I have to admit it. I bought into the hype of the Nothing Phone 1
and I was burned. I was so excited for something from the maker
of the OnePlus phones that I knew and loved. I was an owner of the OnePlus 3T,
so when Nothing was announced and had this killer phone that was transparent,
I was excited, but with middling performance and pretty scarce availability,
it was a bit of a let down. And after using it for a few days, I actually returned it back and said,
I don't wanna use it anymore. But the Nothing Phone 2, it looks like it might solve everything.
With a great design and availability coming to a country near you,
I think this could be the breakthrough phone for nothing, but we've seen this before.
So let's take a look at the box and then take a look at what's different. Inside, we have this cool sim popper that's transparent.
And we have the matching new transparent cable.
Well, at least the connector is transparent. Other than that, we got some paperwork,
safety information and very small text
and that's it. So no charging brick in the box, but it's nice that they include such a cool cable
and of course a cool sim popper, which we're gonna leave out to check what's inside the phone.
Taking a look at design between the Nothing Phone 2s and the One,
it's pretty darn similar. You can see a couple differences. So the glyph is now split up into different sections.
So it gives you more options for different glyph patterns as well as some granular glyph stuff
that we'll take a look at later. And the back is now rounded. So it sits more natural in your hand.
It's rounded off slightly compared to the flat back of the Nothing Phone 1.
Otherwise, it feels and looks very similar. It's slightly larger, but pretty much the same size.
But the phone is more than the glyphs on the back. It is a 6.7 inch full HD plus LTPO OLED.
So it's an OLED screen that can go all the way down to one hurt and then zoom on up to 120 Hertz
when you're scrolling or playing games or anything like that. And that is great.
A very flagship move and something that I appreciate. Being able to have your always on screen sipping battery
while having full of refresh rate when you're playing games, I think is a great option.
Taking a look around the side, we have our lone power button with some antenna lines.
On the top, we have a mic hole. And again, more antenna lines.
On the left side, we have two volume buttons, very iPhone.
And on the bottom, we have our SIM tray, mic hole, USB-C and speaker.
Let's take a look inside the SIM tray to see what's going on in there.
So inside we have the slot for two nano-SIMs. I prefer two physical versus the eSIM
as I think it's just easier to swap back and forth
physical SIMs and doing the whole eSIM transfer or needing to go back to provider for another eSIM.
Big pain in the butt. One thing I think nothing does really well is the hand feel of the phone.
So this is a large phone. I'd been using the ASUS Zenfone 10 prior to this
and it is quite a lot bigger because even though it is 6.7 inches at only 201 grams,
it's substantially lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro Max which is 240 grams and is 6.69 inches.
So they've done really well at making it look and feel premium while keeping it light
and something I actually want to hold all day, especially because they put in a 4,700 milliamp hour battery
which we had Labs test, but just for my daily use, seems to last really, really long
and I've been really impressed with that. Other than that, it's a pretty standard flagship affair.
It's got water resistance though, it's only IP54. It would have been great to have higher than that.
It's got wireless charging at 15 watts and fast charging at 45 watts.
Moving right into the phone here, we see one of the other things that makes nothing phone special, the skin of Android.
I really like this retro futurism.
I don't really know what you would call it. It's very monochromatic.
But if you don't like it, when you're sitting with the phone, you can just choose a stock Android-like experience
where all the icons have color and everything like that. So you can really make it how you like it,
but I really like this. I think it's really slick. Let's talk specs.
As that was one of my complaints with the nothing phone one, it felt a little bit slow right off the bat
and though I get it was aimed to be a bit more mid-range,
I think heading a bit more premium is a good choice on this one. So it's a Snapdragon 8 plus gen one, which is good.
It's not the gen two that like all the other flagships have, but it is a huge upgrade over the phone one
which had a 778G plus, which again is mid.
Fun that there are a couple of different spec configurations. So you can get an eight gig of RAM plus 128 gigs of storage,
the 12 gigs of RAM 256 or 12 gigs and 512.
We have the mid-range here with 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage, which I think is plenty.
But again, remember you cannot upgrade this with SD card. So you're stuck with what you got.
The 12 gigs of RAM I think is great. You can save a little bit of money and go for that eight gigs of RAM.
But if you want to future-proof this phone and make sure that you can have it for a long time,
12 gigs for Android I think is really, a really good thing to have.
As for OS, this is running Android 13, which is great to see. Android 14 is right around the corner,
but this has promised three years of Android updates and four years of security updates
with updates coming every two months. So no matter how good the hardware is,
if your phone's gonna be out of date, as soon as you get it, you're not really gonna wanna be rocking it
if you're not getting the latest features, let alone trusting your information to be on the phone
that could have huge security holes. All right, let's try setting up the fingerprint scanner.
I've been pretty vocal about liking the in-screen ones because I find it easier to unlock when it's on a table
versus having to kinda grip it like you're picking up the phone to get the ones that are in the power button,
but I've played with some that aren't great. So let's see if this is anything decent.
All right, moment of truth. Not bad. It's a slow animation.
So you can tell that it's working right away, but it really takes the time to show you
that the phone is opening, which I don't necessarily mind. I usually there's ways in Android
to speed up this animations, but I actually really like the screen turning off one.
Editor, turn off this video. As for what's default to install on the phone,
I'd say pretty minimal. I like it. It's like stock Android.
It just has the Google suite of apps. And then obviously there's some stuff that Labs is installed,
but nothing crazy. There are a couple of apps like the nothing X app,
which is for connecting to nothing ear ones and the composer app,
which we're gonna take a look at because that's what lets you create custom ringtones
that use the glyphs on the back. Now what's your turn? Create your own glyph sequences and use them as ringtones.
Okay, so this is like a little drum pad. And we see it says modem.
Okay, is it actually flashing on the back?
Oh, this is bug mode.
I don't know how you'd make anything out of this. I gotta say, Dan.
Why is that the Dan noise? That's what I think of Dan.
Kind of sounds like the Lego Yoda death scream just slowed down.
But I guess it's kind of cool to be able to do this. Like if you had a certain pattern that you liked
or maybe you're just more musically inclined than I am,
very neat option. But if you're not good at making ringtones,
I know I don't talk about this in any other phone, but the default sounds on nothing phones are pretty sick.
So you can change it between a bunch of different options of ringtones, but they also have different vibrations to match the sounds.
And I have to say the vibrations feel really good.
I wouldn't say it's on Apple's level of like Taptic Engine, but the different sounds have different vibrational strengths
and you can tell the difference. For the last thing on the glyphs in the back, there is a whole glyph section now,
which I think is nice to kind of keep it all together. I remember when I first saw the nothing phone,
it was pretty scarce what was in here, but they also have an auto brightness mode.
That means that when you're in a dark room, these won't be as bright, which is great
because that was another complaint. You'd be in bed, your phone's charging beside you,
and then there's a notification that flash bangs you in the middle of the night.
Versus now it realizes that the room is dark and doesn't need to brighten up quite as much.
What's also cool is they've changed the glyphs on the back to be more granular.
So you can set things like timers that use the glyphs on the back to show you how long is left.
Something that might be a little bit more useful than the timer though, is that it has third-party integrations
using that same glyph progress bar. So you can have things like your Uber showing you
how close your ride is to getting there, or when you skip the dishes orders coming,
and you can see on the back of your phone. The only problem is, is like,
how often are you laying your phone face down? I'm usually pretty scared
that I'm gonna be scratching up the screen, so I'm putting my phone down on its back.
It does have a built-in screen protector, which is nice, but it is something to be aware of if you're nervous about scratching up your phone,
is that to get a lot of these features, your phone has to be face down.
The last thing I wanna talk about in software is the always-on-display settings,
because since it's LTPO, you can add quite a lot too that's not gonna be using too much of your battery life.
So you have lock screen widgets now. So you can add things to your always-on display,
and they'll show up always.
See, I had things like weather, time,
and then some quick settings as well, like your flashlight. So, oh, you have a lot of different options, that's great.
I'm gonna change it to just flashlight, because I feel like that's how many you use pretty often.
And now, if I turn off the screen and turn it on,
you can see them all there. The only downside is, is that you already have some information
that's always here, so adding weather and time
just means it's on there twice, which is not super cool-looking,
but I guess more options is better than less.
All right, let's crab-rave.
It sounds okay.
It definitely gets loud, and you can hear that's coming out of both speakers pretty equally, so it doesn't feel like it's heavily towards
this bottom side, which is fine, but the earpiece speaker did crack
a little bit at that loudest volume. You can hear it in those high notes, especially the flute whistle.
I don't know what instrument that is, but you can tell that it's crackling a little bit there,
which is not fantastic. As for the screen, again, I think it looks fine.
It definitely gets decently bright, but it's not the highest resolution. It's full HD+, but on a 6.7-inch screen,
you can start to notice it's not the sharpest thing.
It is an OLED though, and obviously the colors do look fantastic.
And when you're on mobile, I mean, I personally don't really care about the visual quality being absolutely peak,
but again, when you're comparing to flagships, this isn't gonna be as good.
We had Labs run the Nothing Phone 2 and one through the circuit see how they do,
and I have to say the Nothing Phone 2 is a huge improvement over the one,
and though obviously it doesn't quite compare to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
that are in different flagships like the Zenfone 10 and One 5,
you can see here that game performance does look very strong and consistent
with minimal differences between the median and 5% frame rates.
And again, when you're comparing it to the first Gen Nothing Phone, it blows it out of the water.
One place where the Nothing Phone does slip a little bit compared to other flagships is Apple Launches.
With cold Apple Launches taking up to 3 1â2 seconds, which is quite a bit,
but again, when compared to the last gen, you can see this is quite an upgrade. And with daily use, you won't notice too much of a delay
getting into Instagram, you fiend. Where the phone actually excelled was battery life
compared to both the previous Gen and to other flagships.
In the longevity test, it was able to get up to 25 hours compared to 21 in the Nothing Phone 1 and 23
in the Xperia One 5 and Zenfone 10. And in the stress test,
we're really hitting the battery hard. The phone was still able to get five hours, which is a little bit of a slip
compared to the Nothing Phone 1's five and a half hours, but it blows the other flagships out of the water
where they're getting usually around three and a half hours.
On top of the great battery life is fast charging. So in one hour, the phone was able to charge
from zero to 100%, which is the fastest charging we've seen so far.
And as a slight upgrade over the Nothing Phone 1's one hour and 20 minute charge time.
And finally, when it comes to phone brightness, the Nothing Phone 2 was able to get to 485 nits,
which is a slight improvement over the Nothing Phone 1 and is pretty middle of the pack
when it comes to other flagships. Believe it or not, this phone has cameras.
I might have skipped it over at the start, but it has two 50 megapixel cameras,
a main shooter, which is just a standard view,
and an ultra-wide, which is cool. Again, I've talked about it before,
but I prefer ultra-wide telephotos though. Obviously it would be great to have a triple.
That increases the price more and more. So I'm not surprised at leaving those for the flagships,
but I am pretty darn impressed with the camera.
That's another complaint that myself and Maria, our thumbnail artist who has Nothing Phone 1,
have made complaints about, is that the camera in the Phone 1 was not strong.
And I actually took the Nothing Phone 2 with me over the weekend and took some photos to show you
because this is pretty darn impressive.
So I took the phone out to a local street festival we had this weekend,
and of course had to take a picture of this cute puppy therapy booth. And I gotta say, again, the details are really good.
It has even lighting while letting things in the shadow kind of drop off.
The colors are somewhat accurate. And that's kind of my biggest complaint about the phone
is it tends to run warm. It makes colors kind of fade out,
and everything kind of look a little bit more orangy-brown than they normally were.
And I'm not really sure I prefer that warm look to something that's really cool,
like the Google photos or vibrant like Samsung
or even the flatness of an iPhone photo, because I'd rather apply filters to the photo
to make it look how I want, versus it just kind of look more faded out and warm
like it's kind of giving me. But I was impressed by the video quality.
I took a video of Adam and his partner dancing.
And the video quality and mics are quite impressive. This is a 4K 60 video,
and there's no stuttering, the stabilization with OIS works really well.
And it's definitely something I'll record with if I was taking a video of Sven playing in the yard.
He's always doing that. I have a lot of plays in the yard.
These are the kind of softball photo to see how the camera does. And I think this photo turned out really well,
because it had the blue sky to kind of gauge what temperature should make the photo,
because this one doesn't have the warmth problem. It allows the sky to be quite blue
and the grass stay green, very contrasting and punchy.
It's still not the most fantastic photo.
I find like there is some kind of weirdness going on with this TD sign in the background,
but overall, I think it does look quite nice. And again, it's a photo that I would share
or edit to my heart's content. But we do need to try the selfie camera.
See how that looks. People want to see your beautiful face.
For the selfie photos, it's pretty similar to my complaint about the main camera.
Things do look just a little faded again.
I've checked the camera lens. It's not super gooey with gamer juice or anything like that,
but it just looks like there's an Instagram filter that's kind of on it already.
The clarity is good and it doesn't look like they're trying to soften my skin too much,
but it's just something about the colors that looks a little off.
And I can't quite put my finger on what it would be, whether it's my fault or just the camera itself.
But I do think the photos look good. Just be aware again that you might have to go in
and edit it a little bit to make it look a little bit more realistic, but I don't think it looks too bad.
But let's check out the video I took. Here's a selfie video.
I'm talking, I'm spinning. I mean, in the preview, it looks pretty good,
but we're going to take a look and see how it actually did.
Yeah. It doesn't look too bad. I think that, again, the colors are faded
and that's just going to be the way the photos look. But as for keeping myself exposed and in focus,
the colors look good. I don't know, the colors don't look good. The focus looks good.
The exposure looks fine. And the mic is fine.
It's not definitely not the worst we've heard, but it's not going to be anything like an iPhone, Samsung, or Google.
One thing David actually pointed out while I was taking that video though, is that this phone has some cool features
using these glyphs and lights on the back. Including a tally light when you're going to take a video.
So it'll actually, you can turn this off, but I have it turned on because I think it's cool.
It'll flash red to let people know that you're recording. Another cool thing is that if you want to have lights on,
you can use the traditional flash, or you can have a fill light using the glyphs.
So you have an option of what you want to use. Of course, I think using the glyphs looks really cool
because that's going to get people's attention. Instead of getting that one bright spot you get from a flash,
you might get a bit more of an even fill using this wide light that goes across the whole back of the phone.
I gotta say, overall, these phones seem to have been a big upgrade.
Nothing has been listening and upgrading these phones. And this is a really compelling package.
For me, the glyphs, the skins, the built-in Tesla integrations that give you features
that other phones don't, they're really compelling features.
But when I compare it to the ASUS Zenfone 10, which has a smaller body and a skin that I prefer,
it doesn't make it a bit of a tough choice. I think that if you like larger phones,
if you're a Pro Max or Ultra or Plus phone user,
this is a really compelling package. It's something that I think that you should consider.
At $600 to $800, depending on your configuration,
it seems to be a pretty fair price for what you're getting. You're getting performance, you're getting cameras,
you're getting something that is just plain stylish
at a higher price tag than before, but it is a more usable phone.
But what do you think? Is this a compelling option? Do you think this could sway you
from your Samsung, Google, or iPhone? Let us know down below and make sure to subscribe
to see more content coming soon. I hear there's new Samsung flips and folds.