Dealmaster: Grab an unlocked Essential Phone for $399.99

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is led by a hefty discount on the Essential Phone, a smartphone from the father of Android himself—the Droidmaster, if you will—Andy Rubin. It's currently down to $400 on Amazon: that's $100 off its usual going rate these days and well off its original price of $700.

Now, the phone has its issues. We weren't exactly enthralled by Essential's first device when it launched last August. There's no headphone jack, no waterproofing, and no microSD slot, and its performance on T-Mobile is known to be shoddy. A price cut doesn't change that.

But as we noted when Essential first cut the Phone's price to $500, being cheaper goes a long way toward making up for those flaws. At $700, it can't compete. At $500, it was at least in the conversation with the OnePlus 5T. At $400, with the 5T out of stock and the OnePlus 6 expected to be pricier than usual, the Phone looks something like the best value on the Android market. It's fast, it feels like a $700 device, and it has the cleanest take on Android this side of a Pixel.

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