I actually like the website and what they are trying to do. To me the biggest problem is the design of the phone itself: it's got an interesting LED notification thing going on, but besides that it's a knock-off of the iPhone
I don't want to use a phone that feels like an imitation of someone else's design; I want to use a phone that has its own unique vibe.
(On the website: It's so refreshing to use a website that just scrolls naturally. Compare to Apple's product pages which all hijack the scroll in really terrible ways these days.)
Even within the scope of "rounded rectangle", there are a ton of choices that will establish an overall aesthetic feel and visual identity.
– How rounded is the rectangle
- The thickness of the bezel
- How rounded is the phone depth-wide
- The shape of the notch
- The location and appearance of the speakers
- The location and appearance of the cameras
– The location and shape and choice of buttons on the side (volume, lock, silence)
- Any sort of visual framing of the edge of the phone
In all of these respects the Nothing Phone basically just cribs off of the iPhone design language.
Compare e.g. to the Samsung Galaxy S22. It still has basic the "rounded rectangle" form factor, but the other elements are unique, giving it its own visual identity.
Definitely true. I don't fault any phone for adopting the iPhone's basic innovation of "no buttons on the front, rectangular pane of glass", but you can still have your own unique identity within that framework.
> After the release of the iPhone the head of the LG Mobile Handset R&D Center was quoted saying he believed Apple had stolen the idea from the KE850 after it was announced as part of the iF Design Award.
Huh, interesting! Duly noted.
This provides an example of my point: even though the Samsung Galaxy, the iPhone, and the KE850 are all using the same basic slab design pioneered (apparently!) by LG, they all have distinct visual identities.
In contrast the Nothing Phone is mostly just cribbing off of the iPhone.
They need to take what they did w/ the LED area and apply the same design language to the rest of the phone.
I didn't see it that way at all at first; what it initially reminded me of is when Latin characters appear in otherwise-Chinese or Chinese-produced documents (most familiar example: the manual leaflet that comes with a cheaply produced electronic widget). But after reading your comment, I can see it that way as well. I think the difference is that it's monospace, which is an attribute of the Chinese documents because the Chinese text usually fits on a grid; and Apple would never use monospace that way (I'm sure there's a folklore.org story about how important proportional font rendering was to Jobs).
When I learned about this thing via Reddit and its LEDs thing, I thought it was going to be something like the first mobile phone I ever had, a Nokia 3220.
Those LEDs at the sides of the 3220 were not only beautiful but really useful. As I use to carry the phone in my pants pockets, when I was at a crowded or noisy place at night couldn't hear it when it rang - but nevertheless could see it was ringing because the light went through the pocket! So you could even personalize the ringones for each contact and that stuff and you could tell who was calling you without hearing the ringtone, just seeing the phone from afar.
Albeit you could personalize that light pattern via MIDI - if I recall correctly, each LED was controlled via a special MIDI instrument so you needed to lay those along the other instruments in a MIDI composing software and 'compose' your pattern, which wasn't going to be hearable but visible. The process was rathing tricky for me 'cause sometimes it didn't work for whatever reason, but I could manage to get a couple of tunes working with my own LED patterns, one which was Metallica's "Hit the lights" (no pun intended).
That, and the fact you could design your very own covers for the transparent hard plastic at the back of the phone, made it in retrospect the pinnacle of phone personalization. Or at least as what I've known; things went a little downhill from there and, as mentioned at first, I thought this thing was going to be the difference and be something similar as that ol' good 3220; was even imagining it could come with its own LED pattern composing app or some stuff like that. But really I can't see anything useful about the monochrome LEDs at the back which, as some of you mentioned, people will cover with a non-transparent cover anyway.
I want one just to get a notification LED back. Thats up there with the headphone jack as something that shouldnt have been removed from basically all phones in my book.
I go back and forth on the headphone jack debate. But the notification LED I just don't get. They aren't large and intrusive like a jack - so it's not space saving. I like to leave my phone on my desk and only check it if I see an LED blinking. Not constantly wake it up to see if I missed something. I assume most people want that?
I came to two possible conclusions - 1) it's about engagement, and for some reason companies want you opening your phone often, or 2) so many apps notify for everything anymore, the LED would just constantly blink. At least 2 could be solved by only allowing certain apps or classes of notification (like say, phone or text) notify the LED.
I believe it could be one of these mistaken A/B testings - do we have hard data that a significant portion of users actually use the notification LED? No? So let's ditch it and save a huge amount of money in total. I bet someone was very proud over the idea.
Not sure if you need a physical LED when many phones these days have OLED displays that can mimic the LED without consuming too much power. Some Android brands have this built-in and there are also some 3rd party apps that do the same.
Right, but it's what most flagships use anyway (iPhone, Google Pixel, Samsung, even this phone), so if you're an OEM that uses OLED and don't want to have a dedicated LED, it can be done with the display. Burn-in wouldn't be a problem for this fake LED because it can move around as it blinks.
The original Google Nexus type color configurable notification would be such a welcome addition.
Got mail? Red blink. Got a tweet reply? Blink blue. Even Nokia E72/73/75 had beautiful breathing lights.
Too bad the Nothing Phone doesn't have a headphone jack. I couldn't agree more.
For anyone else who won't even consider a phone without a jack... I'm much more excited for the upcoming Asus Zenphone 9, which is roughly Pixel 5 sized and slightly smaller than the standard iPhone size, and features a headphone jack! It's the smallest (and headphone jackiest) flagship in quite some time, slightly smaller than its predecessor.
Always-on displays have basically obsoleted the notification LED.
I used to consider it a required feature when buying a phone as well and would carefully configure the colours of each app and their priority.
But these days I am happy with the default Android always-on display and a row of icons for the notifications. I can imagine that some people miss the colour but the detail offered by the icons makes it much easier to know what notifications you have.
Glancing through the website my first impression is “The Apple of Android phones”, though there’s more to that statement than just marketing so I’m not saying this is true, just my impression
Having owned a OnePlus X a few years back - dual glass front and back is not necessarily a great idea. The OPX was so slippery that it would slide off any surface, even horizontal ones. Your only hope was to put a case one it, which negated the aesthetic point of rear glass.
I feel the same way. I much prefer a plastic back with a nice finish. It makes the phone lighter and more durable and the texture can easily rival that of a nice soft-touch glass finish.
After a crappy first-adopter experience with Nothing Ear(1) I realised why you don’t want to be a first adopter. If it is legitimately better it will still be worth getting in 6 months when the crazy initial bugs are ironed out.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
I disagree. OP’s observation was interesting. When did it become common that websites would show you nothing if js is not enabled? Or to see nothing on a website about nothing?
Just a personal viewpoint: I wonder who's the target audience?
Too artsy & eye catching for regular folks, with the backlight notification & sheer see through back. Too tacky for regular designers (I guess Jony Ive would go insane if this were the new iPhone). Middle age nerds maybe, but office going folks will think twice. My teenage nephew thinks it belongs in Tron; he's cool with Samsung S series. Price point is neither premium or entry scale (@ 69000 yens in Japan store).
I disagree that it is too tacky for designers. There's definitely a new wave of brutalism sweeping certain circles. I see this type of design in streetware/techware fashion.
If experience has shown me anything in tech scene, humbly my opinion feels that designers make all crafty looks for businesses but do not change much with regards to their personal choices.
You could be right about the niche group. I would also love to know more about it. However, niche groups don't drive profitable businesses is also something you might agree.
It's the phone I would buy if I was still on Android - it's the first Android phone I've seen in years with a design I actually like.
I had Nexus phones prior to switching to the iPhone 5 when it finally had LTE and turn by turn nav. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus was a piece of shit (imo) and damaged the brand for me. Nokia hardware was always cool, but Microsoft buying them ended that at the time. The Google Pixel phones you'd think would be the natural choice, but they've always had mid-range mediocre hardware, questionable design elements, and limited update support.
A really ugly LED thing on the back (under glass, evidently, so you'll have to put a case over it or it'll be shattered before long) and something to do with NFTs, as far as I can tell. But I'm still not convinced this is real.
Is there really nothing covering the back?! This thing is going to be filthy and disgusting in one week of normal use. All of those edges, screws, and nooks are going to scrape every bit of lint and dust out of my pockets. Not to mention the loose eye lashes getting stuck in all of those nooks. If you put a case on it you cover the distinctive backlights.
The branding seems similarly unsuited for daily use:
> Cool phone! What is it?
> Nothing phone.
> What? No what's your phone.
This seems more like an art piece than consumer tech. Even the slogan "Buy Nothing ..." seems more like a jab at consumerism than an actual consumer tech company slogan.
I actually like the look a lot, although I don't see it as a big selling point because the first think I'd do is put it in a case.
Other than that it seems like a well balanced midrange device (depending on whether or not the cameras end up being good).
The real problem is at the current price point it's competing with some pretty good phones such as Galaxy S21 FE and Pixel 6, and then you can get a OnePlus Nord 2, which is still pretty good, for nearly half the price.
> Less distractions. More soul. Just pure instinct, formed as a machine. Told through beautiful symbols. Deeper interactions. And brave simplicity. Phone (1) can bring us back. To us.
What?
> Meet the Glyph Interface. A new way to communicate. Unique light patterns indicate who’s calling. Signals app notifications, charging status and more. Everyday interactions, made joyful.
There are 3rd party apps (if your OEM doesn't have the option) to use the display for that. It can mimic a "LED" or something else. It works fairly well, especially on devices with OLED displays (most mid/high end phones).
Problem is they don't actually use just the notification part, they actually illuminate the whole display at the minimum brightness setting, which isn't 0 for third-party applications. You can notice this if you let your eyes adjust to a room with no other lights. The power drain for eight or ten hours of this is more than you'd think. I still use it, but it's definitely not a painless replacement.
On a hardware level, yes. Apps don't actually get to access that. Try it yourself in a pitch-black room. Compare black areas in the OEM's always-on display mode to a third-party AOD app or a fullscreen image viewer showing a #000000 box.
I tested on my OnePlus 8 Pro running LineageOS and the first app I found on the Play Store (aodNotify) seems to work as expected. Pure black, as if it was part of the "always on display" feature.
I guess it could work differently on different Android "flavours".
Duh, it's not just a phone, it's an experience. Because you're a uniquely special human unlike anyone else and you deserve the absolute pinnacle of life in every category. Purchase this feeling now for $999.
I use the Nothing ear 1 earbuds every day and think they're really great for $100. I was interested in the phone until they started pushing NFTs a little too much and found out it won't actually be available in the US. My last 3 phones have been Oneplus phones, Carl Pei's previous company, so I was watching Nothing with a good bit of hope. Most of that hope has gone away since it seems Carl has turned into a bit of a hype beast.
Would love to go back to Android, but not for this and not at the expense of being disconnected from iPhone-specific connections to my family. I liked Android better, but - for the moment - I like my wife and kids more.
This stunned me a bit. Which iphone-specific "connections" can’t you replace?
If the answer is messages, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have Whatsapp or some other messenger installed. If they don’t, may I ask which country you’re from?
Or is it facetime? Most other messengers have similar features. Or maybe I don’t really know what facetime is capable of beyond video chat.
Ha, at least when I read this thread you were getting downvoted but iMessages is 100% the thing keeping me on iPhone. I don't want to go back to being a dreaded green text to friends and family. Software-wise I can't think of any other differences between iOS and Android other than I vastly prefer Android's keyboard and autocorrect. Hardware-wise I'm getting much more life out of Apple devices than I did from Nexii/Pixels.
Its the first time i've read about this "green text". I looked it up and i cant believe people make such a big wuss over something like that. Nobody in EU or Japan uses imessage/sms, so i guess this is US specific social issue.
As far as I know still using SMS is a US-only phenomenon. iMessage seamlessly upgrading SMS for iOS<->iOS chats was pretty brilliant on their part. Google/Android did it briefly with Hangouts, but IIRC it was always optin and Hangouts was EOL'd longer than it wasn't.
...so basically the "green text problem" is about as common as "imperial units." I don't know why we're so backward sometimes.
In EU everyone seems to use WhatsApp, telegram, discord, or something else. I mostly use line (as that's what people in japan use), and "Google Chat" with family. Though EU in general doesn't seem to like the diversity in chat programs and is looking to mandate a common protocol.
