also work on the Essential Phone 2.

According to Jiang, the Essential team are also looking into different types of coating and textures to make the phone less slippery and prone to fingerprints: after all, if you want to take a good snap, you need to have a good grip on your handset.