The first phone from London-based phone maker Nothing went on sale last year. Now, the sequel, the Nothing Phone (2), has been unveiled in full glory. It’s a real step up in design from the Nothing Phone (1), which also remains in the range.
Nothing Phone (2) Design
Like the first Nothing phone, this one has a flat-front and steep sides, looking a little like an iPhone (leave them side by side and you can accidentally pick up the wrong one, I can tell you).
The display is bigger here, as we’ll see in a moment, and the front-facing camera now sits at the top of the screen in the middle instead of to the left edge. But bigger changes await when you turn the phone over.
First of all, it feels completely different in the hand, because the entirely flat back of last year’s model now has a pillowed, contoured shape which is spectacularly comfortable in the hand. Pick it up with your eyes closed and you know which way up you’re holding it from the touch alone.
If you’ve seen Nothing Phone (1), you’ll know that it has a transparent glass back, revealing internal components and the Glyphs, a series of LED light strips which flash to order.
The components have had a definite upgrade to the way they look. So, the wireless charging panel which last year looked like the kind of ACME bomb that Wile E Coyote might use against Road Runner, fuse and all, now has a perfectly circular cut-out at its center. The phone comes in two colors, white and dark gray.
The Glyphs have added extra versatility now, too. More on that momentarily.
Nothing Phone (2) Display
The display on Phone (2) is slightly bigger, 6.7 inches instead of the 6.55 inches of Phone (1), though with a fractionally lower pixel density of 394 pixels per inch rather than the 402 ppi from last year’s phone. Let’s just say, you can’t spot the difference. Actually, you can: this year’s phone is noticeably brighter. Like last year, this is a display that has an adaptive refresh rate, going from 120Hz all the way down to just 1Hz as the onscreen content requires.
Nothing Phone (2) Nothing OS
This is an Android phone, but it has a different look from other cellphones. Not least, this is down to an emphasis on monochrome. So, you can choose to replace the gaudy icons or many apps with black-and-white alternatives. This makes for an elegant and understated look that fits with Nothing’s goal of driving us to use our phones better, perhaps so that we aren’t drawn in like magpies by spots of color. In Nothing’s main home screen of widgets, almost everything is black-and-white except for the red second-hand of the analog clock, shining out as though it offered the precision of a Swiss railway station clock. There are tiny blips of color, such as the Google logo in the search bar or a light mauve blob indicating a notification is waiting, but that’s about it. Nothing’s icons are satisfyingly simple, too, with some using the signature dot-matrix printer styling the brand is known for.
That’s in evidence on the always-on display, too, revealing the time, date and weather, for instance.
Nothing Phone (2) Glyphs
The strips of LED on the rear of the phone have been refined and look better, with slightly different shapes. And now they do more. One of my favorites is that you can set the Glyphs as a countdown timer, with one light strip that gradually adjusts until it’s done.
You can also use the Glyphs to see how far away is the Uber you’ve just hired. As it gets nearer, the light winds down. It’s neat.
Nothing Phone (2) Price and availability
The new phone costs from $599 (£579 in the U.K.) and pre-orders have just opened. If you’re in New York, you can go to 69 Gansevoort Street and it’ll be on sale from 7PM Eastern.
In London, the Nothing Store at 4 Peter Street will also have the new phone, available from 5PM London time. The phone is publicly available for sale later this month.
I’ll be writing a full review in the coming days.
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