The market for a flagship smartphone in 2017 is almost entirely dominated by Apple and Samsung. Apple has sold over 1 billion iPhones over the last decade, and Samsung’s devices are the most popular in the world, with designs that are starting to approach Apple’s quality. And yet, other than rumblings from Google, the rest of the smartphone market has been divvied up between companies trying to make the best, cheapest phones they can. Unlike most other upstart smartphone manufactures, Essential thinks its newest device can go toe-to-toe with these heavyweights. Earlier this summer, the startup launched by Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android operating system, unveiled his vision for the modern smartphone. It’s one that focuses heavily on design and modularity. Quartz spent the last few weeks with the Essential phone, to get an understanding of what living with it is like, and whether it’s different enough to make Apple or Samsung acolytes abandon their paths and think d...