On the off chance you believed that Nothing and its new smartphone had any chance at all, allow me to dash those hopes: founder Carl Pei confirmed this week that the Nothing Phone (1), which is the horrible name of the firm’s new handset, will ship with a mid-level chipset. So it’s not a “flagship killer,” let alone something even remotely interesting.
Pei told a random tech blog that the Nothing Phone (1) will ship with a mid-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ chipset instead of a flagship-class chipset that can help the phone compete against modern iPhones and Samsung flagships. This chipset does, however, support wireless charging and reverse wireless charging, two features that are missing in the normal 778G.
So why the lackluster chipset? Pei says it’s about “performance, power consumption, and cost,” mirroring earlier statements he had made about smartphone specifications not being important. Which is the type of thing you only say when you have a device with less than flagship specifications.
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Nothing also revealed recently that it will launch the Phone (1) in Europe and the UK only, and that it has no plans to bring the device to the United States, further diminishing its appeal. About 100,000 people signed up to preorder the Phone (1) when the system went live last week.
dftf
<p>I thought the special thing about the <em>Nothing</em> phones is that they are supposed to be easily end-user repairable?</p>
dftf
<p>The fairer statement should probably be "an <em>Intel Core i5</em> isn’t acceptable because <em>AMD Ryzen 5</em> exists".</p><p><br></p><p>As someone who has recently been looking at a new laptop for a family-member, the three most-common laptop CPUs I encounter are the <em>Intel Core i5-1035G1 </em>(4-core, 8-thread, 6MB cache, 1-3.6Ghz); the <em>Intel Core i5-1135G7 </em>(4c, 8t, 8MB, 2.4-4.2Ghz) or the <em>AMD Ryzen 5 5500U</em> (6c, 12t 11MB, 2.1-4Ghz). It’s a no-brainer to recommend the <em>5500U</em>, given the extra cores, threads and higher cache (and I’d imagine better power-efficiency, also)!</p><p><br></p><p>(When looking at <em>Core i3</em> and <em>Ryzen 3</em>, however, the specs are more-comparable, with most featuring 2 cores, 4 threads and 5-6MB of cache; though one did have an <em>Intel Core i3-1125G4</em>, which has 4 cores, 8 threads and 8MB of cache.)</p>
dftf
<p>I might be missing something, but… isn’t the big-thing about the <em>Nothing</em> phone that virtually all of the parts are end-user replaceable or repairable, and not the spec? I cannot recall many press-releases or news-articles where they claim it’ll be "the phone to end all others" or similar.</p><p><br></p><p>But I agree with others here: there isn’t really that much-wrong with the spec, assuming it’ll be priced like other mid-rangers. 120Hz OLED display (<em>Pixel 6a</em> is 60Hz; <em>iPhone SE (2022)</em> also is 60Hz, and is also not OLED); 8GB RAM (<em>Pixel 6a </em>is 6GB; <em>iPhone SE (2022)</em> just 4GB); 128GB storage (<em>SE</em> starts from 64GB); and a 4500mAh battery (a tiny 2018mAh on the <em>SE</em>).</p><p><br></p><p>About the only things I could criticise about the <em>Nothing</em> phone (assuming <em>GSM Arena’s</em> specs are accurate) is that the USB Type C connector is apparently only USB 2.0 speeds, there is no headphone-port, and the video-recording only supports 30FPS for all-modes, not 60FPS.</p>
George Charly
<p>I’m getting Nothing phone 1 for sure, it is so good looking plus the specs are also worth it. Most people are asking for a case, but using a case will completely spoil the phone’s design. A transparent case is good but after 2-3 months it’ll get yellowish so I will put on a Gadgetshieldz full-body film protector which I’m using on my Nothing ear 1 for scratch protection!</p>