One year later - Nothing Phone 1

Nothing stepped onto the smartphone scene with the release of Phone 1 back in July 2022. I pre ordered Phone 1 and have been using it ever since. I have a lot of thoughts for this budget mid ranger phone and thoughts overall of Nothing as a brand.

For me Phone 1 excels in the software department. I think this is the most important aspect of the phone as it’s the part we interact with the most right? Phone 1 runs on a more or less stock version of Android called Nothing OS that has a bit of Nothing flare on top. This might be subjective but for me stock android is a must. It creates a smooth experience overall by having a minimal UI that is easy to use and navigate. But where Nothing OS shines is with the subtle touches of their branding that reminds you this a Nothing Phone, with their dot matrix font and some interesting takes on a recording and weather apps.

Aside for some interesting aesthetics, this phone also runs incredibly smoothly… Phone 1 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ CPU, basically this means it’s not the latest and greatest that Qualcomm has to offer. Despite this every aspect of the phone runs smoothly, whether using social media, video calls or playing Pokemon Go I’ve had no issues with performance on this phone which is great testament to the team at Nothing and how well they’ve optimised this CPU for their first phone.

There are some areas where I’ve found the phone doesn’t excel. Mainly the camera, this is to be expected as the phone started on release for £399. There had to be some give somewhere, I wasn’t expecting Phone 1 to be matching up with the iPhone 14 Pro in the camera department and it certainly doesn’t, at least in my opinion. But it does take some perfectly acceptable photos in good lighting that I’ve felt comfortable to share on social media.

The screen… I have a love hate relationship with the display on the Phone 1. I’ll start with what I love, the display is 120hz and if you ask me any phone that doesn’t have 120hz or at the very least a 90hz display and costs more than £399 is crazy in this day and age *cough* the iPhone *cough*. So having a 120hz display on Phone 1 has been great and I also find it gets plenty bright for my use. I also love that the bezel is the same thickness the whole way round the display and as a designer this makes me happy. I always cringe at smartphones that have a slightly thicker bezel whether it’s only the bottom or both the top and bottom. But… I have got some issues with this display too, when using apps in dark mode and darker lighting conditions there is a green tint on the top of the display, this is something that has developed over the year and I hope doesn’t get worse as I plan to keep the phone for another year or two.

To finish I have to talk about the design of Phone 1. With the exposed innards and industrial design of the phone it’s fair to say, I am in love. I miss transparent tech and I’m glad to see it’s making a bit of resurgence with the new Beats Studio buds. The back of the Phone highlights some amazing engineering and design from the team at Nothing and also showcases what they call the Glyph the interface. The Glyph interface is essentially an array of LEDs on the back of the phone that can light up to show notifications when the phone is face down. Some have called this a gimmic, I put this on the border of useful and gimmic feature as it does provide some use. Thankfully Phone 2 will introduce lots of great new features for the Glyph interface such as a timer and integrations of Uber, this works by having one of the light bars on the phone gradually tick down.

Over the course of the year I would say I’ve had a very positive experience with the phone, in fact I almost switched back to the iPhone after using android for a few years and it’s safe to say that Nothing is likely going to be keeping me in that world for another few years.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! This is my first article/blog I’ve ever posted and I really want to improve wherever I can. Something I’d like to do is use more imagery in the future but for now I want to focus on writing. Let me know what you enjoyed or what I could do better. Thanks again!