Android creator Andy Rubin teases first look at Essential’s bezel-less smartphone

We finally have a peek at the smartphone that Android co-founder Andy Rubin and his team have been building. Today, Rubin tweeted out a teaser photo of the yet-to-be-named device emerging from his stealth startup.

The company, reportedly named Essential, is said to be focusing its engineering efforts on high-end devices that it has reportedly raised a significant amount of funding to create. Also reportedly, Softbank recently bowed out of talks to invest $100 million in the startup at a $1 billion valuation.

There’s precious little in the way of feature clues for the nearly bezel-less device, and going head-to-head against Apple’s iPhone will undoubtedly require something radical.

The startup will be relying strongly on hype building up based on Rubin’s pedigree and Essential seems to have a strong team to do just that after hiring the expectation-heightening VP of PR and VP of Marketing from the embattled augmented reality juggernaut Magic Leap to lead efforts.

There is no word of when exactly we can expect to see a device come forward, but after nearly a decade of companies releasing phones they claim to be “iPhone killers,” I would treat this effort with more than a bit of healthy skepticism.