Here’s everything we know about Nothing
View(s):By Mahesh De Andrado
You’d think naming a company “Nothing” would not spark much interest. But to the contrary. Founded by Carl Pei, Nothing Technology Limited (or simply Nothing) is a consumer technology company based in London. In case you missed it, Carl Pei was one of the founders of OnePlus alongside Pete Lau and was also the director of OnePlus Global. He left OnePlus in 2020 to work on Nothing (no pun intended). The company currently has a reputable list of investors including iPod inventor Tony Fadell, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and YouTuber Casey Neistat. The company launched their first product, the Nothing Ear 1, a set of wireless earbuds on July 27, 2021, and are now on the cusp of launching their own smartphone as well. Its name? Yup, it’s the Nothing Phone 1 (who would have thought?)
Here goes Nothing!
Seeing as the Nothing Phone would come from a lineage of impressive smartphones such as the OnePlus One, you’d think it would bring a lot to the table, and you’re right, but also not quite right. For starters, the device features a transparent design, much like the Nothing Earbuds. So you can pretty much see the heart and brains of your smartphone, which is pretty cool. Added to that, the back of the Nothing Phone consists of 900 tiny LEDs that make up a Glyph interface. The LEDs are broken down into different zones and can be configured via the phone’s settings app to light up and pulsate to the various ringtones and notification tones of the device.
A novel concept indeed but also brings out a slew of questions. For example, how will it affect the battery life of the phone? What if you’re in a movie theater or a dark room and your phone lights up like the bat signal? These are some of the points that might cause issues, but we’ll have to see how it actually performs.
Moving on to the rest of the specs of the Nothing Phone, it will pack a 6.55” 120Hz OLED panel, 50MP+16MP rear camera and a 16MP selfie camera. All this will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G Plus, backed up by 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. No word yet on whether the storage is expandable or not. Keeping all this running will be a 4500mAh battery that is capable of charging at upto 45W. We don’t know if the phone will ship with a 45W charger or whether it will be sold separately.
Is this nothing to be excited about?
In all honesty, though, the specs were a bit of a letdown for me, especially in the processor department. If it was at least a Snapdragon 860 or even an 865, then that would have made more sense seeing as how powerful, yet energy-efficient those chips are. The 8GB of RAM also makes sense if you’re the type of person who switches between a lot of apps. The 120Hz OLED panel (again which is sort of becoming the norm now) helps in making your apps, movies and photos look vibrant and also feel smooth as you’re scrolling through Instagram or Facebook. But we don’t know who the manufacturer of the panel would be and if Nothing is using an inferior display to cut corners and keep the cost down. If you’re running out of juice, a 45W Charger should have your phone up and running like nothing (again, no pun intended). But again, we don’t know if the phone will ship with a charger or will require you to buy one separately.
How can I get my hands on a Nothing Phone?
Well, that’s where things get even more interesting. For starters, the Nothing Phone 1 will not be selling in the US. According to a representative at Nothing, “While we’d love to bring phone (1) to the entire community around the world, we’re focusing on home markets, including the UK and Europe, where we have strong partnerships with leading local carriers.
Behold! The Nothing Phone (Image Credits: Gizmo China)
Rather, 100 Nothing Phones were made available via auction on StockX. Accordingly, Nothing will select the highest 100 bids and will send out 100 serialized devices to these 100 lucky winners. Carl Pei has also stated the Nothing Phone 1 will only be available through an invite system. Based on rumours, the device is expected to be around $397 and $456 depending on the storage and RAM configuration. There were also rumours that the Nothing Phone 1 might have offline sales in India, but that too remains to be seen. The phone launches on July 12, 2022.
What do you think about the Nothing Phone 1? Excited? Disappointed? Let us know.
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