Nothing Phone 1

Nothing Phone 1 

This is the new nothing phone one, and I'm going to keep things simple. I'm not going to go into the hype of this phone. I'm going to tell you my thoughts on this phone because I know you've been waiting for it. And I'm going to tell you if this is the phone to get in the long run. Let's go.  

Glyph Lights Useful or Gimmick?

So this is the phone that has got a lot of interesting things going for it. But all the hype, all the controversy is around this. The transparent back design with the cliff lights. And I have mixed feelings around it. I mean, I've been using this phone for almost two weeks now. And on day one, when I first got hands on this phone, I was really excited about these lights. See, I was loving how bright these lights got. The haptic feedback while checking out the ringtones is really code. I was loving the charging indicator. I was wirelessly charging earphones to see how cool it looks. It was fun. Day two, the excitement kind of lowered, but I was still purposefully keeping the phone like this face down to check out the lights. I was also discovering things like how the back looks with the torch on, the cool music visualization feature that's hidden and sinks the glyph lights with the music. It was still fun. Day three is when it sight me. These lights are cool, but they aren't very useful. I mean, all of us generally keep our phones faceup, and most of the new phones have always on display, which notifies us of any new messages or emails. So do we actually need these lights in the next few days? I actually started forgetting about these lights. Yes, there are people around me commenting on the bag, the lights. Yes, this phone is an attention grabber, but I stopped noticing the lights or playing with it. See, I get it. Nothing needed to have that one cool feature that grabbed all the attention. And maybe in the future, nothing cools. These lights will actually get more practical, more useful. But right now, these are just cool lights.

The Design 

Look, these lights apart. The nothing phone one actually looks really good. I mean, this is a very cool looking phone with the wide variant or the black one. These stand out among every other smartphone. I really like this. I know the frame gives it an iPhone like wipe, but I'm okay with that because it's 

aluminium and it looks good. The phone is on the slightly bigger and heavier side, and that's something I noticed the moment I started using it. But I have gotten used to it. The fingerprint scanner is fast and fairly consistent. The serial speakers are very loud, but that's mostly due to the bottom speaker, because the earpiece, which houses the proximity midi sensor, and the secondary speaker is kind of low on volume. I also really like the nice symmetrical bezels on the front and the disc is actually good. 

Display 

These are the specs, and I know there's no LTPO, but this is a very nice display. I've been using this phone as my daily driver and I have had no problems with it. In fact, I like this display a lot. It's smooth, it's pride, it gets very dim when you want it to, and it's an all round good panel. Nothing claims HDR ten plus support, but that's not supported in apps like Netflix. But movies and shows do look good on this screen. So this whole design is very premium, no doubts. 

The Problem with Quality Control!

There are big issues. I mean, I've seen a lot of photos of dust getting inside this back. One of the Led strips in a white unit is kind of peeling off. There's some yellowing around the LEDs in both the phones. The wireless charging at times does not work, although deciding the phone fixes it. On a similar note, our black unit got a dead pixel on the very first day, with it ever spreading tricky. There is a problem with quality control in this phone, and I'm sure nothing knows about this.

Performance

Anyway, these issues about the performance here is good. The phone phone is very smooth in day today usage, and even gaming is good too. I was kind of expecting this because the778 G is a very refined chipset that does not throttle or have any heating issues. And it shows in the nothing phone one. I never noticed the phone getting heated up. There was a bit of warmth when gaming for an hour or so, but that's very normal. I know you do get phones with Snap dragon Triple Eight, Snapdragon 870, Dimensity 8100, but it's not always about the specs personally. It's the experience that matters, and nothing phone one lives up on that. Nothing OS is also a big factor here. It's super clean experience with absolutely nothing in the way of bloatware. No shady features, and I like the subtle nothingness in the UI.I like these widgets. I like how the always on display and the lock screen are the same, so it looks very seamless. I like this animation when you unlock the phone or lock it. The Glyph interface is cool too. There are different ringtones notification sounds. And I like that you can even add your own ringtone to it. You can even turn off the clip lights if you want. And the UI is nice. Another thing we noticed is that when you hit the camera indicator on top while you're in a video corn, you get this ported mode option, and I'm not sure I've seen it on other phones. 

Features Missing from Stock Android! 

Another thing over here is mostly like stock Android. But I noticed a couple of strange things. For example, there are no option to block camera and mic in the Quick settings which stock Android has. I also don't like the fact that if I have to turn off Wi Fi, I have to open notifications. Swipe down to access all the quick settings. Now swipe here and then tap on Wi Fi and then turn it off. This is crazy, but these are not exactly deal breakers. And honestly, nothing. OS kind of reminds me of the OG Oxygen. OS I mean, it's not as feature rich as Oxygen OS was, but its source code is available. The bootloader is easily unlockable. Google camera mods are already out there working really well. And I also like that Nothing has promised three major updates and four years of security patches. So it's a nice experience which will hopefully get better. 

Bugs in the Software! 

But it's not all perfect because there are quite a few bugs. For example, the phone crashes sometimes when you open a notification from the lock screen and then use the fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. There's also this weird bug where the bag gesture just gets stuck like this. Some times the system UI just crashes. See, these bugs can be bugging, but I really hope Nothing fixes them, because other than that, the experience here is really good. 

Camera Performance! 

Any of the cameras on the Nothing phone one are also actually good. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the camera. The UI is okay and there was a bit of shutter lag, but the photos are good. The main camera takes detailed photos with good dynamic range, nice contrast, and I like that the colors are very realistic. I did notice some focusing issues in the camera at times, but other than that, I like the performance here because even low light camera performance is pretty good. The night mode automatically kicks in and most of the low light shots look really sharp and detailed with fairly good noise reduction. 

Front Camera! 

The selfie camera is a 16 megapixel sensor and the selfies are mostly sharp and fairly detailed, but nothing extraordinary.

Videos!

There is FPS recording on the back ten, ATP recording on the front, and I also noticed that there's no way to switch between the ultrawide camera and the main camera while shooting videos. Anyway, 4K videos on the phone are fairly good. They're natural with good sharpness, and I also like the dynamic range. One thing to note is that stability, even with OIS is kind of decent. 

Battery and Charging!

The battery size is 4500 image, which is fine ,but the battery performance is good on light usage with some calls, some social media, some browsing. On Chrome, I got a screen on time around 6 hours, which is pretty good on heavy usage with some gaming, some camera usage. I got a screen on time of 5 hours, which is again good. The phone one does not come with a charger in the box, which is sad. Anyway, support, speedy charging and with the MacBook Pro charge of the phone took one R to go from ten to 100%, which is fine. The phone also has wireless charging support, which is great because you don't get that in phones in this segment. 

Connectivity! 

The phone is solid in terms of connectivity. I face no issues with network coverage or calling. And there's also carry intergregation support, if you're wondering. And there's twelve 5G bands, Wi Fi six support and Bluetooth 5.2.So everything's pretty much covered. 

The Verdict!

It's time for the verdict. Now. See, the nothing phone one is a phone I actually like mostly. But there's one big doubt. See, I like it because once you look past the lights, this is a fairly premium midrange smart phone. It looks very cool, it feels very premium. The discipline cameras are good. The software experience is well thought out and clean. Yes, there are bugs into software that Nothing needs to fix, but I'm willing to ignore them because this is Nothing's first attempt at a smartphone. So I want to recommend this phone. But the biggest doubt I have is how will this phone do in the long run? With all the quality control issues I've been seeing and hearing about, it just makes me skeptical. Will it get all dusty? Will all the LEDs get yellow or just peel off? I mean, I don't know. These are answers will only get six months one year down the line, so we'll have to wait and watch. Anyway, I have a question for you guys. Will you buy the nothing phone one or wait for a more refined second generation nothing phone two? Comment down your thoughts below. 

Price! 

The price of the nothing phone is 500$.