NOTHING PHONE 1 Review:
At first, packaging-it's a big box but not a thick box and this is something nice because you don't need a knife or cutter to open the box. You can pull the entire perforated strip and the box opens. So you get the phone, a type-c cable, some paperwork, and the sim ejector tool is good, with great attention to detail. But, there is no charger or case. The phone does have a scratch guard on its screen. So if you want to buy a charger, the Nothing 45-W charger costs INR 1499, and the Nothing Phone (1) case costs INR 999. Nothing Phone 1 only supports 33 watts of charging. And of course, you can buy a third-party charger as well, which supports PD (Power Delivery) charging. So you can fast charge it with another third-party charger, so any PD charger will do. But I would tell you to buy the official one. So, In India, the Nothing Phone (1) starts at INR 32,999 and if you add a charger plus the case, it would cost you somewhere around INR 35,500 only.
To be honest, the phone looks different. So far, the company has released only 2 variants - a black and a white one. And even the box of the phone looks different and in photos, it might look like it's a small phone, but the phone is wide, it is medium, not too big or not too small. Now you get a metal frame, and a glass back, which is again a bit rare in this price range, and the phone weighs around 194 grams. But trust me, it feels light and the weight distribution of the phone is excellent. But if you ask me if you hold this phone in hand, it will feel good plus it will draw a lot of attention in the public, metro or airport, so get ready for that.
More than the display, the back of the phone is the highlight, I will share about it soon, but now let me tell you something about the specifications and features:
1. You get a 120 hertz, 6.55 inch OLED display, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and at the back.
2. It has equal bezels on all sides and a very thin chin. Now in case, you guys don't know you see such tiny chins in Flagship phones like Samsung S22 side by side, the reason is you have to fold the display from the bottom to get a thin chin, which is expensive.
3. The resolution is a very good bright display, and outdoors/ sunlight, you won't have any problems. 4. In terms of performance, you get the newly launched Snapdragon 778G+, 8 GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 256 GB UFS-3.1 storage.
Now the phone has just come in, so upon running the CPU throttling test, it was found that the Snapdragon 778G+ is a very stable processor it scores really good, there is green and no throttling. Now, most people must be disappointed by the choice of Snapdragon 778G+. Well, I like it, because Snapdragon 870 is powerful but a bit old chip and if you use a two-year-old chip you cannot provide updates for four years. By the way, Nothing Phone (1) comes with three years of Android updates and four years of security updates. To check the performance of the phone, it was tested by playing Battle Grounds Mobile India, you get smooth graphics and extreme 60fps frame rates. Maximum, you can go HDR graphics and Ultra FPS. So not the highest gaming but good gaming.
Now the main and interesting thing is the camera. Now Nothing went in for only two cameras - a 50-megapixel I MX 766 with O IS and a 50-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera, which is also the macro camera, and they went in with only two cameras that's it which is better than 2 megapixels and all of that. But the important thing is how good are the cameras. When it was tested what was most liked feature was the color and the skin tone in the photo, it's not very vibrant or saturated, but a bit contrasted and looks nice. When someone zooms in into the photo, there is enough detail in the photo, and same with portrait mode photos, it was noticed that the blur is gradual.
I liked the photos. Some photos were in indoor lights and low lighting conditions, and we noticed that the photos were contrasts and looked good to the eyes, even though the skin tone is good. But what I noticed is if you zoom into the photos there is digital sharpening, like it's not that sharp and with the ultra-wide angle camera, the color is closer to the main sensor and if you take in good lighting conditions the photos are sharp, but if you go in low light or indoor lighting conditions the photos are a bit soft. But the good thing is you can take macro photos from the 50-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera, and those are good and sharp. Now the camera app is very simple, there is the ultra-wide angle, you can choose some filters or change the size, and if you want to turn on the flash or the glyph lights you can tap, and the glyph light is on. And now you can use these LED lights to take a macro photo also.
One thing I noticed is there's no dedicated night mode, but when there is low light you have an automatic pop-up, you can tap on it, and it switches to you can use night mode in the front selfie camera, ultra-wide angle, and the main camera. Rest you have this panorama mode, time-lapse mode, macro mode, and pro photography mode. And you can record up to 1080p 30fps on the front, camera is a 16-megapixel selfie camera. It's 2022 why don't we have a 4K recording on the front? Even though the Selfies had good eye-pleasing color. I liked the color and contrast in the photos. But if you zoom in, there is this digital sharpness and sometimes the AI messes up in a few portrait selfies, it did not blur the faces in the background thinking that they were part of the picture. You can only record up to 4K 30 FPS on the main camera and the stabilization, O IS, is good.
The glyph interface - The entire LED setup behind the back is a glyph interface. And it has five different LED strips. On the inside, it has almost 900 individual LEDs. Now the basic use is calls and notifications. So suppose if I keep my phone, and I go far, and I get a call it's easy to spot. And you can go in settings and have ringtone patterns, there are like 10 of them. And you can have different ringtones for different people. And the best thing is flip to glyph - so if you flip your phone it goes to silent mode. You can hear the ringtone and this entire light when someone calls you. When you keep it flat on the back, then the light glows. Meaning now when you get a call only the light glows there's no sound. Rest, you can use glyph for macro photos or as a flash during video or photo.
You get almost clean stock Android 12 right out of the box. There is confusion about the fingerprint sensor. It's a normal fingerprint sensor - normal, Optical. It's fast but, not ultrasonic. Next, you do have always on display and there's no customization to it now about the ringtone and glyph interface. It's funny, custom ringtones do work. And by the way, everyone will be able to buy the Nothing Phone 1 -starting July 21st, 2022 - no pre-order, no invite pass, nothing. And you get a 4500 mAh battery it will easily last a day in my opinion but, again wait for the full review. You get 45-watt fast charging, but the phone supports only 33-watt charging. You have to buy the chargers separately.
Rest, you get all the important sensors. There's NFC, so you can use your Google Pay card. Also, there's 15-watt wireless charging, which is very rare in this price range. And you also get reverse wireless charging, so you can charge other earbuds, and phones at 5 watts, which is again a flagship feature also, you get 12 - 5G bands, and you get 4G plus carrier aggregation. It was checked on a Jio sim.
Now Nothing Phone 1, see we will all agree that it was overhyped or as Carl Pei, the founder of Nothing himself said it is just a phone. Now see, Indian smartphone launches are all about specs and features you agree with or deny. We Indians love features and specs, so some phones are the first eight-gen one phones, some phones are 150-watt fast charging phones, and some are the first 10-bit display phone. Now, nothing took the opposite approach. All things are 7 out of 10. Like processor is snapdragon 778G+ which is good, not the best. The camera is good, not the best. The display is also good again, but not the best.
Overall. It is a balanced phone but, in the looks, everything is different. 10/ 10 in my opinion. But again, looks are subjective. So a different approach to making smartphones, but of course, wait for the full review. Let me know which phone you want us to compare.
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