The Nothing Phone 1 is now official and the first Nothing Phone 1 reviews are landing. But is the Nothing Phone 1 legit? Let’s find out…


Entering the phone market in 2022 is nigh-on impossible. You have brands like Sony that are struggling despite being an active player in the market for over a decade. But Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus and Nothing, isn’t just anyone – he’s a guy with a very specific set of skills.

With OnePlus, he found a niche in the market – cheap, high-spec phones – that wasn’t really being exploited to its full extent. Xiaomi was still locked away behind the red wall and Google’s Nexus phones, while decent, were a mixed bag with respect to sales and brand appeal.

Pei saw a gap, pivoted, and created one of the most successful, innovative phone brands to ever work inside the market. OnePlus grew rapidly without spending billions on marketing like Samsung and earned itself a place at the table, alongside Apple, Samsung, OPPO, and Huawei.

Pei left OnePlus a few years back; apparently, he wasn’t keen on the direction the company was going in – a sentiment shared by plenty of other fans of the brand. His new venture, Nothing, is based out of London and to date has released two products: the Nothing 1 EarBuds and, of course, the focus of this post: the Nothing Phone 1.

The Nothing Phone 1 is a cost-effective Android phone that packs in plenty of high-end specs, a unique design, and all the bells and whistles most people want from a phone – things like a 120Hz OLED display, a decent-sized battery, plenty of storage, and lots of RAM, as well as a fairly good processor.

Nothing Phone (1)
4.0
£231.24

The Nothing Phone 1 nail the essentials perfectly. It looks good and is fairly unique in its design, no mean feat in 2022, and it has plenty of performance under the hood, a very impressive display, and decent but not marketing-leading battery life. And all for less than £400!

Pros:
  • Nothing OS Android-based UX is Stunning
  • Transparent design and glyph lighting will turn heads
  • Excellent Price
  • Solid Performance
  • Decent Camera Performance
12/08/2024 12:49 am GMT

But is all as it seems? Let’s take a look at some Nothing Phone 1 reviews to find out…

Nothing Phone 1 Reviews

80

STUFF

90

TECH ADVISOR

70

The Verge

80

Trusted Reviews

80

Android Authority

85

CNET

Nothing Phone 1 Specs

Nothing Phone 1 SpecValue
Screen6.55in, 2400×1080 flexible OLED w/ 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+
CPUQualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ octa-core
Memory8GB/12GB RAM
Cameras50MP, f/1.9 main w/ phase-detect autofocus, OIS, EIS + 50MP, f/2.2 ultrawide w/ EIS.
16MP, f/2.5 front
Storage128GB/256GB
Operating SystemAndroid 12 w/ NothingOS
Battery4500mAh non-removable w/ 33W wired, 15W wireless charging, 5W reverse charging
Dimensions159x76x8.3mm, 194g

Is The Nothing Phone 1 Worth It?

The Nothing Phone 1 appears to nail the essentials perfectly. It looks good and is fairly unique in its design, no mean feat in 2022, and it has plenty of performance under the hood, a very impressive display, and decent but not marketing-leading battery life. Not too shabby, right?

If you’re after a cheaper alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, this phone is well worth a look.

Nothing Phone 1 ReviewsPin

My only concern about recommending this phone would be that there are some pretty well-known issues affecting it right now. Most of these will almost certainly be fixed by firmware updates. But with new phone brands, it is just impossible to get read on how good its quality control is – Nothing has only released two products to date.

For me, this makes the Nothing Phone 1 a risky buy. Personally, I tend to avoid brand new phones or products from brand new brands. The first generation of any new product line is always glitchy; you have to make mistakes to make progress, after all. For this reason, while I agree the Nothing Phone 1 is well worth the asking price, I’d feel much more comfortable recommending a more established phone like the Pixel 6a.

With the Pixel 6a, you know what you’re getting: a brilliant camera, four years’ worth of Android updates, the best Android software in the business, and very good performance via Google’s now-road-tested Tensor CPU. Given that the Pixel 6a and Nothing Phone 1 are relatively close with respect to price, I’d be inclined to lean towards the Pixel 6a.

But that’s purely me being boring – the Pixel 6a it is a safer and, in some respects, better phone overall. I know Google, for all its foibles and issues, so I know what I’m getting myself into. With Nothing, I have no idea about this company, its overall quality control, its support, and whether or not it’ll still be in business in 12 to 18 months’ time.

On a more positive note, as first-phone releases go, Carl Pei and his team at Nothing appear to have outdone themselves. Nearly all of the Nothing Phone 1 reviews you’ll find online praise the phone’s design, its unique approach to notifications via the Glyph-based system it uses, and the fact that it isn’t just another boring phone. Nothing has a vision, and a belief in what it wants to do and achieve, so I cannot wait to see what it comes up with the Nothing Phone 2…

Nothing Phone (1)
4.0
£231.24

The Nothing Phone 1 nail the essentials perfectly. It looks good and is fairly unique in its design, no mean feat in 2022, and it has plenty of performance under the hood, a very impressive display, and decent but not marketing-leading battery life. And all for less than £400!

Pros:
  • Nothing OS Android-based UX is Stunning
  • Transparent design and glyph lighting will turn heads
  • Excellent Price
  • Solid Performance
  • Decent Camera Performance
12/08/2024 12:49 am GMT

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