That title’s gonna ruffle some feathers. Hear me out! The first phone from a new company isn’t really boring. Whenever new competition pops up, it’ll always be the talk of the town. Ever since the initial tease during this seemingly random keynote, the Nothing Phone 1 became the most hyped phone around. The company would build around that hype with each and every tease. Now, we finally know everything about Nothing‘s first phone and it feels boring to me. Guess what? I like it that way. I’ll tell you why.
The Glyph Interface
Probably the only significant feature that you need to know is the Glyph Interface. It consists of multiple LED lights that form different patterns and can be used for different functions. Those functions include different patterns for every ringtone, notifications, and even charging status! You can even flip the phone to trigger silent notifications with only the lights on.
The transparent back in itself wouldn’t really work for me, but Nothing really made an effort to make it really look good! This includes that very obvious wireless charging coil.
A Really Capable Phone!
The Nothing Phone 1 will of course have very capable specs to back that nice design! Here are the full specs in case you wanna know:
- 6.55-inch flexible OLED display with 2400 x 1080 resolution
- 500 nits typical brightness, 1200 nits peak brightness
- 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate
- Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back
- Haptic touch motors
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ processor
- 8 or 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM
- 128 or 256 GB UFS 3.1 storage
- IP53 water and dust resistance
- Dual stereo speakers, three high-definition mics
- Dual rear cameras: 50MP Sony IMX766 main camera with f/1.88 aperture and OIS/EIS, 50MP Samsung JN1 ultrawide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 16MP Sony IMX471 front camera with f/2.45 aperture
- Video recording up to 4K/30 fps video recording on the rear cameras and up to 1080p/30fps on the front camera
- 4500 mAh battery with 33W fast charging (PD 3.0)
- In-display fingerprint sensor
- Dual-SIM 5G support
- USB-C, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, NFC
- Android 12 with Nothing OS skin (3 years of software updates and 4 years of security updates every 2 months)
- Comes in two colors: Black and White
Pricing and Availability
The Nothing Phone 1 is available in three configurations: 8GB + 128GB for £399, 8GB + 256GB for £449, and 12GB + 256GB for £499. It will be available soon in the Philippines through Commonwealth (in-store) and Digital Walker (in-store and online). Check back here for updates.
It Feels Boring and That’s Okay!
Besides the Glyph Interface, this phone basically has run-of-the-mill Android phone specs at a really competitive price. The rest of the experience seems boring to me since Nothing opted to keep most of the Android experience clean. If that helps make the overall phone experience fast and smooth, then I am all for this “boring” feeling. Let’s hope there are enough sales or it will be all for nothing. (Sorry for the pun.)
What do you think of Nothing’s first phone? Sound off in the comments!
