Nothing Phone Review (1): We needed it

Aligning with the “best” smartphones of the moment also in the packaging of Nothing Phone (1) we find nothing but the smartphone its USB-C / USB-C charging cable. Nice tool to eject the SIM trolley, also transparent. The power supply, if you want to buy his, is to be bought separately for 30 €, as well as the possible transparent cover (you don’t want to cover the back, right?).

It is hardly a surprise to find that Nothing Phone (1) focuses everything on aesthetics and also on build quality. The smartphone has a square metal profile and two glasses Gorilla Glass 5 plates, on the front and on the back. In the hand, the feeling of quality is remarkable and it is perhaps one of the smartphones best finished in detail, at least among those tested in recent months. It also has protection IP53 against dust and splashes. It is not waterproof, but better than nothing. Under the rear window we find then some components “in plain sight” surrounded by 9,000 small LEDs that illuminate the phone with very particular geometric designs. These lights can signal the arrival of notifications, calls or the smartphone being charged and obviously have only an aesthetic purpose.

It must be said that the smartphone is not compact and from the first impact it immediately seemed larger than expected. And then curiosity arose there: why did I have expectations of size if this is the first of a generation? The answer I gave myself is that whether we like it or not, especially live, the smartphone clearly recalls various design elements of the iPhone line. Just enough for the brain to make such a connection. And I had the confirmation during the use of these weeks: you have no idea how many “but is it an iPhone?” I heard myself say. And it never happened.

There is no doubt, however, that the back serves its intended purpose: to attract attention and get noticed. This Nothing Phone (1) is for those who want something different, something recognizable but at the same time never seen before. It is obviously not a need shared by all, but it is undeniable that it is for many.

Nothing Phone (1) is a mid-range. Point. The price will also prove it, but it is right to clarify it right away because it is also true that usually when there is anticipation around a product this product has top-of-the-range hardware. That’s not the case. Times have changed and now a medium range is a smartphone more than enough for almost everyone and above all it allows you to keep the price a little lower.

We have the processor Snapdragon 778G + octa core from 2.5 Ghz, the Adreno 642L GPU and 8 or 12 GB of RAM. From our tests we have seen how the smartphone begins to suffer from a bit of marked thermal throttling only after almost half an hour of use under stress. Definitely an excellent result. The internal memory amounts to 128 or 256 GB not expandable (UFS 3.1) and we have Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, connectivity 5G, NFC chip and dual SIM support. There is no video output and there is no 3.5mm headphone connector (just USB-C).

The audio is then stereo thanks to the support of the ear capsule in conjunction with the lower speaker, but the power is decidedly good, the same cannot be said of the quality which instead (at higher volumes) is only sufficient.

If for the hardware we can say that on the whole the user experience is not too dissimilar to that of a top of the range, the same can probably not be said for the camera which returns to all intents and purposes mid-range results. The main sensor is one 50 megapixel ƒ / 1.9 optically stabilizedthen accompanied by a 50 megapixel ƒ / 2.2 wide angle and a 16 megapixel ƒ / 2.5 front in the display hole.

The shooting interface is neat and very minimal. Don’t expect a ton of features, but for a “first” there is everything you need. Night mode is activated directly from automatic mode by selecting the moon symbol. The resulting photos, as anticipated, are not surprising, but fortunately they are not even disastrous. The focus is good and the definition is more than decent. However, the software still seems to be refined on the management of the lights and above all on the color balance that is sometimes wrong in a quite sensational way. Low-light photos are decent: the night mode, however, does its job well by “pulling in” more light and increasing the definition of the image. Only the wide angle is sufficient, which often has a very different yield from the main sensor. Even the front does not scream a miracle, but always does not give poor shots.

Too bad for the videos that are also sufficient, but without particularly positive ideas. In 4K the framerate stops at 30fps. Not bad if this had served to ensure excellent stabilization, which, however, was not.

Big smartphone, big display. In this Nothing Phone (1) we have a 6.55-inch diagonal panel with FullHD + resolution (1080 x 2400 pixels) made in technology OLED which supports theHDR10 + and which is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. The screen supports adaptive refresh rate to 120 Hz, although not as scalable as smartphones with an AMOLED LTPO panel. It also has a very good peak brightness of 1,200 nits and above all it has totally symmetrical edges around the display. It is one of the factors that immediately brings to mind the iPhone and that satisfies the obsessive compulsive disorder of many (myself included). Brava Nothing, also because if the other producers do not commit themselves on this front it is because it is not as simple as it seems.

Nothing Phone (1) arrives on the market with Nothing OS 1.1, the company’s operating system. In fact, however, this translates into a practically stock Android with some minimal aesthetic customizations of the company, in my opinion some even quite questionable (such as the huge toggles of the network and bluetooth). In terms of functionality there is nothing to report (which is not native to Android) and perhaps this was the biggest disappointment. I try to explain myself better: we have always praised an Android stock clean that also allows companies to be much faster in updating software. However, this does not exclude trying to really enrich the system, to make it unique. And who should have done it if not the company that transformed the back of its first smartphone into a minimal techno? When Carl Pei talked about OS (therefore operating system) we already anticipated a minimal HTC Sense updated to the canons of 2022.

However, there is the obvious (and already mentioned) twist of the coin: the company has promised bimonthly security updates for four years and new versions of Android at least up to Android 15.

The smartphone is big but the battery isn’t as big. It’s about a 4,500 mAh, less than the “classic” 5,000 that we find in smartphones of this size, but the reason is soon said: the transparent back steals space inside the body and it was impossible (reasonably) to find a different compromise. There is, however wireless charging at 15W and above all we found an excellent autonomy considering the battery available. We have always reached the end of the day even with intense use. Charging is fast at 33W, an average value for the reference range, but certainly not surprising.

The smartphone is sold (also on Amazon) to € 499 in its 8/128 version, which become € 529 for the recommended version 8/256 and € 579 for the 12/256 version. Prices in the average and that certainly do not scream a miracle. What we think weighed the most here was the engineering of the rear LEDs. Surely, a price is also being given to the external appearance and not just to what is under the body.