Taking a Look at Nothing

The Nothing Phone 2 That Is

Nothing Phone 2

I am a big fan of Google’s Pixel smartphones. Almost nothing in the smartphone space grabs my attention other than news about the current and next gen of the Pixel line. Now an actual Nothing has caught my eye, and piqued my interest - the Nothing Phone 2. So much so that I ordered one yesterday.

My reasons for getting the Nothing Phone 2 include:

• This phone (and its predecessor, the Nothing Phone 1) are a breath of very fresh air in the smartphone space, and there hasn’t been a lot of that for several years now. Or at least not in ways that appealed to me.

• I’ll admit, the first thing that demanded my attention was the look of these Nothing phones - with their hardware components showing through the back of the phone. It’s immediately striking and interesting. I also enjoy the dark grey color option newly available on the Nothing Phone 2.

• The glyph interface on the back of the phone light up - that’s another striking new feature. And they’re not just for show; there are a number of interesting and even practical ways to use them. Here, I’ll use Nothing’s words to describe this functionality:

For a world craving more me-time and less screen-time, we bring you the Glyph Interface.

Assign different light and sound sequences for each contact and notification type and be one step ahead of who’s getting in touch. Key information, in a flash.

For a world craving more me-time and less screen-time, we bring you the Glyph Interface.

Assign different light and sound sequences for each contact and notification type and be one step ahead of who’s getting in touch. Key information, in a flash.

How cool is that - assigning a specific light and sound sequence for your partner or a family member?

You can even use the “Composer” feature to create ringtones and more. I don’t even know all the ways the glyphs can be used yet - I have saved some articles and YouTube videos on this and look forward to experimenting. I have a lot of features I know and love on my Pixel 7 Pro, but it’s been a bit since I felt like I was experimenting with something this different.

Here’s a little look at the glyphs on the Nothing Phone 2:

Nothing Phone. 2 Glyphs

The good looks of the Nothing Phone 2 carry over to the display and UI of the device with a very elegant black and white theme for icons and widgets available.

Nothing Phone 2 UI widgets

Aside from the new and fun aspects of the Nothing Phone 2, it is also offers flagship smartphone level specs at a very attractive price point. It starts at $599 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. I splurged for the dark gray model with 12GB and 256GB - for a very reasonable $675 that includes a case for it.

Then there’s the Nothing OS. One of the reasons I love the Pixel line is because it offers a “pure Android” experience - clean and smooth and fast. Nothing OS is said to offer a close to pure Android experience, with its different and useful add-ons. I have faith that this will prove true because Nothing is a company founded by Carl Pei. Pei was the co-founder of OnePlus, another Android vendor who created a unique and fresh Android smartphone - the OnePlus One - back in 2014. That phone offered the same sort of take with its original OS - very close to pure Android with some great additional tweaks and options. That phone is still an all-time favorite of mine, and a number of the models that followed it were very impressive as well.

I doubt that the Nothing Phone 2 will replace my Pixel 7 Pro as my daily driver phone, or lure me away from the Pixel line - but I am very muck looking forward to spending some time getting to know it.

You can get all the details about the Nothing Phone 2 at the Nothing site.

If any of you are users of the Nothing Phone 2, or have thoughts on the Nothing phones, please share in the comments.