(Pocket-lint) – Nothing announced that it had ambitions to launch a smartphone during its event on 23 March 2022. We say event, it was more of a soliloquy from Carl Pei – Nothing’s founder – outlining how tech had become stale and it was time for a change.
Nothing’s second product will be the Nothing phone (1) and here’s everything we know about it.
Release date
There’s no confirmed date for the launch of the Nothing phone (1), but it’s being aimed at a summer launch.
There’s no word on pre-orders, shipping dates or anything else – just that it’s coming in the middle of 2022.
Design and build
There has been literally nothing shared about the phone, apart from the image above. Many have drawn a box around it and suggested that this is the rear of the phone – just as we have done before.
That would suggest a camera top left and a wireless charging coil on the rear. With Nothing ear (1) having a translucent finish, there’s the suggestion that could be the line taken by Nothing.
We’ve seen that before both from HTC and Xiaomi, so there’s nothing new there, but it might make this phone look a little different.
The line to the top right remains a mystery – it looks like a winking eye and could be some sort of nod towards notifications. We’re also happy to accept that this could all be a red herring to get people to speculate, and nothing more.
Hardware specs
We know very little about the actual hardware specs for the phone. Nothing announced it was partnering with Qualcomm and we know that’s going to provide the heart for the Nothing phone (1).
There’s no telling what Snapdragon SoC it might use. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 would frame this as a flagship device, but this would also make it an expensive device. As the focus is on efficiency and experience, it could move down a step to something in the Snapdragon 700 series and still deliver a premium experience – but potential customers might not accept anything other than flagship level hardware.
Literally nothing else is known yet.
Software
On the software front we know a little more. We know it’s going to be an Android phone and we know it’s not going to duplicate Google’s apps, suggesting it’s going to be fairly close to stock.
But we do know it’s going to run Nothing OS and that you’ll be able to sample that experience thanks to the Android launcher that Nothing will make available in April.
But beyond that, Nothing has broad ambitions for what it wants to achieve, talking about ecosystem more than anything else – so it’s likely to be here that Nothing wants to differentiate, offering a smoother experience interacting with other devices.
Writing by Chris Hall.
