The Nothing Phone (1) is easily one of the most hotly anticipated smartphones in recent history, and it’s down to the somewhat larger-than-life presence of OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, a complete re-do on the expected notion of a rear panel design…and a whole load of hype that was hard to miss, even for the normobs who don’t actively track tech news. That hype though, there’s been a lot of it! While nuanced opinions about camera output, performance and battery will have to wait until the full review, here’s my quick take on my first 5 days with the Nothing Phone (1).
Now, depending on how you hold the Phone (1) as it emerges from the slim color-matched box (to the black or white variant), you’re going to land on one of two emotions. Hold up the see-through rear panel, and the Gorilla Glass-protected glass pane tantalizing reveals some of the innards of the phone alongside a series of LED light strips in a single color, with none of that RGB lighting that’s on gamer phones like the ROG Phone series. Instead, each of these Glyphs – as Nothing calls the individual light strips – serves a purpose. These Glyphs can be associated with ringtones and notifications or show you the battery level when the phone is charging… or even as a fill light for the rear camera (more on this later). Viewed from the rear, the Nothing Phone (1) is nothing like any phone you’ve seen before, so if Nothing was aiming at standing out from the pack, mission accomplished.
Well, almost. The flat-edged design with the home button on the right and the volume buttons on the left is a dead ringer for the iPhone. So much so, on multiple occasions, I couldn’t tell an iPhone 13 Pro Max from the Nothing Phone 1 with both devices lying face up/screen off. Aside from being a huge compliment of how well Nothing has matched iPhone build quality and finish in a phone that’s less than a fourth of the price of the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the flat edges have the same downside as the iPhone. Yeah, not very comfortable to hold for extended periods, but what helps Nothing’s cause is the 193g weight, which allows you to hold it without significant fatigue. You can slap on the optional transparent case to further help grip and comfort. Personally, I prefer the black variant, which allows the Glyph LEDs to really stand out, but some folks may like the more edgy white variant. Either way, this is not a phone you can ignore.
About those Glyphs, arguably a feature and a system that no phone on the iPhone or Android side of things can stake claim to. You can assign certain Glyphs to selected contacts and app notifications, and the light strips light up to discreetly let you know who’s calling even if you have the phone face down in a meeting. The vertical Glyph indicates current battery percentage when the phone is plugged in and charging, and the almost-circle around the wireless charging coil on the back lights up when you drop the phone onto a wireless charger or when you drop a pair of TWS earphones to reverse wireless charge off the Phone 1 battery. One thing has to be said – Nothing has nailed the combination of haptics (excellent for the price range), light and sound to keep the final effect very refined and precise, as opposed to garish and gaudy. How they will last past the novelty is another question.
Before we touch upon the hardware under the hood, I’d be remiss not to point out the care Nothing has exercised in picking a flexible 120Hz OLED panel (instead of a regular AMOLED that’s present on most phones in this segment. What this allows for is that Nothing can curve and tuck in the display connectors under the screen to keep the bezels uniform on all sides, without the unsightly bigger chin one sees on most Android phones. The screen itself measures 6.55-inches on the diagonal, with a 2400x1080-pixel resolution, HDR10+ certification and a 120Hz refresh rate, and there’s an in-display fingerprint sensor and face-unlock for authentication. Powering the Phone (1) is a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ with either 8GB or 12GB RAM, plus 128GB or 256GB storage space. You get a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 main camera with OIS/EIS, a 50MP Samsung JN1 wide-angle camera with EIS. and a 16MP selfie camera on the front. On the battery front, there’s a 4,500mAh battery with support for Quick Charge 4.0, 33W PD3.0 wired charging, 15W Qi wireless charging, plus a 5W reverse charging.
On the software side of things, the experience is, save for the peppering of the Nothing dot-matrix font across the phone, rather stock Android 12 with a few tweaks like a custom icon pack, some Nothing widgets and the custom ringtones and Glyph effects that are core to the Phone (1) experience. It really reminds me of Oxygen OS before it merged with ColorOS, so fans of the pure and smooth Android experience will find much to enjoy here. Nothing promises three years of Android updates and four years of bi-monthly security updates.
Coming in with three variants - 8GB/128GB (Rs. 32,999), 8GB/256GB (Rs. 35,999), and the 12GB/256GB (Rs. 38,999) – with an extra Rs. 1000 off for a limited period, the Nothing Phone (1) has all the makings of solid mid-ranger, with the wireless charging and the edgy design setting it apart from phones in its price segment. It may underwhelm folks hoping for another flagship killer OnePlus in the making, but its emphasis on design and clarity of purpose certainly has left a solid first impression.