Nothing, The company from the co-founder of one plus, Carl Pei have Announced their first-ever Android smartphone, nothing phone(1) The phone, which is touted to be the next one plus, provides excellent specifications, user experience as well as Flagship Level Performance, should change the entire tech industry, if what nothing says is true, and would be an eye-opener for flagships such as Samsung, apple and one plus. Here is everything that you should know about the nothing’s new phone.
What is Nothing
Nothing is a London-based consumer technology company founded by Carl Pei and his team. After Carl Pei parted ways with Oneplus, which he helped create, The new company was created in 2020 and released the first product, Nothing ear (1) last march, and was widely praised for the outstanding sound quality, noise cancellation and build quality, that could rival premium earphones like the Apple AirPods and Samsung buds, for a third of their price. After the great success of the nothing ear(1), the company was rumoured to introduce a wide array of smart wearables and mobile phones, which was announced today.
Need of Nothing’s new phone
Before the one plus one came, there was a large gap between mid-range and high-end mobile phones, the flagships, while having a fast processor and high-end build quality, the mid-range market was dull, with little to no love from manufacturers towards the segment. So, While the high-end market was ruled by Samsung, Apple and the low-end market by Xiaomi, and other indigenous companies, there was little to no option for a phone with flagship specs or user experience.
One plus entered the market with the highest-end Qualcomm 801 processor, fast, lite and clean cyanogen mod ( the good old days of cyanogen 🙂 ) OS, and while it did not boast the same premium materials as the high-end mobiles, provided a much better fit and finish than the other phones in the segment. All these factors combined, The one plus one, and a large number of successors were huge successes.
But one plus is not what it used to be. With each iteration, the prices slowly kept increasing, and the features that kept one plus different from the other manufacturers-price to performance ratio was no longer better. the oversharing of features with their parent company oppo, also meant the distinct character of one plus devices were no longer present. The last blow was the shipping of one plus device with colour os. The brand which was renowned and appreciated for a clean android experience suddenly started coming out with arguably one of the most bloated Software skins in all of android.
What are the challenges?
The Phone market is not the same either. the only deciding factors when the one plus came to the scene were performance and user experience. But now, The real factor that makes most people cling on to their current ecosystem is the suite of hardware and software that are designed to work together, but not with any other devices. Nothing, in their presentation, envisioned an open ecosystem, an ecosystem in which anyone can be a part of, not just other products. Their biggest challenge will have to be to build an open ecosystem and actually include other OEMs in their ecosystem.
One of the first hints for this came from Carl Pei when he said that the nothing OS would have most default apps from Google, instead of having multiple apps for the same purpose as Samsung do. We have been vouching for this change since android 9 came out, when google drastically redesigned the stock apps, and it is fast and efficient to this day.
What is Nothing Phone(1) Promising?
Now that One plus no longer creates the phones they were known for, and companies such as Xiaomi,iqoo and realme failing to deliver on the user experience part f their devices, there is a large market of users that the one plus devices once catered for. This is where Nothing is aiming to set foot. And walled gardens made by Apple, Samsung etc in the form of an ‘ecosystem’ have been preventing people to change to other manufacturers for products, which is also about to change. In the midrange, for those who need the best of both worlds, clean and beautiful software experience, along with a flagship SpecSheet.
3 reasons Nothing Phone(1) is huge
1. Bloatware Free Android
Even though Android OEM skins such as One UI, MIUI, Colour os, fun touch etc have evolved a lot from ugly looking, they still have a big problem- that is bloatware. Most new smartphones have as many as 30 Bloatware apps, with Samsung having as much as 50, including many apps for the same thing unnecessarily. With nothing, this would most probably change, and many, if not all manufacturers, would be compelled to change their course.
2. Open ecosystem
If there is one thing that I envy about Samsung or Apple, it is their ecosystem. Apple, and recently Samsung, have been building an ecosystem of their own. for people who use all the products of the same company, a lot of integrations happen that make life easier. But as we invest more and more into the ecosystem, we are forced to buy more products from the manufacturer, even if there are better, cheaper products from others.
The open ecosystem model, proposed by nothing would give the taste of such integration and ease of use, for people who don’t have the money to buy into such an expensive ecosystem or those who do not want to invest in a single company. Nothing os is promised to have tight integration with a wide array of third party products, and that would enable the user to use products from multiple users. For example, you will not just be forced to use a nothing earbud, but also other earphones if you needed them.
3. Return of Flagship Killers
There are a lot of good mobile phones with amazing specs and prices, such as the S20FE, MI 11i and iQOO 9 SE, None of them Provide a proper flagship killer experience. Mostly because of the bloated android and slow and weak android updates. Nothing is promising 3 yrs of android updates, 4 years of security updates, much like Samsung and mi, But also a pure android experience with much less bloatware, like how the early one plus mobiles were.
Moreover, flagship killers are not just about specs and speed. it is also about the user experience when compared to flagships, and in the current state of the tech industry, it would not be a true flagship killer without an ecosystem, which it also supports. so this will be the return of flagships, and when other manufacturers follow, we get options.
Summary
Carl Pei and nothing have some great ideas about the nothing phone and the future of technology. and the slow but noticeably shift of the tech companies to work in the interests of consumers. The idea of an open ecosystem, if possible, sounds awesome, and will break the barrier between devices and software.
Hopefully, the phone (1) will succeed, and it would be a good chance for the tech industry, and more manufacturers turn towards open ecosystems. It is set t be released in the summer of 2022, which is around June- August in London. meanwhile, the nothing launcher, the stock launcher of nothing smartphones will be available for selected smartphones from April onwards.
If you can wait till June for nothing, check out the Samsung Galaxy M52 5g, which is by far the best phone below 30K.