The smartphone market is tough to break into right now. It’s oversaturated with hundreds of options, and without much wiggle room to stray from the established “slab” design, even attempting to be innovative is risky. However, being “risky” doesn’t mean it’s impossible to succeed, especially if you have enough credentials behind your company or product before it even launches. Such is the case with the Essential Phone released earlier this year by Essential, a company started by one of the founders of Android, Andy Rubin.

It’s a solid enough start. Throw in Essential Phone’s excellent specs, mostly stock Android, and its bezel-less 5.8-inch display, things look pretty good for the device. Unfortunately, there were a few things standing in the way of Essential Phone’s success.

First and foremost, there’s the irony of being called the “Essential Phone” but not including what many consider to be an “essential” feature – the 3.5mm headphone jack. Although it’s curiously become a trend over the past year to omit it, the move hasn’t exactly been a hit among consumers. Unlike Apple, who is the sole manufacturer of iOS devices, Essential is ultimately a drop in the hat in the world of Android, so if the headphone jack was an important feature to somebody, they’re likely to look elsewhere.

There’s also the matter of Essential as a brand, which is that most people probably aren’t aware they exist. Sure, Andy Rubin might be heading the company, and yes, he’s been a prominent figurehead when it comes to Android’s development, but is Joe Schmoe going to know or care about any of that when he walks in to Sprint for his bi-annual upgrade? Probably not. That isn’t saying that Essential isn’t worth checking out, but a lot of people aren’t interested in taking risks when it comes to gadgets used daily like smartphones. They want to know they can trust the brand to keep a good thing going for the next year or two. In its first year, there are going to be a lot of people that overlook Essential because they don’t really have a reputation either way; it’s a risk to buy Essential, especially when the phone costs a whopping $699.

Or it did, anyway. And here’s where I think things might turn around for Essential, at least for its reputation. At $699, the Essential Phone was directly competing with phones like Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Note devices. Although the Essential Phone may have matched up quality-wise in many areas with those flagships, a big reason people are willing to pay higher prices for those devices is because of their branding and reputation… which Essential just doesn’t have. Yet. However, now that Essential Phone’s price dropped by $200, people will have more reasons to consider the device. In fact, Essential Phone “essentially” became one of the cheapest flagships of 2017 overnight.

For just $499, you get a flagship with a 5.8-inch bezel-less display, Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, dual 13-megapixel cameras, 8-megapixel front-facing camera, and a 3,040 mAh battery. That’s a pretty powerful phone for $500.

I do think that the Essential Phone is missing some important things that would truly make it an “essential” phone. The 3.5mm headphone jack was already mentioned, but the device is also lacking any sort of water resistance and integrated wireless charging. I’m a big fan of having a microSD card slot as well, but I will give credit to Essential for giving the device a generous 128GB of internal storage.  These compromises are things that I wasn’t willing to overlook for a $699 price tag – especially the headphone jack and water resistance – but for $499 I’m willing to bet people would be more forgiving.

Essential picked a good time to drop the price of the Essential Phone considering Google also dropped the headphone jack in the Pixel 2 duo, and it appears that the Pixel 2 XL is having some significant burn-in issues. The price drop also comes just ahead of holiday shopping, so if you’ve been holding out for holiday sales then this couldn’t have come at a more convenient time.

Readers, what are your thoughts on this significant price drop? Are you more interested in Essential Phone now that it’s $200 cheaper?