The Telstra Essential Plus uses a Mediatek MT6739 processor paired up with just 1GB of RAM. As usual with budget handsets, it's a question of building down to a price point and putting up with the performance bottlenecks that creates, although the Telstra Essential Plus does have a slight edge here for actual app performance, which I'll get to shortly.
That does mean it's only fair to compare it against other budget solutions. A phone like the Galaxy Note9 runs Sonic the Hedgehog level rings around the Telstra Essential Plus, because of course it does, but how does it stack up against more budget-centric fare? Here's how it compares using Geekbench 4's CPU test:
You can essentially forget about any kind of 3D gaming action either, with the Telstra Essential Plus delivering the absolute lowest scores we've seen out of 3DMark's Slingshot Extreme Test. Just watching the test run was like watching a poorly crashing slideshow deck execute:
This isn't exceptional for a phone that costs less than $100 and that's something to keep in mind at all times when using the Telstra Essential Plus.
Where the Telstra Essential Plus at least tries to make the most out of its meagre resources is in the specific Android variant it's running. It's one of only a handful of phones in the Australian market running Android Oreo Go, Google's cut-down Android 8 tailored for low-power, low-cost devices.
Android Oreo Go comes with a variety of standard Android apps that are highly optimised. What this means is that apps that would otherwise struggle on the Telstra Essential Plus are a little bit quicker than you might expect, as long as you're using the Go-optimised versions. Google doesn't actually stop you installing any compatible Android app on Oreo Go phones, which means you can still use the "full fat" variants, or indeed just about any app on the Telstra Essential Plus. Do so and you'll be waiting a while for them to load or respond to input.
The Telstra Essential Plus features a 4.95-inch display with a quite low resolution of just 480x960, but that's not its biggest display performance problem. Lay it flat on a desk and the LCD backlighting will wash out almost all the detail on the handset. It's not an issue when it's in your hand, but if you have it on a desk and a notification pops up, or the phone rings, there's absolutely no way to easily view it and see any pertinent detail. Having a cheap display is totally fine on what is an exceptionally cheap phone, but I don't feel it's asking too much to be able to see what's on the screen.
The Telstra Essential Plus is priced in the same space as the cheaper Alcatel 1C. Its $10 price hike is well worth considering if you do need data connectivity because it's fully 4G LTE capable where the 1C is a 3G-only handset.
The Telstra Essential Plus is also notable as the cheapest smartphone on the Telstra network to pass through Telstra's mobile testing labs and come out the other side with Telstra Blue Tick certification. If you're a regional or rural user with reception concerns, this could be a very good way to solve them at low cost.