Though elsewhere, things are very mundane. With its horizontal, oval-shaped back camera housing and straight-edged aluminium frame, the Phone (1)'s chassis has an old-school iPhone feel to it. The phone's right side has a power button, and its left side has up and down volume controls. The bottom of the phone has a USB-C charging port, a single speaker grille, and two nano-SIM slots.
In my tests, the phone's cable charging capability at 33W gave a 50% charge from zero in just over 30 minutes. Reverse wireless power delivery is supported along with wireless charging and is rated at 15W, albeit it is quite slow at just 5W.
The Nothing Phone (1) has an IP53 water resistance rating and is protected against impact and scratches by two layers of Gorilla Glass 5. Under the screen is where the fingerprint reader is located.
The light-up Glyph Interface for the Nothing Phone (1) comes next. Over 900 bright-white LEDs are arranged in this pattern, which gives the phone's back an intriguing glow. These light patterns serve as visual ringtones as well as app notifications and charging status (the bottom strip fills up as the phone charges).
You may assign ringtones to particular contacts, each with accompanying bit-tune chirrups (when the phone isn't on quiet or vibrating), and there are ten lighting and sound options to select from. You can access these options in the phone's dedicated Glyph Interface section of the settings, which is also where you can change the light's brightness, set a bedtime schedule to mute the lights and sounds, and enable the "Flip to Glyph" silent, lights-only notifications when the phone is face-down.
Even if it occasionally comes off as a gimmick, the Glyph Interface is a nice feature. Nothing should let customers fully customise the lighting sequences and notification noises in the software, not only choose from a selection of ten pre-configured configurations, in my opinion. It would also be entertaining if we could integrate lighting effects with music apps, allowing the LEDs to dance while you listen to your favourite music.
The Nothing Phone (1)'s big 6.55in OLED screen has a resolution of 2,400 x 1,080, a movable refresh rate of 120Hz, and support for HDR10+ content. Although not significantly so, the default "Alive" setting's estimated Delta E (colour accuracy) score of 1.62 indicates that the colour saturation is a little too intense.
But if you change to the Standard setting, everything improves significantly. In this setting, I recorded 94.2% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut, 94.7% total volume, and an astounding 0.81 Delta E average. The entire colour spectrum has flawless tonality.
With the brightness slider all the way to the right, the panel itself reaches a maximum brightness of 469cd/m2, and HDR brightness is also on the meagre side, with a maximum of 673cd/m2 in our internal HDR video test.
Nothing has a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ 5G processor in its first smartphone, which the company claims is a specifically modified version of the chipset that enables wireless and reverse wireless charging. The Nothing Phone (1) is also available in 8GB/128GB and 12GB/256GB flavours, however I was sent the device with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for review purposes.
Performance-wise, this is exactly what can be expected from a contemporary mid-ranger. The Nothing Phone (1) attained single-core and multicore processing results in the Geekbench 5 test that were largely comparable to those of its competitors. There are many positive aspects of speeds; however, it is not particularly interesting to analyse the comparison graph.
Although we have seen better in this price range, battery life is still fairly acceptable. The OnePlus Nord 2T 5G took the top spot with a runtime of nearly 24 hours, while the Nothing Phone (1) came in second with a total runtime of 20 hours and 13 minutes. On the other hand, a single charge provides more than enough juice for a full day of use, with leftover power for the next day as well.
The Phone (1) comes pre-installed with Android 12, but it has the Nothing OS 1.1 shell on top. Although there are a few minor visual changes to the UI, wallpapers, and fonts in this installation of Android, it is still largely inconspicuous and clean.
There is only the standard selection of Google's first-party applications; there is no bloatware. That said, it's important to note that an experimental feature in the phone's settings allows you to connect to your Tesla. With this feature, you can, among other things, monitor the air conditioning's levels and remotely open your boot. Additionally, a future update is expected to include an NFT wallet app.
A pair of bubbles in the notification drawer is arguably the most practical change. You can access mobile data, Wi-Fi, and hotspot settings by swiping through the left bubble. The right-most bubble lists your connected Bluetooth devices.
However, there are still a few software flaws that will need to be fixed in next releases. You are compelled to assign notification sounds and illumination effects to particular programmes in the settings of each individual app rather than through the Glyph Interface menu. I also had a few app crashes while writing my review.
Nothing chose to use a pair of 50MP cameras rather than cramming the Phone (1) with extraneous macro and depth-sensing lenses. The primary sensor is a Sony IMX766 model, and the ultrawide sensor has a 114-degree field of view and is a Samsung JN1 sensor. The top-left corner of the phone's screen has a hole-punch notch that houses a 16MP selfie camera.
Images taken under the best lighting conditions are sharp, well exposed, and filled with numerous minute details. Additionally, HDR is effectively used, and pictures are bursting with colour. There is a lot to enjoy even in dimly lit areas, like in the image I've provided below of London's The Shard skyscraper taken at night. The algorithms efficiently increase brightness without changing the scene's hue or adding more visual noise.
The wide-angle camera on the Phone (1), however, delivered conflicting results in tests. There isn't much to complain about if you have a lot of natural light, but when the sun sets, visual noise becomes more prominent. The photographs captured in low light also have a warm tint added by the camera.
The portrait option may use some work; although the background is effectively blurred, I occasionally saw jagged lines around my subject. The ability to use the Glyph LEDs as a temporary fill light in this mode is something I did like, though. The cropping is quite impressive, with a surprising amount of captured detail when enabled, while the 2x zoom option in the camera viewfinder is a straightforward digital affair.
The Nothing Phone (1) can capture videos at a maximum resolution of 4K at 30 frames per second. The frame rate may be opened up to 60 frames per second when filming in 1080p, and this is the setting I would suggest utilising because 4K footage is choppy and detracts from the improvement in quality.
A notable debut for the startup company is The Nothing Phone (1). The Phone (1) is well and truly on its way to become a landmark of the mid-range scene with its distinctive design, quirky LED lighting effects, a clean installation of Android, and a stunning screen.
However, I'm interested to see how the typical consumer perceives the Nothing Phone (1). It will be fascinating to see if the Phone (1), which primarily appeals to tech enthusiasts, manages to reach a wider audience, including people who are less knowledgeable about the most recent developments and just want a new phone without having to spend too much money.
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The coming years will undoubtedly be quite intriguing. Nothing as a business may achieve the breakthrough success it seeks, or it may only fade into obscurity. I'm interested to see what comes next, but for now, the Nothing Phone (1) is a striking device that can hold its own against the best in the market.
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If you have any doubts, please let me know.