Essential Phone: Android creator debuts a stunning smartphone with a screen and camera to beat

The long-awaited Essential Phone has finally been revealed.

The handset, which comes from Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, has been teased for months.

It can instantly be described as one of the best-looking mobiles on the market, and has been built to challenge the iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 for smartphone supremacy.

Its design is striking. The Essential Phone features a 5.71-inch, 2,560 x 1,312 edge-to-edge display that reaches the very top edge of its front face, even surrounding the 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

Around the back is a 13-megapixel dual-camera system that combines a colour sensor with a mono sensor, for improved low-light photography.

The Android handset is built using a combination of titanium and ceramic, which its creators claim make it more durable than competing smartphones made of aluminium, and it doesn't feature any logos.

As expected, the Essential Phone is modular. This means users will be able to clip accessories to it, such as a 360-degree camera and a charging dock.

Inside is a Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 4GB of RAM, a high-end setup that should deliver plenty of power.

It comes with 128GB of internal storage too, as well as a 3,040mAh battery, a USB Type-C port and a fingerprint sensor.

Like Apple's latest iPhones, the Essential Phone doesn't feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, though the handset will ship with a headphone dongle in the box.

Andy Rubin co-founded Android in 2003, before selling the company to Google for over $50 million two years later.

He left Android in 2013, and then left Google the following year, in order to focus on startups.

Android is now the most popular operating system in the world, and a lot of its success was down to Mr Rubin's work.

Unfortunately, the Essential Phone is only available in the US right now, where it will retail for $699 and come in black, grey, white and green colour schemes.