Nothing smart phone

Screenshot: Nothing Nothing CEO Carl Pei took the virtual stage today to announce the company's very first smartphone, the phone (1). Following a rather buzzworthy debut of the company's wireless earbuds, the Nothing ear (1), last year, the ex co-founder of OnePlus is taking a swing at the smartphone market again -- particularly, at Apple. "(Right now) there's no alternative to Apple. This means that consumers don't have a choice, innovation slows down, and that's not right," said Pei. To challenge the iPhone makers' bounded, walled-garden ecosystem of products, Nothing is set to launch the phone (1) later this year, while curating a seamless, integrative ecosystem with third-party products. What those third-party products entail remains unknown. What we do know is a series of key features and specs of the phone (1) and when consumers can expect the Nothing smartphone to arrive in store shelves. Software The phone (1) will operate on Nothing OS, layered on top of Android. Staying on brand, icons, widgets, and fonts will follow Nothing's dot-matrix design language -- as seen in the press images below. "Nothing OS captures the best features of pure Android, distilling the operating system to just the essentials, where every byte has a purpose. It is designed to deliver a fast, smooth, and personal experience," said Pei during the keynote. Clearly, the operating system -- like OnePlus' OxygenOS of early days, will provide a near-stock Android experience. Fans of Google's nati...

Mark your calendars: Smartphone vendor Nothing plans on holding a launch event for its second-generation product on July 11. The company today sent out an email about the launch event, which will stream via (Opens in a new window) at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST. Interestingly, Nothing is using the image of an octopus’s tentacles to promote the upcoming event. “Come to the bright side,” the email adds. (Opens in a new window) Our guess is that the Nothing Phone (2) will be able to change color; some species of octopus do the same as a form of camouflage.In contrast, Nothing might use the color-changing feature to help the phone stand out. The company’s previous product, the I've been with PCMag since October 2017, covering a wide range of topics, including consumer electronics, cybersecurity, social media, networking, and gaming. Prior to working at PCMag, I was a foreign correspondent in Beijing for over five years, covering the tech scene in Asia. Read the latest from Michael Kan • • • • • •

Nothing, the consumer tech brand led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, is planning to launch its debut smartphone by next month, according to a TechCrunch. The company has reportedly been working on the phone for over a year, and Pei is said to have shown off a prototype to executives from companies including Qualcomm at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

British startup Nothing is about to launch its second-gen smartphone, the Phone (2) that fans of Carl Pei’s work have been waiting for. Unlike the first-gen device, which was a mid-range Android handset, the Phone (2) will be the first Nothing flagship. Well, there’s a twist there, since Nothing will use an older Qualcomm flagship chip. But it’s still great progress for the company. And now, Nothing has revealed the launch date of Phone (2): July 11th, at 11:00 EDT. That’s almost the birthday of the Nothing posted the simple teaser below on its website, fully knowing it would make waves on social media. After all, Carl Pei is using a marketing tactic that worked for OnePlus in its early days: Dropping morsels of information to drive up the hype. Nothing started teasing the next-gen phone back at MWC in Barcelona, Spain, a few months ago. It teamed up with Qualcomm to reveal the Phone (2) will rock a high-end Qualcomm chip. They didn’t specify the model, and I speculated it might be an older-generation version to keep costs down. Then a social media post from a Qualcomm exec gave us confirmation that the Nothing Phone (2) teaser image. Image source: The “8 Plus” chip equips the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4, Samsung’s flagships unveiled in the second half of 2022. Going for a flagship chip, even if it’s an older model, is a great strategy for a mobile startup. Certainly better than launching the Phone (1) with a custom mid-range CPU. While the Phone (2) will get a big performa...