Nothing Phone 2 Review: Innovatively fun with impressive design

Nothing Phone (2). Picture: Nothing.

I feel like coming to the party a little late as I never got the opportunity to test Nothing Phone 1, an innovative handset from the London-based company whose mantra is phones should be fun. While some will see the Glyph lighting system on the rear of the Phone 1 as a gimmick, many users love the innovation and functionality. Nothing Phone 2 builds on this while refining design details, improving software and expanding functionality. The genius behind Nothing is Carl Pei, who appears to be the UK’s answer to Steve Jobs. While that may be a bold statement, there’s no denying that Phone 2 stands out among the crowded market full of blandness and iterative updates.

Design

At a glance, Phone 2 looks similar to an iPhone Pro Max with rounded corners. It features a tiny cutout for the selfie camera rather than the massive Dynamic Island on the iPhone. Phone 2 is around 50g lighter than the iPhone despite having similar dimensions and screen size. I’m a massive fan of the styling, especially the flat edges, and I love that Phone 2 is much lighter.

The back is a flat panel of Gorilla Glass with chamfered edges that slop towards the edges to enhance comfort while holding the phone. The glass is super polished and fully transparent, which is awesome, but you must be careful when placing it down on any surface with even a slight gradient, as it will slide. The see-through back allows you to see the back of the phone, including the Glyph lights and the shape of the wireless charging coils but not the actual internals. The Glyphs comprise eleven light strips — there are 33 individually addressable zones.

Another unique feature is the red LED light on the rear that flashes when recording video from the rear cameras. This is fantastic for people using the rear camera to record themselves and want to ensure it's recording. It also lets others know you’re recording them.

The left side has volume up and down buttons, while the right has a power button. The bottom edge has a dual SIM tray, a USB-C port and a six-hole speaker grille.

The Phone 2 is comfortable to hold and feels super sturdy and premium. It has an IP54 dust and water-resistant, which is good enough for most users but is bested with most flagship phones with IP68.

Phone 2 has two rear cameras on the top left, boasting powerful 50MP main and ultrawide cameras.

The under-display fingerprint sensor is close to the bottom of the screen, but it is incredibly sensitive and reliably accurate. I prefer sensors that are a little higher on the screen, but it’s not a dealbreaker.

Glyph lights and software

Some will think the Glyph lighting is a gimmick and unnecessary, but I hate knocking companies willing to innovate. We need more of this rather than iterative updates and safe but bland styles. Nothing is to be commended for bringing something new to the table, and hopefully, more companies will follow.

The novelty Glyph lights are more than just a series of lights and beeps; it offers a way of reducing screen time by encouraging you to put the phone facedown. You can still get all the important notifications without being distracted by your screen and non-priority items. I found it a difficult change in habits, but it’s liberating.

The new lights are now brighter, with an auto mode that can dim them for nighttime. The Glyph lighting system is incredibly sophisticated and has a special ambient light sensor on the back that automatically modifies brightness based on ambient light.

The animations and effects are much more precise now, letting the longer strips surrounding the wireless charging coil light up in response to raising the phone's ringer level or ticking down in accordance with any timers you've set. You also get a cool charging status indicator which gets longer as the battery fills up.

A practical application of the lights is they can be used as a fill light for the rear cameras. This works for both video and stills, and I found it useful for taking macro shots because it produces softer shadows. You can use the Glyph as a torch, bedtime schedule, Google Assistant feedback, and for reverse charging.

NothingOS 2.0 is excellent. In particular, I love the option to install the black-and-white icon pack, which replaces all of your app and folder icons with mono ones. I understand this isn’t for everyone, as it does make it harder to identify apps quickly. However, it looks so clean from a design perspective, and I found it less distracting as I wasn’t as tempted to launch a time-wasting social media app for a death-scrolling session.

NothingOS 2.0 doesn’t stray too far from stock Android but polishes the look and feel that’s genuinely refreshing. I love their implementation of the always-on display, which has custom icons and widgets. These can display everything from the weather to app notifications, battery percentage and shortcuts, so there are fewer reasons to unlock your phone. Hopefully, Nothing adds more widgets, including agendas, notes or music controls.

The Glyph Composer app allows you to create custom sounds based on sound sample presets. Tap an on-screen pad in the app to trigger a different light and sound combination, and once you’ve found your rhythm, press record and create your sequences.

Nothing says more specially curated sound packs will be added to the built-in Nothing sounds by musicians worldwide and uploaded to the Glyph Composer — an update this week includes sound samples from the Swedish House Mafia.

Display and sound

The 6.7-inch OLED is excellent and features an adaptive 120Hz display that makes the phone feel smooth and responsive. The LTPO tech inside helps to maximise smoothness when doing things like scrolling with 120Hz and then saving on battery for static content by lowering the refresh rate dynamically to 1Hz.

The display can get stunningly bright, with a peak of 1,600 nits for HDR10+ content and an outdoor full-screen brightness of 1,000 nits.

I love the symmetrical bezels, which complement the mono theme. The 2412 x 1080 resolution has become the de facto, while devices with QHD displays feel like overkill now.

The OLED panel offers superb contrast and vibrant colours that add a lot of punch to still images and HDR10+ content.

Phone 2 features a down-firing speaker on the bottom edge and an earpiece for a stereo pair. This is a tried and tested combo that works well. It gets loud, but it’s not on par with the class-leading sound quality of the iPhone Pro 14 Max.

Performance

Inside the Phone 2 is a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU which isn’t the latest and greatest, but in real-world use, I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the Galaxy Fold5, which has an overclocked 8+ Gen 2. Yes, syntectic benchmarks have a performance difference, but these don’t translate to a noticeable difference while using the phone. My review unit came with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but there are also 8GB/128GB and 12GB/512GB variants.

Overall performance is great for a smooth user experience; it handles all tasks and gaming well and doesn’t get hot under load.

The 4700mAh battery ensures the Phone 2 is light, but I had no problem getting through a day of heavy use. There’s no charger in the box, but it does support 45W wired charging (full charge in 55 minutes) and 15W Qi-compatible wireless charging with dual charging support. You also get 5W reverse wireless charging.

Cameras

Phone 2’s main camera uses a 50MP Sony IMX890 sensor with f/1.88 aperture and a 24mm lens (35mm equivalent). It comes with both phase-detection AF and optical image and electronic stabilisation. The 50MP sensor defaults to 12MP, but you can shoot at the full 50MP.

A 2x option toggle combines sensor cropping and software algorithms to simulate an optical zoom.

The ultrawide camera is also a 50MP snapper with an f/2.2 aperture and a 114-degree field of view. The macro mode uses this lens to focus as close as 4cm. Video capture is up to 4K at 60fps.

In well-lit scenarios, the main camera captures gorgeously vivid, detailed, and well-exposed images with virtually little picture noise. I’ve taken some of my favourite portrait mode photos with Phone 2 — I love the natural skin colours and bokeh.

The ultrawide isn’t as good as the main camera. The colours look slightly different from the main camera, and the images aren’t as sharp.

The selfie camera has a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor with a f/2.5 aperture lens. It supports video up to 1080p at 60fps, so there is no 4K capture. The photos and videos in good light boast good details and vibrant colours, making them perfect for sharing on social media platforms.

The rear cameras can have good results with striking contrast, decent HDR and glorious detail. However, I have seen several inconsistencies in processing, such as in the motion photo, where I have captured photos of people moving where the eyes are duplicated and other anomalies. Photos have a striking contrast which looks great but sometimes at the expense of shadow detail. I’ve no doubt Nothing will continue to improve the software.

Verdict

The Nothing Phone 2 impresses with its innovatively fun Glyph lighting system and sleek design. While the camera performance is decent, it should improve with updates. The novelty of the Glyph is cool, but the real star of the show here is the striking design and slick NothingOS 2.0 user experience.

With plenty of power, a long-lasting battery, and cameras that produce surprisingly good photographs for the price, Phone 2 is incredibly well-rounded. Overall, it's a refreshing addition to the smartphone market.

Nothing Phone (2) from €679 Nothing Tech

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