After skillfully stoking the hype fire for months, the first smartphone from the brand Nothing is finally here. You can read whether the smartphone lives up to expectations in this Nothing Phone(1) review.
Nothing Phone(1)
MSRP From € 469,-
Colors Black and white
OS android 12
Screen 6.5 inch OLED (2400 x 1080, 120 Hz)
Processor 2.4GHz octa-core (Snapdragon 778G)
RAM 8 or 12GB
Storage 128 or 256GB
Battery 4,350 mAh
Camera 50, 50 megapixel (rear), 16 megapixel (front)
Connectivity 5G, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC
Format 16 x 7.6 x 0.8 cm
Weight 194 grams
Other splash-proof
Website https://nothing.tech
8 Score 80 
- Pros
- Glyph
- Software
- All round good
- Negatives
- No adapter, memory card slot, audio port
- Glass case needs case
Before we talk about the smartphone, first a small introduction about the new brand Nothing. Founded by Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus which he left in 2020. The tech brand wants to put new products on the market that are accessible in use and price. This accessibility is also reflected in the prices. A year ago, the brand launched its first product. The wireless in-ears Nothing Ear(1) offered an excellent price-quality ratio and a beautiful (transparent) design. It was predictable that Nothing would also bring a smartphone to the market. The Nothing Phone(1) is finally available after months of marketing.
The smartphone market could use some commotion.
Nothing Phone(1): idea and implementation
Nothing’s first smartphone is an excellent mid-range smartphone. Only the marketing story behind the phone does not correspond at all with what the smartphone has to offer. Before I got my hands on the smartphone, I was given a short introduction by a spokesperson. Smartphones would have become boring. Devices are design uniformity and consumers are no longer enthusiastic about the new developments in tech. Moreover, there is much to criticize in the field of sustainability. The tech industry could use some commotion.
In that regard, I completely agree with Nothing.
Nothing Phone(1): execution
The Nothing Phone(1) stands out thanks to a transparent back, which poses quite a few design challenges. Not only do the designers have to work with the external design, but the innards also have to be presentable. We succeeded, the transparent back is certainly an eye-catcher. Especially thanks to the built-in LED lights, which can serve as a night light, as an auxiliary light for photos or rhythmically flashing along with ringtones and notifications. Glyph Nothing calls this and it is certainly a fun and original addition to a smartphone. But perhaps a bit of a nerdy gimmick, especially in combination with the retro sounds and interface of Nothing’s Android version.
Only Nothing has made a dubious choice in the implementation: the smartphone does not have a plastic back, but glass. Glass is a fragile material, even if you call it gorilla glass. That means you have to put a case around it, a transparent one if you want to keep the Glyph function. And to be fair, such a transparent case takes pretty much all the appeal out of Glyph.
With a cover around the device, but also if you forget the transparent part, there is one thing you cannot ignore. The design is simply copied from the iPhone 12 series. The format resembles the Pro version. The placement of the cameras is the same as the regular iPhone. The metal rim, size of the buttons, placement of the buttons, connections and speaker… It’s identical. Exactly the smartphone uniformity that Nothing’s marketing didn’t pretend to be.
Nothing Phone(1): sustainability
The sustainability promise also remains with words, not deeds. First of all, this smartphone is also simply made in China, where labor and environmental regulations are (to put it mildly) inferior to ours. Then it is all the more important that you have your update policy in order, so that you guarantee that the smartphone can last for a long time. With three years of version updates (note: no version number is mentioned) and four years of security updates, the word inferior also applies here. The update policy of Samsung and Apple (also in this price range) makes these devices more durable.
On which Nothing’s marketing does try to score sustainability points? Recycled materials have been used in the packaging and the smartphone. And the charger is missing, you have to purchase it yourself if you wish.
A sustainable smartphone needs much more than recycled materials and sustainable packaging
Nothing Phone(1) is better without marketing
Anyway. The Nothing Phone(1) is yet another unsustainable iPhone clone. It seems as if the marketers are promoting a completely different smartphone than this Phone(1). Because like I said. Secretly, the device is worth it, but not for the reasons that they themselves indicate.
The smartphone has decent specifications. There is a Snapdragon 768 chipset with 12GB or 8GB of RAM. Not the fastest in the Snapdragon stable, but fast for all apps and with 5G support. You also have 128 or 256GB of storage space at your disposal, which you cannot expand with a memory card.
The image quality is also excellent for a smartphone in this price range. The 6.55-inch OLED screen has a Full-HD resolution and a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120 hertz. The brightness and color reproduction are also in order. The front camera is located in the top left corner, behind the screen is a decent fingerprint scanner.
The 4,350 mAh battery provides approximately one and a half days of battery life. You can quickly charge this battery via the USB port or wirelessly. To spare the battery, the spokesperson for Nothing states that ‘AI in the software’ has been added that smartly terminates background processes based on your app use. This is worrisome, since these kinds of additions in Android used to cause problems, such as apps not being able to send notifications anymore. Unfortunately, the test period was too short to notice anything of this AI and, when asked, Nothing was able to provide more information about this.
Furthermore, there are nice things present in the smartphone, but there are also missing features. The housing is waterproof (IP54), bluetooth 5.2, WiFi 6 and dual SIM support. The lack of a memory card slot, audio port and adapter is annoying.
NothingOS
The Phone(1) runs on Android 12, on which the Nothing(OS) shell has been rolled out. This peel is basically very pleasant. Much of the Android base is retained and in combination with the glyph lights and retro sounds, the smartphone has an attractive, slightly nerdy, style.
Nothing aims to make connectivity easier. This is expressed in the connection with the Ear(1) earphones, which you connect seamlessly and even charge via the smartphone. It would be nice if other earphones could also be connected to the smartphone in this way.
This also manifests itself in another link. For example, with a widget you can control some things of your Tesla. Handy, but a Tesla owner with a Nothing Phone(1) sounds like a niche within a niche. Moreover, Tesla seems to serve more a target group of (often) unsympathetic people with an iPhone 13 Pro Max. However, it is not inconceivable that other cars and devices can also be connected in this way in the future.
Nothing also tries to hitch a ride on another hype: NFTs. By offering a kind of safe in which you manage it. NFTs are an energy-consuming attempt to satisfy a nonsensical need to own unique digital objects. In short, it doesn’t fit the brand’s sustainable pretense, and I can’t imagine people waiting for this.
Cameras
It’s nice that Nothing doesn’t go along with a frustrating habit that many other smartphone manufacturers are guilty of. Many smartphones in comparable or lower price ranges are covered with cameras on the back. However, many of the additional cameras are of such poor quality that you will never use them in practice. That is not the case with this Nothing Phone (1): you get dual camera from two 50-megapixel cameras. In addition to the primary lens, a wide-angle lens.
The smartphone is capable of shooting excellent photos, but cannot surpass Samsung, for example. This is noticeable when you take pictures in low light situations. The lenses have a somewhat high aperture and rely on software and a slower shutter speed to compensate for this. This leads to blurred photos. This is especially true for the wide-angle lens.
If the lighting conditions are favourable, you have two excellent lenses available and you can switch between the two lenses without any worries. There also seems to be a zoom option, but this cuts out the image from the primary camera, as can be seen in the examples below.
Alternatives to the Nothing Phone(1)
The Nothing Phone(1) is a good mid-range smartphone, with a unique style and design. Compared to smartphones in the same price range, I would definitely recommend it over, for example, the OnePlus Nord 2T or Xiaomi 12X.
For a comparable price you also have an iPhone SE, which scores much better in terms of software support and chipset. But falls short in all other areas. However, the Phone(1) loses out to the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, similarly priced but with much better cameras, performance and software support.
Conclusion: Buy Nothing Phone(1)?
Nothing’s marketing creates completely wrong expectations of a great mid-range smartphone. The glyph lights are nice, but that doesn’t change the Apple design. Recycled material is a plus, but it really doesn’t make a smartphone sustainable. It distracts from the fact that it is a striking smartphone with little flaw.
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