The nothing phone (1) is the first phone from the new startup created by ex-OnePlus CEO Carl Pei. I was an early supporter of OnePlus, but they became too expensive and their oversaturated, confusing product-releases, persistent straying from their roots, became hugely unappealing to me over recent years.

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 Unboxing and first impressions

Minimal:

# Everything from the packaging, to the software running on the Nothing Phone, is 
minimal and perfectly lacking in any bloatware or unecessary extras.

It is the slimmest phone packaging I have seen, almost as thin as the phone which just slides out of the box. I do like the SIM ejection tool also, it has a handle rather than the usual thin metal frame.   


Nothing Phone (1) Black Version

Nothing Phone (1)


 
$ Unboxing Nothing
 
The design and device packaging is minimal and sleek.

This phone has the best design of any smartphone I have seen. The OS is  close to stock android, with excellent specs - 120Hz display, uniform-bezel display, QI and reverse-wireless charging, excellent design featuring a transparent glass-back and of course, the glyph notification lights. It is a stunning handset and a definite head-turner when the glyphs light up for notifications.            

 

 

Customization - The major selling point of Android

ANDROID CUSTOMIZATION:

# Of course the first thing I did was to customize my homescreen with my usual 
 minimal approach. Something I had missed, and also that is simply not possible to
do or tweak in any way close to Android levels with iPhones.

For my homescreen I am using Nova Launcher. I hide the notification bar, and increase the icon grid layout so that I can centre very closely the tiny (70%) custom icons, of which I also hide the labels. The icon pack I am using is Walnut.

For those on Reddit asking for the exact pixelated wallpaper - here you go! Also here and here are some other cool pixel effect backgrounds which you might like.

The small pixelated weather widget is by Nothing [I do like the aesthetics of their pixelated fonts and designs used throughout the UI.]


My Nothing Phone home screen customization

My Nothing Phone lock screen customization

Taking the Nothing to Tang cafe.


 
$ In the wild
 
Taking it with me whilst grabbing a coffee at Tang.

Some extra icons.


 
$ Customizing Nothing
 
Minimal layout using Nova, added some extra icons.

Overall, this phone is great value for money, and looks and feels premium. The flip to glyph feature is very cool - turn the phone on it's front screen to silence it and allow only 'glyph light' notifications.

The OS needs a lot of work, but is a great starting point - stock Android with some Nothing design tweaks, a nice selection of ringtones and notifications, accompanied by matching glyph light patterns. I will update the post once they release Android 13 - of which word of the beta is that battery life, camera quality, and OS speed improvements are already improved upon over Android 12, in Beta 2.

 

 

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