The Essential Phone now includes a new Portrait Mode and more

Essential has been in the news for all of the wrong reasons over the past couple of days thanks to the abrupt leave of absence taken by CEO Andy Rubin. However, the company itself is continuing to chug along as if nothing’s going on and have pushed a new update to the camera app on the Play Store.

Along with the normal bug fixes and such, the new Essential Camera application also gives users the ability to take photos in Portrait Mode, along with a new JPEG compression. This was actually announced during Essential’s Bi-Weekly Reddit AMA, but the update has officially been pushed to the Play Store and is available for download now.

WHAT’S NEW

• Portrait Mode enabled
• Added exposure compensation for all regular camera modes
• Reduced JPEG compression to improve image quality
• Stability fixes

It will be interesting to see how well Essential’s camera can handle Portrait Mode photos, but I wouldn’t hold my breath after all of the other issues we’ve seen to date. Nonetheless, the update is available for download now, and you can hit the button below to ensure that your camera app is updated.

Let us know how Portrait Mode is working for you, and if you notice any new improvements to images thanks to the JPEG compression.