Hands on with the hotly-anticipated Nothing Phone (1), from mysterious startup Nothing
If you’re reading this hands-on Nothing Phone review, you likely fall into one of two camps: those who’ve never heard of Nothing before, and are wondering exactly what the Phone is; or those who’ve been glued to the story of the London-based startup’s long-anticipated debut smartphone, and are eager to find out whether the wait was worth it now that the hype train has finally pulled into the station.
As for pricing, the Nothing Phone is available in three storage/RAM variants: 8GB RAM/128GB, 8GB RAM/256GB, and 12GB RAM/256GB, priced at £399 / €469 / AU$749, £449 / €499 / AU$799 and £499 / €549 / AU$899, respectively. Those UK prices convert to roughly $475, $530, and $590. While we’ve seen transparent-backed phones before, usually the components underneath are either only partially visible or wholly fake . Nothing, for its part, has designed the exposed parts underneath to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Despite its straight sides, the edges of the recycled aluminum frame are subtly rounded to ensure that the Phone is more comfortable in the hand than you’d expect and, what’s more, it feels lighter than its build might suggest – at 193.5g it sits below the 200-gram threshold beyond which a device’s weight starts to feel noticeable.
Dipping into the Glyph Interface in the phone’s settings, you can customize what the glyphs react to, and when they react. By default, they’re paired to one of Nothing’s 10 own-brand ringtones and notification tones, with the various light and haptic patterns perfectly synchronized – in terms of brightness and strength, respectively – to the audio of each.
Despite the technical advantages an OLED panel usually brings, there’s no always-on display functionality, as yet ; however, a faint ring demarcating the fingerprint sensor’s placement does linger on the screen when the rest of the display shuts off, and despite the handset offering raise-to-wake functionality, you don’t need to rouse the Phone ’s display before pressing on the sensor to gain access.
Nothing OS falls into a similar camp to that of Motorola’s and Google’s own takes on Android, with mild adjustments that set it apart from a truly stock experience: folders can be enlarged to occupy a 2 x 2 space on a home screen, offering hybrid functionality; specific quick-settings widgets can be swiped through, providing more connectivity options at a glance; and, while it’s tucked away, there’s even a pop-up view for more convenient multitasking.
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