The most anticipated phone of the year is finally here, and it’s good

After months of hype, teasers, and leaks, the Nothing Phone 1 was finally revealed in full on July 12, 2022. A product like this usually has trouble living up to the promises and high expectations, but the Phone 1 is a surprisingly good Android smartphone. While there are some issues with the Phone 1, it is mostly a solid device that offers some of the best features in the midrange market these days, considering its ​​£400 / €470 entry-level price.

The Nothing Phone 1 is the first smartphone from Nothing. It does a lot of things right, but there are a few wrinkles that still need to be ironed out.

Nothing decided not to bring the Phone 1 to the US. The company says that it wanted to focus on markets that aren't as carrier-focused as the US, as it doesn't have to build up a relationship with network providers before even reaching a consumer audience. As such, the Phone 1 is available in the UK, Europe, Japan, and India. It's a bummer, especially when we consider that Nothing CEO's former brand OnePlus sold its very first OnePlus One phone unlocked in the US.

While you can import the Nothing Phone 1 to the US, be prepared to not be able to use it like other handsets. The Phone 1 only supports a handful of the radio bands it would need to work well in the US. Nothing says that the Phone 1 will work to some extent, you'll get to battle spotty coverage on T-Mobile and won't get VoLTE on AT&T.

When we talk about the Nothing Phone 1, there is no way we can ignore its unique design. Looking at the front, it may not seem too special. Still, it immediately gives the impression that it can’t possibly cost as little as £400. The screen has small, evenly sized bezels all around, with Nothing opting for a flexible display that bends into the phone itself at the bottom—much like what Apple has done since the iPhone X, and still a rarity on Android phones today . The sides feel equally premium. They’re made from recycled aluminum, which helps keep the not-so-small phone manageable in weight. Overall, this could as well be an iPhone 13 Pro based on the build quality, even down to the size and design of the two volume buttons on the left side and the power button on the right.

Once you look at the back, you get to see the true highlight of the Phone 1’s design. The back is covered by transparent glass, revealing a look inside the phone — this goes for both the white and black version. In contrast to the full transparent effect Nothing used for the Ear 1 earbuds, the company went for a more elaborate approach for its phone. While you can make out individual components under the glass, they’re all covered by white plates. This still gives you all kinds of different textures and layers, but it looks much cleaner than what you would get if you would just expose the components, like what the Fairphone 3 did.

Unfortunately, the transparent back doesn’t make the Phone 1 any more repairable than most other modern smartphones out there—the glass back is held in place with adhesive like any other glass sandwich smartphone. It feels a bit ironic, given that you can see the screws holding everything in place, without an easy, non-destructive way to touch them yourself. This feeling only gets stronger when you consider that Nothing proudly proclaims its responsibility, saying that it sourced 100% recycled aluminum and made 50% of its plastics bio-based, built from recycled materials—a good step, but nothing compared to what products like the Fairphone 4 do.

I’ve also spotted a barely visible discoloration in the top plate next to the camera that I’m not sure was there when I first received the unit. This obviously isn’t something that affects the experience, but it’s still weird to see it in a spot that doesn't have any contact with the outside world. My guess is that this is where the SoC is placed, and it might have gotten a little hotter during some of my testing. Only a longer-term test will show if this is cause for concern when it comes to aesthetics, though.

As if the transparent back itself wasn’t enough, Nothing went a step further and added LED strips to some of the components. The company tells me that it had to place over 900 individual LEDs and use a protective layer, held together with yellow-ish glue to neutralize blue wavelengths and light bleeding. You wouldn’t think that adding a few LEDs to the back of a phone is that involved, but apparently it is.

Together, these LED strips form what Nothing calls the “Glyph” interface. As you’ve undoubtedly seen by now thanks to Marques Brownlee’s early hands-on, the light strips flash in sync with your notification and call sounds. You can assign different light shows and sounds to different callers, helping you get an idea who is calling you when you’ve got the phone face-down on the table. The same idea also applies for app notifications, though here, you can’t select your preferred contacts or apps right in the Glyph settings pane.

Nothing promotes the Glyph interface as an advantage to help you focus on the world around you more than on your phone. The idea is that rather than having your phone face up on the table while you’re out and about with friends or while you’re focusing on work, you’re putting it face down. This is supposed to avoid distracting notifications from coming in, but the lights should still help you identify when an important call from, say, your mother or partner comes in.

As much as I enjoyed playing with the light show in early stages of testing, I’m finding it increasingly distracting. With the Glyph interface activated, it feels like there is no escaping from notifications anymore. Usually, I turn my phone face-down to avoid seeing any notifications at all that could distract me from the moment. The Pixel series solves this elegantly, with phones optionally automatically turning on the Do Not Disturb mode when placed face-down.

However, the Phone 1 alerts me about incoming notifications face down and face up. In the Glyph settings, there is even a section that allows you to turn on “Flip to Glyph,” which much like the Pixel’s “Flip to Shh” turns on silent mode—but leaving the Glyph light show on for notification. Given that this means you’ll still get visual cues on new notifications, this isn’t an escape from notification overload.

In the long-term, this means I will probably turn off the Glyph interface, which is easily done in settings or via a quick settings toggle. Once I do this, this whole engineering feat will be wholly in vain for me. And I reckon that I’m not the only one to think of my phone usage in this way. In any case, those who want to stay connected at all times will probably leave their phone face-up anyway and see what notifications are coming in on the always-on display, or turn on Do Not Disturb mode in full.

In summary, Nothing created an overly complicated solution for a problem that has been solved sufficiently already. That leaves only one conclusion: The Glyph interface isn’t for those who own the phone, it’s for those who don’t have it yet. It merely serves as a marketing vehicle setting the Phone 1 apart from the competition. And I have to admit that it’s working—it’s a fun feature to demo and play with, even though it doesn’t really serve any purpose for me beyond that, and it already helped Nothing set itself apart from the midrange competition, from a design perspective.

At least the Glyph interface doesn’t tax the battery much either. Nothing tells me that in its testing, the Glyph interface only drained 0.5% of the total battery life running on full brightness for 10 minutes straight.

The Nothing Phone 1’s hardware is fairly standard for a mid-range phone, with one key difference. This Snapdragon 778G+ phone supports wireless and reverse-wireless charging, a capability that is usually limited to higher-end devices. Nothing worked closely with Qualcomm to enable this feature for the 778+, which usually doesn’t support it. The processor is joined by up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The entry-level model comes with 8+128GB, while the unit we’ve got for review is the middle ground with its 8+256GB configuration. As for pricing, you’re looking at £400, £450, and £500 for 8+128, 8+256, and 12+256GB, respectively.

Moving on, the Phone 1 ticks the usual boxes. It supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, has NFC on board, and can work with up to two SIM cards at once. There are also stereo speakers on board, though as with many phones that use a combination of a bottom-firing speaker and an earpiece, the sound coming from them isn’t quite even. The bottom-firing speaker is noticeably louder and clearer.

The other bummer is the lack of proper waterproofing. The Phone 1 only has an IP53 certification, meaning it’s protected from splashes and dust. Under normal conditions, this should be fine, but definitely don’t take the Phone 1 to the pool or the beach.

We also need to talk about the haptics. While the Phone 1 itself feels incredibly solid and sturdy in the hand, it would seem the company cut corners with the vibration motor. This is particularly noticeable when typing. The Phone 1 makes noticeable sounds when vibrating, making for a less haptic and a more audible experience. The vibration also isn’t very punchy, either, trending rather toward the mushy side. This is probably all you can expect out of a fairly standard x-axis motor, though I still hope this can be improved with software updates.

Nothing went for an interesting design when it comes to packaging, too. The box is so flat that it is barely as high as the phone itself, which means that the company had to spread it out to make room for the USB-C cable, the SIM ejector tool, and the usual paperwork, making the packaging look more like a special edition album box than a phone box.

That’s all there is to the box, too—no further accessories or a charging brick. The company will sell you these accessories, though. A 45W charger can be purchased separately for £35. A clear polycarbonate case is available for £25, and a tempered glass screen protector can be had for £19. The latter is quite unnecessary when you just get the phone, though. A plastic screen protector is pre-applied, which should be good for a few months.

While the lack of additional accessories might not be anything weird when you consider flagship phones in the US, the reality is that a lot of other phones from the likes of Xiaomi, Realme, and Oppo ship with all of these accessories in the box. If you want and need a case and a charger, the Phone 1 is going to be a more expensive option. With Nothing selling the Phone 1 in highly competitive markets like India, this omission could hurt its sales.

The Nothing Phone 1 has a crisp and fast OLED panel with a resolution of 2400 x 1080. It gets plenty bright in daylight with a maximum brightness of 1,200 nits. The refresh rate is dynamic and can go from 60 to 120Hz, depending on what content you’re viewing. A year ago, this would have been stand-out hardware for a £400 device, but these days, many phones in the price range offer comparable or better specs.

While the screen is good, it isn’t perfect. When the brightness is at its lowest, you notice slight uneven areas and a slight green tint, with pixels lit at varying degrees of brightness. With dark mode activated by default out of the box, this becomes extra noticeable. I’ve seen this issue much more pronounced on other phones, though, and it’s a problem inherent to OLED technology in this price range.

In addition to the Glyph interface, the Phone 1 also has an optional always-on display. It’s pretty similar to what you get on the Pixel, down to the fade-in and fade-out animation you get when you hit the power button. It always shows you the current time and date along with the weather, and it will light up briefly for new notifications.

Nothing pitched its Nothing OS as a big differentiator compared to other manufacturers, but in the end, it almost feels too barebones. However, I think it’s good that Nothing started with a clean slate rather than trying to one-up busy skins like Oppo’s Color OS or Xiaomi’s MIUI right out of the box. It is definitely refreshing to see a mid range phone without any bloatware to speak of that isn’t a Pixel.

The biggest change Nothing OS makes to Android 12 can be found in the quick settings toggles in the notification shade. The Internet and Bluetooth toggles are always up top, with no option to switch them out for something else. Once you expand the quick toggles panel in full, these two toggles will balloon in size and become properly rounded. It’s possible to swipe through mobile data, Wi-Fi, and hotspot in the Internet toggle. Over time, the Bluetooth toggle will also have different quick shortcuts as Nothing introduces brand partnerships. Right now, the toggle can be used in conjunction with a Tesla car, with quick actions in it that let you lock the car or check the battery status.

The Nothing Launcher is pretty close to the Pixel Launcher, too, down to the Google Discover panel. It also offers a permanent search bar on top of the bottom app bar, and an At a Glance-like weather and calendar widget at the top. While you can easily remove the latter and replace it with anything else you want, the search bar will always be part of the experience. You can also install and use custom icon packs with the launcher. Nothing has added a few custom widgets to the launcher, too, mostly to show off its dotted typeface. You can add an analogue or digital clock, a weather widget, and, yes, an NFT wallet via WalletConnect, which is also pre-installed. Thankfully, this stays out of the way unless you connect your crypto wallet with it.

The rest of the software is decidedly basic, save for Nothing’s typeface ornamenting the home and lock screens as well as settings. Material You support is also on board, and it behaves very much like the Pixel implementation. It doesn’t have some of the other smarts that Pixel phones have, though. You can’t copy text from the recents overview, and Gboard’s advanced on-device dictation also isn’t there. Let’s not even mention car crash detection, automatic song recognition in the background, and automatic subtitles for any audio source imaginable.

Nothing promises three years of Android updates and four years of bi-monthly security patches with its software. This puts it just behind Google when it comes to software support, as new Pixel phones receive three years of updates and five years of monthly security patches. For a brand-new company still spinning everything up, this is not too bad—if it can keep up with the promises.

While I had serious issues with standby battery drain the first day or two that I used the phone, this was quickly fixed by two software updates, bringing my unit up to Nothing OS 1.0.2. Since then, battery life is consistent and predictable, with about five hours of screen time leaving some juice at the end of the day for me. Paired with fast 33W charging that brings the Phone 1 up to 50% in half an hour, there isn’t much to complain about in this department. Sure, Xiaomi and Oppo phones support much faster charging, but 33W is a fine middle ground in 2022.

The performance the Snapdragon 778G+ gives the Nothing Phone 1 is also ample. While I’m sure Nothing could have eked out a few milliseconds of faster app load times and slightly better website performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it is definitely fast enough for all everyday tasks you can throw at it in the foreseeable future. The only hiccup I run into routinely is when the phone wakes up from standby. The lock screen always takes an extra second to respond and allow me to unlock the phone. Sometimes the UI even fully crashes and redraws when I double tap a notification on the lock screen to jump right into it. This happens both when I turn on the screen with the power button and when the screen wakes up by itself thanks to the motion sensors that recognize when you lift it to your face.

The Nothing Phone 1 wirelessly charging the Honor Earbuds 3 Pro

I was initially quite impressed with the cameras, but the longer I’m testing the Nothing Phone, the more it’s clear to me that it offers the usual midrange performance, despite the dual 50MP shooters Nothing opted for. For the hardware, we’re looking at a 50MP Sony IMX766 camera as the primary and a 50MP Samsung JN1 sensor as the ultra wide. On the front, there is a 16MP Sony IMX471.

The Phone 1 has a flashing red video recording light

In daylight, images are pretty consistent, at least when you stick with one of the two cameras for all subsequent shots. As you switch between the primary and the ultra wide, you will notice quite some difference in the color temperature and sharpness. This is likely something that can still be fixed in software, though, and looking at images in isolation, you’ll be hard-pressed to notice.

Color temperature isn't so consistent across the main and wide angle camera

In low light, the cameras can’t keep up with the competition from Google, Samsung, and Apple. Night mode doesn’t turn on automatically, so you will have to remember to manually turn it on whenever you want to take images in the dark. From my limited testing so far, the night mode also looks grainier than on other phones and isn’t as good at eliminating unwanted movements.

From left to right: Standard, night mode, night mode with Glyph light, Glyph light without night mode, flash

The Glyph lights on the back are an interesting aspect for the camera, too. You may not think it’s the case based on images and videos, but the lights get very bright, to the point where they can serve as an alternative to the LED flash in low brightness, or serve as a ring light replacement for video. At least for photos, the results are mixed, though. Compared to a regular photo taken with the flash, the Glyph light images err on the cooler side, which makes sense given the pure white light the Glyph interface produces. Only when you combine the Glyph light with night mode do the results speak for themselves. The Glyph light definitely introduces a fun new element to photography and videography, and this is something that I have to play with a little more over the next week or so. Stay tuned for our update to this review.

Overall, the camera app feels pretty barebones and like off-the-shelf software. Switching between modes takes the software an extra second, and there are some limitations you don’t see in other phones. For example, you can’t zoom on portrait images, which is something I do all the time with my Pixel phone. Seeing that the camera app is supposed to be running on some version 12.x, it’s very likely that it’s based on some pre-existing software.

Yes, if you want a unique looking mid-range phone that ticks all the right boxes—and if it’s available where you live. The Phone 1 is one of the most interesting sub-£500 phones on the market right now, and it does a lot of things right, which is impressive as the first phone from a new company. It’s clear that the focus is very much on the unique back design more than anything else, though. When you take this away, you’re left with a pretty standard mid-range phone that has to compete in an incredibly crowded market.

If you don’t care about the unique look, you might be better off with a Pixel 6a that’s just around the corner. It also comes with a clean Android version and is guaranteed to get updates for the next five years. Plus, the camera is more than likely going to blow the Phone 1 out of the water, at least based on how budget Pixel cameras have performed in the past. And let's not talk about importing the Phone 1 to the US. It will cost you more money than many comparable great budget phones out there, and then it won't even work properly on all networks.

The Google Pixel 6a is just around the corner, and Google already shared key details on the phone with the public, so we can get an idea of how it will compare to the Phone 1. The Pixel 6a will be slightly smaller than the Phone 1, coming with a 6.1-inch screen rather than one with 6.5 inches. It also only gives you a refresh rate of 60Hz and only 6GB of RAM rather than 8. Despite these weaknesses on the hardware side, the Pixel 6a will have a lot of software smarts up its sleeve. You can expect almost all the Pixel-exclusive features you know from the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, like supercharged on-device dictation, auto-generated subtitles for all audio content, and more. Given Google's track record, you can also be sure to receive new software updates as early as possible.

On the Samsung side, the Galaxy A53 comes closest in price and specs to the Nothing Phone. It offers a similarly-sized 6.5-inch 120Hz OLED panel, and its battery is even bigger at 5,000mAh. It has a more versatile camera setup, too, with a dedicated macro lens on board and Samsung's software expertise in the area. It also has proper water resistance thanks to an IP67 certification. However, the Galaxy A53 can't compare when it comes to hardware design and build quality. In our review, we note that it feels a bit cheap.

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Manuel is Android Police's Europe Editor, based in Berlin, Germany. He first started writing for the publication in 2019, but has been an Android enthusiast ever since he picked up the HTC One S and later the Nexus 4.