Nothing is preparing to present its first smartphone, the Phone (1), in July 2022. In addition to being transparent, the device has the particularity of offering an LED system on the back. We tell you everything we know about him.
After its remarkable arrival on the market of wireless headphones with its transparent Ear (1), Nothing is now attacking smartphones with a device that is also transparent: the Phone (1).
📅 When is the Nothing Phone (1) coming out?
Nothing has announced that its first smartphone Phone (1) will be presented at a conference on July 12, 2022, at 5 p.m. French time. This will be an opportunity for the manufacturer to reveal all the latest information about it.
It’s important to note that like the first OnePlus, the Nothing Phone (1) will be marketed via an invitation system, because the manufacturer has failed to produce enough smartphones to meet too much demand. So members of the community should be the first to be able to order a copy, and Nothing will then expand the invitations to other interested consumers once it has produced enough units.
💰 What is the price of the Nothing Phone (1)?
For now, we don’t really know how much the Phone (1) will cost. Most reports indicate that it would be a mid-range smartphone, so it could be marketed between 400 and 500 euros in France. Like the Ear 1s before it, it is expected to is only available via the official website of the manufacturer.
Before the official launch, Nothing has already auctioned the first 100 copies of its smartphone on the StockX online platform. Each was numberedand the first was at an exorbitant price of 2857 euros to an anonymous buyer.
📱 What does the Nothing Phone (1) look like?
Nothing first unveiled its smartphone design in mid-June in a render. This was an opportunity to discover that the smartphone was trying to stand out from the competition by adopting a transparent design on the back. Two cameras are placed in the upper left corner, 7 antennas will take care of the connection to the network and we find a wireless charging coil in the center of the device. The edges of the smartphone are flatlike what Apple does on its iPhones.
A few days later, the smartphone was finally exhibited at the Art Basel 2022 fair in Switzerland. The contemporary art fair was an opportunity for fans to see the smartphone for the first time, but above all to discover a real LED system on the back. These light strips are placed in different places : A C-shaped design surrounds the camera and a larger C-shaped design surrounds the wireless charging coil. There’s also a shape that looks like an exclamation mark down and a dash in the upper right corner.
In a hands-on video, YouTuber MKBHD finally unveiled in detail how the LED system works, which Nothing calls “ Glyph UI “. The strips house a little more than 900 individual LEDs.
Lights are synchronized to flash in unique patterns on each personalized ringtone offered by Nothing. This allows you to know who is calling, notifications or even the state of the charge by shaking the smartphone. Finally, we know that the smartphone only usesa single loudspeaker grille on the lower edge, and the 3.5 mm jack is missing.
🔲 Which screen for the Nothing Phone (1)?
Before the launch, a leaker revealed that the smartphone would be equipped with a 6.55-inch flat screen with FHD + definition (1080 x 2400 pixels). It would be compatible with the technology HDR10+. Nothing confirmed that the panel is OLED with a refresh rate of 120Hz.
The screen mainly offers uniform edges without “chin”, the thick edge at the bottom of smartphones found in most of its competitors. MKBHD unveiled in its video a first glimpse of the screen, and confirmed at the same time the presence ofa punch in the upper left corner for the front camera.
🚀 What performance for the Nothing Phone (1)?
Nothing has yet officially revealed which processor will power its Phone (1), but the manufacturer has entered into a partnership with chipmaker Qualcomm. As a benchmark on Geekbench revealed, the Nothing Phone (1) is expected to use a chip from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 778G+, that we already find in the Honor 70 or the Motorola Edge 30. The performances should therefore be solid, without exceeding the fastest smartphones in this segment.
Engraved in 6 nm by TSMC, the SoC succeeds the Snapdragon 778G, and is ultimately only a slightly faster version of the latter. There is an 8-core CPU configuration with a Cortex-A78 main core clocked at 2.5 GHz, three Cortex-A78 cores at 2.2 GHz and 4 Cortex-A55 economical cores at 1.9 GHz. The GPU part is provided by an Adreno 642L. It could be supported by DDR5 RAM memory.
The network part is supported by a Snapdragon X53 5G modem compatible with the mmWave and sub-6 GHz bands. It offers theoretical download speeds of up to 3.7 Gbps. Finally, we can note the presence of Bluetooth 5.2, or Wi-Fi 6.
🔋 Nothing Phone battery, autonomy and charging (1)
Nothing has not yet shared information regarding the battery of the Phone (1). Certifications have nevertheless revealed that the smartphone could offer 45W fast charging (USBPD 3.0/PPS). Since the manufacturer has not yet developed its own proprietary refill, it could be based on open standards.
It will be possible to check the charge level by shaking the smartphone. The LED strip will then indicate the progress of on-demand charging.
Unlike most of its competitors in this segment, the Nothing Phone (1) will have the advantage of being compatible with 15W Qi EPP fast wireless charging, and will offer 5W Qi BPP reverse wireless charging. The LEDs around the cordless coil will light up while charging. The maximum power has not yet been indicated.
📸 The Nothing Phone camera (1)
The first images of the smartphone only reveal two cameras, indicating Nothing may have prioritized quality over quantity. We should therefore find a main wide-angle sensor and an ultra wide-angle sensor, without any other macro or depth sensor whose usefulness is often questioned.
The Nothing Phone 1 uses a small LED on the back that will light up red when the smartphone is recording a video.
🤖 Which OS for the Nothing Phone (1)?
The Nothing Phone (1) will be launched on the latest version of Google’s operating system, Android 12. The smartphone will use the new in-house overlay from the English manufacturer, named Nothing OSwhich incorporates the visual identity of the brand.
Several features specific to this OS have already been announced, including the Glyph Interface, which allows you to customize the LED strips on the back. We also find:
- Max Icons and Max Folders : To enlarge the icons of your folders and your favorite applications to locate them more easily.
- Of the weather and clock widgets custom-calibrated for the user and which use the same dot-matrix font as the Nothing logo.
- Nothing wallpapers and style : To personalize your home screen with Nothing wallpapers and the associated color palette.
The Nothing OS launcher beta is now available on some Android smartphones from the Google Play Store. To install it, just follow these steps:
- Download the Nothing Launcher (Beta) from the Google Play Store
- Meet in your Settings > Apps > Default apps > Default home app
- Select Nothing Launcher
For those whose Android smartphone is not compatible, it is also possible for you to try the launcher by installing the APK.
