Testing the Nothing Phone (1): the firefly of smartphones

There aren’t many significant improvements to make to smartphone hardware. So it seems only logical that Nothing is attracting attention mainly with the design of its first smartphone. The features also give no cause for criticism, but the camera system still has room for improvement.

Flash(ing)back: the Glyph Interface

The Nothing Phone (1) looks bulky. This is partly down to the aluminium frame, but the effect is enhanced by the fact that it’s not rounded on the long sides. The Gorilla Glass 5 back is transparent and offers a glimpse of the smartphone’s inner workings. Visually, this already sets it apart from the masses. What makes it really unique, however, is the Glyph Interface, which includes a total of five LED elements on the back. Along with sounds and vibrations, the glyphs are a visual way to notify you of incoming calls or notifications.

There are ten light patterns for calls and notifications to choose from in the settings. You can also assign different patterns to different contacts, enable Phone (1) to switch exclusively to glyph notifications as soon as you place it on its display and use the lower LED strip as a battery status indicator when charging.

The glyph interface is definitely an exciting addition to sounds and vibrations. However, I’m on «team discreet» and I’m worried that a constantly flashing smartphone could get annoying in the long run. Of course, that’s more likely if it’s lying around and not in a pocket and depends on the frequency of incoming notifications. But when the camera flash on people’s iPhones activates with every incoming message, I’m tempted to cover them with opaque duct tape.

Nothing OS with no bloatware

In March, company founder Carl Pei touted Phone (1) as the foundation of a new ecosystem, with Nothing OS set to play a major role. Now, smartphone in hand, that seems like a big empty promise. Nothing OS is not that different from others. But, so far, Nothing only offers the Ear (1) as part of the ecosystem.

Nevertheless, I’m very satisfied with the new OS. It has its own visual accents with the dot matrix and boasts a generally restrained design. Less is more again when it comes to the user interface design – just like Nothing’s hardware. In addition, there’s no annoying bloatware at all. Only the apps required by Google are pre-installed with Android 12. The camera and the recorder app are the only in-house developments.

Phone (1) is set to receive three years of Android updates and four years of security updates. That’s fine, but it’s not the longest-term promise among Android devices.

One dual camera is enough

The Nothing Phone (1) has two cameras on the back. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s all you need for most subjects. There’s a 50-megapixel sensor behind both sensors. There are differences between the main and ultra wide-angle cameras in terms of aperture, sensor size and pixel size:

• Main camera: f/1.9, 1/1.56 inches, 1.0 µm
• Ultra wide-angle camera: f/2.2, 1/2.79 inches, 0.64 µm

The best smartphone camera! There’s no doubt about it after I took this cute photo of office dog Polly. I still took some more pictures to avoid solely relying on the good depiction of animal hair.

This photo ticks the box for natural colour reproduction and high level of detail on the Phone (1). However, a closer look reveals a tendency for blurring in the corners.

Strong contrasts are no problem for Phone (1)’s camera. The HDR software does a good job of balancing the differences between shaded and sunny areas.

There’s a range of perspectives offered by the ultra wide-angle camera, the main camera and the double zoom in the camera app. In theory, Phone (1) even offers a 20x digital zoom, but it’s so bad at 10x magnification that it’s not worth bothering.

There’s blurring again in the shots taken with the ultra wide-angle camera – take a look at the upper right-hand corner. And it can’t be explained by the fact that the trees are in the foreground and the background is in focus. In other areas, the leaves in the foreground are sharper.

Nothing’s Phone (1) displays a crescent moon in the viewfinder image in the dark. Clicking on this activates night mode. This doesn’t increase the average level of detail of automatic mode, but it ensures brighter images and slightly better balanced contrasts in very bright areas. However, other night modes do it better. For example, I’d expect to be able to read the destination display on the train on the bridge.

The front camera takes selfies with 16 megapixel resolution. At first glance, they look well lit and presentable. However, if I enlarge the view to 100 per cent, it’s noticeable how few details the front camera images capture. Don’t take selfies in the dark. They’re not even satisfactory when you look at them on the smartphone, which is disappointing even for a mid-range model. There’s no improvement using night mode either, as it doesn’t have a longer exposure time for selfies.

The main camera on the Nothing Phone (1) ranks between good and very good. However, the ultra wide-angle camera and the front camera lower the overall rating when taking photos.

No additional hardware required

With its equipment, the Nothing Phone (1) can’t and doesn’t want to keep up with the top smartphones, which are often twice as expensive. It doesn’t have to; it’s got everything you need.

The 6.55-inch OLED display is bright enough in sunshine. The maximum refresh rate of 120 Hertz corresponds to that of top models and the resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels ensures a sharp image. The fingerprint sensor under the display unlocks Phone (1) reliably.

The Snapdragon 778G+, a mid-range processor, is responsible for the internal performance. In my test device, it has 8 gigabytes of RAM. Nothing also offers variants with 12 gigabytes. However, the difference is hardly noticeable for everyday use and only comes into play for very complex tasks.

You can see how Phone (1) performs in Geekbench 5 compared to other good mid-range smartphones in the following table:

For example, the Nothing Phone (1) beats the Samsung Galaxy A53 in terms of performance. When it comes to graphics, its Exynos 1280 is roughly on par with the Snapdragon 778G+, but the Mediatek Dimensity 1300 graphics on the OnePlus Nord 2T perform significantly better. In the multi-core test, it’s roughly level with the Phone (1), but performs worse with only one computing core. Nevertheless, all three smartphones are well suited for everyday use. However, you won’t be able to play every game on the highest graphics settings. If you want to render videos on your smartphone or do similar computationally intensive things with it, you’re better off with a top-of-the-range smartphone.

The Phone (1)’s 4500 mAh battery gets me through the day easily. Charging with the 45-watt power adapter, which Nothing offers as an option but isn’t included with delivery, isn’t super fast, but it’s still pretty quick. As with other smartphones, half an hour isn’t enough, but an hour should give you a full charge.

There are 128 or 256 gigabytes of internal memory on the Nothing Phone (1) and it can’t be expanded with a micro SD card. You can, however, insert two SIM cards to achieve the same effect.

A refreshing newcomer which needs to tweak its camera system

Design is always a matter of taste, and the same applies to the Nothing Phone (1). I’m happy about the variety it brings to the mass smartphone market. You’ll either love or hate the Glyph interface. The tidy Nothing OS is a big plus for me so far.

The built-in hardware can’t and doesn’t want to keep up with the top smartphones, but it has no real weak points and makes the Phone (1) very easy to use. The main camera delivers good to very good pictures, but the ultra wide-angle camera and the front camera in particular need to be improved. If selfies are really important to you, you should opt for a different smartphone for the time being. The Nord 2T from OnePlus, Nothing founder Carl Pei's previous company, would be an option that delivers better selfies and costs a little less – but it won’t light up your world.