Essential Phone begins shipping, only 58 days late (update)
Or three days late, depending how you count.
On May 30, Essential founder Andy Rubin said he'd ship his stunning Essential Phone within 30 days.
On July 22, he said it was coming "within a few weeks."
On August 16, the company said the first preorders would ship within 7 days.
None of those things happened. But Essential tells CNET the phone is finally shipping today, August 25.
The first preorder customers should get email confirmations "shortly," according to the company's head of communications. The company will ship them out in waves, so don't be surprised if you don't see a confirmation right away.
Update, Saturday August 26 at 12:34p.m. PT: Preorder customers now appear to be receiving their shipment confirmation emails, after what seemed to be one final delay. Here's an example of the email, which notes that while the Essential Phone is "ready to operate" on Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T, it has yet to complete certification on Verizon's network. We're asking what that means for you.
Original story continues:
I'm currently reviewing the Essential Phone for CNET, and after spending a few days with a prerelease phone, I have to admit the delays might not be all bad.
There's no question that Rubin's startup has created a beautiful, high-quality device that feels great in the hand, but I've run into a number of bugs -- including full-on crashes -- with Essential's prerelease software, and the camera definitely still needs work.
I'm hoping those will get ironed out within the next couple of weeks, and I think it's possible they will. Reviewers have received multiple software updates already to fix a variety of issues.
But I can't blame some customers for getting angry when Essential charged their cards (including mine) without providing a shipping confirmation.