Nothing Phone (2) review: monochrome is the new black
Nothing Phone (2) Intro
The Nothing Phone (2) is currently the latest flagship phone from startup Nothing. The company has gone on record saying that the Nothing Phone (3) won’t be released until 2025 — so, for the time being, this is still the most powerful Nothing Phone you can buy.
For the time being, does the Nothing Phone (2) deliver? It has a unique design, unique take on the user interface, and the very special Glyph Interface on its back. It looks geeky, but clean, simplistic, but also well-engineered, it has decent hardware and OK cameras. Does it all come together nicely? We take a deep dive here:
What’s new about the device
- More powerful hardware
- Slightly bigger display
- LTPO screen that can go as low as 1 Hz
- Glyph interface upgrades
- Camera improvements
Table of Contents:
Nothing Phone (2) Unboxing
Minimalist design in a minimalist package. We get the phone and the charging cable. Bonus points, though, the USB C cable has transparent plug pieces!
Nothing Phone (2) Specs
Encroaching on premium territory
While the Nothing Phone (1) had more midrange specs, the Phone (2) is swinging for the top row:
Specs | iPhone 13 Pro Max |
---|---|
Size and Weight | 6.38 x 3.00 x 0.34 in (162.1 x 76.4 x 8.6 mm) 7.1 oz (201.2 g) |
Display | 6.7″ LTPO OLED, 1 Hz – 120 Hz, 1,600 nits max brightness |
Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 |
RAM, Storage and Price | 8 GB / 128 GB for $599 12 GB / 256 GB for $699 12 GB / 512 GB for $799 |
Software | Nothing OS 2.5, Android 14 |
Cameras | 50 MP wide, f/1.88 50 MP ultra-wide, f/2.2 aperture 32 MP front camera |
Battery Size | 4,700 mAh |
Charging Speeds | 45 W wired 15 W wireless 5 W reverse wireless charge |
Yep, those are flagship specs at a very, very good price alright. Also, that main camera is 50 MP like with the Phone (1), but it’s a new sensor inside — a Sony IMX890.
Nothing Phone (2) Design & Colors
Beautiful simplicity
The device feels large-ish, almost like an iPhone 14 Plus, teetering on the edge of being too big. The glass panel on the back curves into the edges, so it’s softer on the palm — the Nothing Phone (1) was more jabby.
It’s not the heaviest phone out there, but there’s a decent feel of heft to it. Though it feels perfectly balanced, so handling is not an issue.
Of course, the star of the party is the LED array on the back — the Glyph interface. It’s an odd-shaped symbol, which is sort of becoming the “logo” of Nothing… without being an official logo. This time around, the Glyph is split in more parts, allowing the LEDs to light up in more patterns and even giving you a progress bar on the back. Nothing is doubling down on the idea of letting you flip the phone over on its face to keep distractions locked away, while still giving you some minimal information with the LEDs on the back.
As for colors, no surprises there — there’s a black one and a white one. Though the black model leans more towards the gray-ish look, so the design elements that are tucked under the glass back are better-visible.
The power and volume buttons feel nicely clicky and solid. There’s a single USB C port for charging or data transfer and no, there’s no headphone jack.
Nothing Phone (2) Display
The resolution here is 1080 x 2412 pixels, giving us about 394 pixels per inch. So yes, the screen is sharp and dense. It’s HDR10+ compliant and has a 1,000 nit full screen brightness with 1,600 nit peak pixel brightness.
The display can be woken up by tapping on it or lifting the phone. However, on many occasions, we would pull the phone out of a pocket to see a message “PIN failed 5 times, wait 30 seconds to try again”. Meaning, the Phone (2) was constantly getting activated by rubbing against my leg — Nothing needs to use that proximity sensor and not allow this to happen. For the time being, we’ve chosen to disable “Tap to wake” to avoid further frustrations.
There’s an under-screen fingerprint scanner embedded here — it’s of the optical variety, where the area around your finger lights up to ensure a read. It’s… not the fastest scanner out there — the best we can say about it is that it’s fine. Mostly accurate, and responsive enough, but not the fastest.
Nothing Phone (2) Camera
Now with Snapdragon 8+ smarts
The main camera sensor is new — still a 50 MP resolution like the predecessor, but now a new Sony IMX890 sensor. Plus, Nothing has been working hard to improve its post-processing algorithms and leverage the smarts of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. There’s a 2x Super-Res zoom, which should be lossless as per the marketing materials. Well, let’s dive in!
Main Camera – Day
The colors are slightly saturated, creating a quick “Wow!” effect, but at least they are true to life, with no weird hues in the greens or the blues.
Left – Nothing Phone (2); Right – Google Pixel 7
Main Camera – Low-light
In low light, the camera is OK, but it’s definitely not as good as the Pixels or Galaxies out there. Light sources will get blown out and shadows can get dark. It is definitely above average at night, but still has a way to go.
Zoom quality
Nothing uses the technologies inside the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 for better subject separation and zoom quality. By utilizing the 50 MP sensor, the phone can give you a 2x “lossless” zoom by cropping into the sensor.
Answer — yes, the in-phone 2x zoom is much better than what we could muster up to “simulate” a digital zoom. Not only are details sharper, but the phone also adjusted the exposure and dynamics as we were taking the photo.
Now, the Phone (2) does cap out at 10x zoom, and we can see that it can’t do much more than that. At 10x, details and colors are already becoming washed out and unpleasant to view. But, at 8x, it still looks OK, so we’d say it’s usable up until that level, as long as you have the good lighting to help.
Ultra-wide Camera
The colors from the ultra-wide camera are a bit more washed out and details are a bit softer, with aberration sometimes appearing around the edges of photos or spots where light is peering through leaves. The ultra-wide shots are mostly good enough and you can definitely set up an epic photo with the 114-degree lens.
Selfies
The 32 MP selfie camera pulls out a ton of detail — unflattering as it may be. We also like the skin tones, though it also tends to saturate colors a pinch too much. We also find that, unlike with the main camera, the selfie camera’s HDR is not afraid to completely flatten an image’s dynamics if it deems the need to do so (selfie 2).
Portrait Mode
As any modern smartphone, the Nothing Phone (2) has a Portrait Mode for fake bokeh effects and isolating shots. However, it’s hit-and-miss with the edge detection, it accentuates warm colors a bit too much, and the fact that it only works in a wide angle (does not allow you to zoom in for an actual portrait) kind of made us stay away from it.
Simply taking a picture at 2x zoom provides a much better “portrait” even if there’s no fake blur in the background.
Note: Nothing JUST released an update, which gives us 2x zoom in Portrait Mode
We have rigorously tested the camera on the Nothing Phone (2) and above you can see the results of those tests. We carefully measure the performance of all cameras in various test scenes, ranking the performance across important metrics like exposure, subject exposure, color accuracy, detail, artifacts and more. We do these tests for both photos and videos.
Nothing Phone (2) performance and benchmarks
So, the Nothing Phone (2) comes with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 — sure, it’s an older processor, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, right? Nobody who bought a flagship in 2022 is currently thinking “Welp, I need a new phone, pronto”.
No, we are not apologizing for Nothing here, but the point is — we can very much swallow using a previous gen processor when the phone starts at $600.
Here are some benchmarks:
And those numbers are mirrored in real life — apps install fast, launch quickly, cycling through the recent apps wheel doesn’t freeze up, and touch response does not feel sluggish at all.
Nothing Phone (2) OS / Android version
The Nothing Phone (2) received Nothing OS 2.5 in December, 2023. It updated the phone to Android 14 and added more features — customization options for the wallpaper, live wallpapers, Glyph Timer improvements and access from the lock screen, camera stability fixes, weather app facelift, new widgets, various small improvements.
Nothing Phone (2) launched with Nothing OS 2.0, which very clearly showed the direction and intent the company has for its products — simple, effective, not overbearing or distracting.
Nothing wants to give you the option to remove the colorful noise and branding from app icons on your home screen. The default theme for Nothing OS is monochrome. And — get this — it doesn’t need an icon pack. Nothing OS will auto-swap any app icon with a monochrome version of it. Of course, you can pick a more “normal” theme if you wish to, but we find that black-and-white look to be quite refreshing.
This will work for absolutely any obscure app, even if no developer made an alternative icon for it. If it doesn’t happen on your device — do download the Nothing Icon Pack from the Play Store. It’s not a conventional icon pack per se, but a piece of the puzzle that allows the Nothing Launcher to do its magic.
The homescreen folders have been improved, too. On the Phone (1), we noted we can have a big folder, which allows you to tap on icons within it, effectively increasing the number of apps you can have on one homescreen (this feature is now adopted by more and more manufacturer UIs). They look like oversized widgets that can quick-launch icons. In Nothing OS 2.0, you can choose the shape of these oversized folders — they can hold 6 apps in a circular form, or 9 apps in a square-shaped widget.
Our one complaint with Nothing OS 2.0 is that it doesn’t go far enough. It kind of feels jarring when you are viewing that beautiful, simplistic homescreen and you tap to go in the phone’s Settings — you are immediately greeted by the off-white of Google’s Material You, which simply does not fit the aesthetic otherwise.
Maybe our favorite new feature in Nothing OS 2.0 is the ability to put quick toggles on the lockscreen. Any toggle that typically resides in your notifications shade can be moved to the lockscreen for quick access. For example — hotspot on/off, or flashlight!
Also, props to Nothing for making their own Weather app — another one of our pain points from the Phone (1) has been addressed.
Nothing promises 3 years of Android updates and 4 years of security patches for the Phone (2). This means that, if all goes well, we should get:
- 2023 (summer) – Nothing Phone (2) launches with Android 13
- 2023 (late) – Nothing Phone (2) gets Android 14
- 2024 (late) – Nothing Phone (2) gets Android 15
- 2025 (late) – Nothing Phone (2) gets Android 16
- 2026 (summer) – Android update promise ends
- 2027 (summer) – Security patches end
Since launch, the Nothing Phone (2) has received multiple, multiple updates, addressing bugs, performance, and camera quality.
New Glyph features
And then, there’s the Glyph interface on the back — it can now go brighter than before, but it can also go dimmer than before. Also, there’s now an ambience sensor on the back of the Nothing Phone (2), so you can let the Glyph set its own intensity.
Also, the top arch of the central Glyph can now serve as a progress bar. You can set this to be a timer that you can see ticking down even when you put the phone face-down. Nothing suggests this can be used by people who employ the Pomodoro Method — set up a timer for 25 minutes of focused work and flip your phone to mute any distractions.
Lastly, there’s a Glyph Composer app. Now, the Nothing Phone (2) does come with a selection of cool, clicky, machine-sounding ringtones that also light up the Glyph interface in their own pattern. But now, you can also “compose” a tune of your own, which will light up the LEDs in the pattern you recorded.
At launch, there are 5 sound packs for the Composer, but the feature is open for artist partnerships — more sound packs and pre-made custom tones will be coming in the near future.
The good news: most of these Nothing OS 2.0 features are coming to the Nothing Phone (1)! Minus the Glyph progress bar since this is tied to the new hardware of the Nothing Phone (2).
Nothing Phone (2) Battery
“Keeping the lights on”, hehe, get it?
The Nothing Phone (2) comes with a 4,700 battery — that’s not the biggest out there but its just slightly shy of the 5,000 mAh we usually get in flagship phones. In any case, we have yet to put it through the ringer, but we are hopeful it’s going to hold its own.
It doesn’t wow us with an eternally undrainable battery, but we were able to rely on the Phone (2) to hang in there for a whole day and still have battery well above the reds at the end of the day. But, as expected, gaming will drain that cell much faster. Here are our benchmarks:
PhoneArena Battery Test Results:
As for charging, you can top it up with a 45 W fast charger or plop it on a 15 W Qi charger. Also, the Nothing Phone (2) can give off power, so you can charge your earphones case with 5 W of power from the phone.
Nothing Phone (2) audio quality and haptics
Speaking of clickiness, the haptics of the Nothing Phone (2) are precise and responsive. They kind of have to be, considering so many glowing patterns of the Glyph and the ringtones are tied to them. So, the feedback from the phone feels mechanically pleasing and accurate.
Nothing Phone (2) Competitors
Nothing knows that the Phone (2) is kind of old in the tooth and losing grip on the market, but it seems to be discounted to $550 nowadays. Pretty hard to beat that price-tag for a neat-looking, fast-running, unique smartphone. We can see how some users can still buy that one, and enjoy it. This is a phone for people that want to make a statement — “We love tech, but we hate how much tech tries to push itself on us”. What should we call this style? Nerd minimalism?
Nothing Phone (2) Summary and final verdict
Obviously, Nothing still has a long way to go — the camera algorithms still need work to meet the competition, the UI feels like a solid base is there but it needs to go further with the overall Android skin customization, and we still get (very minor) bugs on launch.
But once those things start getting addressed, the price may also start climbing towards the flagship threshold. For the time being, we are perfectly happy with the Nothing Phone (2) for the $600 smartphone that it is — it’s unique, performs great, and the camera is OK and dependable for capturing memorabilia. If you’ve been thinking about a “smartphone detox while still having a smartphone” — monochroming the homescreen and developing the habit of putting the Nothing Phone (2) face-down may actually give you that experience.
Giving it an 8.5 because that’s how we rated the Pixel 7 and we feel like the Nothing Phone (2) is a solid Pixel 7 alternative.