The Nothing Phone 1 was an instant hit when it launched last year, primarily because of the hype and the fact that it did not look like your average smartphone. The Phone 1 was a mid-range smartphone with the Snapdragon 778G+ chipset, launched at €469 / £399 / ₹32,999. Today, the brand launched its second phone – Nothing Phone 2.
The Phone 2 is a flagship device and brings upgrades in almost every department. It will also be available in the US, which wasn’t the case with the Phone 1. The Phone 2 starts at $599 / ₹44,999 / €679 / £579.
Design-wise, Nothing hasn’t changed the design significantly from last year. The Phone 2 still has that flat frame, a flat display with symmetrical bezels, a vertically placed dual camera setup on the rear, a transparent design, and glyph lighting. As for the changes in the design, the Nothing Phone 2 has curved glass on the back instead of a flat one for a better feeling in hand. The glass on the front is still flat, though.
The frame is made of 100% recycled aluminum, as are the buttons and the SIM tray tip. Nothing says 80% of plastic parts are made with recycled and bio-based materials, 9 circuit boards use 100% recycled tin, the main board uses 100% recycled copper, and all 28 steel stamping parts use over 90% recycled steel. All this results in a carbon footprint of 53.45 kg, 8.6% lower than the Phone 1. The packaging is also plastic-free, where up to 60% of the paper is recycled.
The glyph interface has gotten some major upgrades this time. As we can see, the LED strips are segmented, so while the Nothing Phone 1 had five LED strips, the Phone 2 had eleven. The lighting zones are almost three times of Phone 1. In short, there are even more customization options.
Nothing Phone 2 has a stereo speaker setup, three microphones, an under-display fingerprint scanner, and wireless charging support. The phone is IP54 rated, so minor water splashes shouldn’t cause issues.
Under the hood, the phone is rocking the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. While it is not Qualcomm’s latest and greatest SOC, it is still a significant upgrade over the Snapdragon 778G+ inside the Phone 1. This SOC upgrade results in up to 80% better performance than the predecessor. The battery is bigger at 4,700mAh and supports 45W wired, 15W wireless, and 5W reverse wireless charging.
The display is a 6.7-inch flexible OLED with LTPO, up to 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, 10-bit color depth, and a Full-HD+ resolution. The peak brightness of the panel is 1600 nits. Since it is an LTPO panel, the refresh rate can go as low as 1Hz when required. The display has Gorilla Glass 5 protection.
The primary camera on the rear has a 50MP Sony IMX890 sensor with OIS, 1/1.56″ sensor size, f/1.88 lens, 1μm pixel size, OIS, and EIS. The ultrawide camera is the same as Phone 1 – a 50MP Samsung JN1 sensor with EIS and 114-degree FOV. The ultrawide camera also takes macro photos so that you can go as close as 4cm to the subject. The selfie camera is upgraded, so it is a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor with a 1/2.74″ sensor size.
Nothing has added a new camera feature called “Advanced HDR” to the Phone 2, which captures eight frames with different levels of exposure in the RAW domain and then selects the best details in each frame to combine the data into a single image.
The rear camera can shoot 4K 60fps videos, but the front camera can shoot up to 1080p 60fps.
Finally, Nothing Phone 2 runs on Android 13-based Nothing OS 2.0, which features new widgets and customization options.
Here is the price of the Nothing Phone 2 in various regions –
- 8GB + 128GB – $599 / ₹44,999 / €679 / £579
- 12GB + 256GB – $699 / ₹49,999 / €729 / £629
- 12GB + 512GB – $799 / ₹54,999 / €849 / £699