Nothing Cellphone 2 overview: the vibes abide

The Nothing Cellphone 2 is best than the Cellphone 1 in numerous small methods. However I’m nonetheless not precisely positive what it’s.

By the numbers, it’s a well-equipped midrange machine. It prices $599 and comes with a succesful Snapdragon processor, a giant, smooth-scrolling display, and some extras like wi-fi charging. To date, so good. However then, there’s the vibe, which is a minimum of half of the attraction. It’s more durable to quantify however lives someplace among the many translucent rear panel design, the sunshine strip notification indicators, and the distinct Nothing OS launcher. It’s not like a daily telephone — it’s a cool telephone.

I feel you’ll get pleasure from utilizing it — so long as you’re not anticipating a transformational expertise

Woven into that vibe is Nothing’s origin story for the telephone: it’s for individuals who need to be much less distracted and extra intentional about how they use their machine. It’s for individuals who need know-how to be enjoyable once more. It helps you give attention to what issues. 

Right here’s the place all that lands in actuality: the Nothing Cellphone 2 is a classy telephone for individuals who need their tech to face out. It’s not going to make you a extra centered, intentional individual. It’s pretty priced, thoughtfully designed, and if its vibe aligns with yours, then I feel you’ll get pleasure from utilizing it — so long as you’re not anticipating a transformational expertise.

The Good

Gentle strips are a neat design touchUseful always-on show with customizable infoGood four-year software program assist coverage

The Unhealthy

Solely splash-resistantNot licensed on VerizonHow we fee and overview merchandise

The Cellphone 2 feels just like the machine the Cellphone 1 was meant to be. Nothing appears to have ironed out some earlier points — battery life is way improved, for starters. It lasts via a day of average use because of a extra power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset and an even bigger 4,700mAh cell (up from 4,500mAh). 

The 8 Plus Gen 1 is snappy; my overview unit has 12GB of RAM, and I can cruise between apps seamlessly. The bottom mannequin comes with 8GB of RAM, however I don’t assume that will make any important distinction in day-to-day use. The 6.7-inch 1080p display is without doubt one of the nicest you’ll discover on any telephone this far south of $1,000. It’s an LTPO display able to working as much as 120Hz and all the way in which all the way down to 1Hz.

It’s larger than the 6.55-inch show on the Cellphone 1, and the bezels are just a bit slimmer this yr, too. It will get brighter in direct daylight — allegedly as much as 1,600 nits, although Nothing isn’t precisely a dependable narrator on that entrance; it initially claimed the Cellphone 1 may hit 1,200 nits earlier than strolling it again to 700. In any case, I used to be ready to make use of the display comfortably on a hike whereas framing images in vivid sunshine.

The display is a little bit larger and higher this time round.

The Cellphone 2’s total construct feels fairly sturdy — there’s Gorilla Glass on the back and front and durable aluminum rails across the sides. The perimeters are flat, as on final yr’s mannequin, however there’s a slight curve to the again panel so it sits extra comfortably in your hand. That’s good, however I feel it contributes to a different downside: this telephone is slippery as heck. Like, Google Pixel 6 and seven slippery. It slips round in my hand greater than I’d like, and if I set it down with the display facet up on a {smooth} counter, it’s liable to shimmy proper off the sting.

Regardless of its sturdy construct, the Cellphone 2 remains to be not fairly as water- or dust-resistant as different telephones round this worth. It’s IP54 rated — up from IP53 on the Cellphone 1 — which implies it provides fairly a little bit of mud resistance however is simply splash-resistant. The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G and Google Pixel 7A, each of which price lower than the Cellphone 2, provide extra strong IP67 scores. Sort of a bummer. On the software program facet, Nothing is promising three Android OS updates and 4 years of safety updates each different month. That’s not the easiest coverage on the market, however it’s Good with a capital G. 

In different excellent news: the Cellphone 2 is absolutely launching within the US, which the Cellphone 1 solely form of did via a beta testing program. That is nice as a result of we sorely want selection in our midrange telephone eating regimen right here. It received’t be bought straight via any service, however it is going to be accessible unlocked and can work on T-Cellular and AT&T — however it received’t be licensed to work on Verizon. That fairly dramatically cuts down the variety of individuals within the US who can think about the Cellphone 2.

Wired charging is even quicker this yr: as much as 45W in comparison with 33W. Simply remember to BYO charging brick. Wi-fi charging remains to be supported at as much as 15W, and I feel that’s a wise inclusion. A telephone that appears this excessive tech and gadget-y simply wants it, and I admire with the ability to set it down on my charging stand on the finish of the day. 

One word although — my charger appears to reengage charging once in a while all through the night time to maintain it topped off at 100%, and that makes the Glyph lights blink to substantiate charging is going on. I are not looking for a strobe gentle on my bedside desk, however it’s straightforward sufficient to toggle the glyphs on and off within the fast settings.

I’m perpetually grateful when firms stick to 2 good cameras relatively than cramming in pointless further low-res sensors.

The Cellphone 2 comes with the same rear digicam {hardware} setup because the Cellphone 1: a 50-megapixel f/1.9 essential digicam with optical picture stabilization and a 50-megapixel ultrawide. There’s a brand new 32-megapixel selfie digicam on the entrance. The corporate says that its HDR processing has been improved, because it now makes use of extra particular person frames for every shot. Testing this out in vivid noon solar, I can verify that the Cellphone 2 avoids committing HDR crimes, although it loses extra highlights than I’d favor. Total although, they’re nice-looking photographs.

Nothing says that a part of its digicam software program enhancements consists of higher recognition of shifting topics — in flip, boosting the shutter pace so that you’re extra more likely to get a pointy shot. That’s essential when you’re taking photos of a shifting child or pet, significantly in dim gentle the place cameras like to make use of longer exposures to let in additional gentle. You are inclined to get numerous blurry images from smartphone cameras in these conditions.

This isn’t tremendous low lighting, however the Cellphone 2 nonetheless needed to work to freeze the movement of my toddler throwing pillows round on the sofa.

I’m actually very impressed with how properly this works on the Cellphone 2 — it cranked the shutter pace as much as 1/500sec for a collection of images of my toddler leaping out from a pile of pillows, and all of them are sharp. Element is a little bit smoothed out from noise discount because it additionally had to make use of the next ISO, however I’ll take that over a straight-up blurry photograph any day. I’d like to see different telephone digicam makers copy this transfer from Nothing.

No less than a part of Nothing’s acknowledged mission is that will help you take management over how a lot you utilize your telephone, and the Cellphone 2 comes with each software program and {hardware} tweaks that will help you try this. On the {hardware} facet, there are the glyphs: they’re damaged up into extra sections this time round, and you’ll compose your individual morse code-like combos of blinks and bloops. There’s nonetheless the useful Flip to Glyph characteristic, which silences notifications and simply makes use of the glyphs for notification alerts. 

This time, there’s additionally one thing referred to as the “important” Glyph: you designate sure notifications as important, and when a type of alerts arrives, a Glyph gentle will keep illuminated to let you already know. That’s useful if you wish to go heads-down on some work however you continue to need to be interrupted to learn a textual content out of your associate or a Slack DM. Nevertheless it’s not fairly as helpful as having completely different focus modes for various conditions since your definition of “important” interruptions is probably going completely different at completely different occasions of day. If you wish to change which apps can interrupt you, you need to go into the Glyph settings each time.

The Cellphone 2 does truly provide Android’s conventional Focus mode, which helps you to disallow sure apps from sending you notifications for a time period, however the controls are much less granular than what Nothing provides with important glyphs. You possibly can enable sure kinds of notifications to indicate as a necessary Glyph — whereas, with Focus mode, you’ll be able to solely enable or disallow the complete app. 

One of many Glyph lights serves as a progress indicator and visible timer.

One other new Glyph characteristic is the power to indicate progress and observe sure time-based occasions — one of many gentle strips illuminates or dims progressively, like a progress bar. That is restricted to a couple issues for the time being, together with a silent timer and an integration with Uber. I like utilizing the timer after I steep my morning espresso within the French press: it’s the identical four-minute timer on daily basis, and it’s silent so it doesn’t wake the remainder of the home when time’s up.

The Uber integration is neat, in principle, however I’m unsure after I’d truly need to use it. The Glyph will gentle up as your Uber driver will get nearer, however to make use of it, you’d must have your telephone face down on a desk when you wait. I are usually doing 4 different issues on my telephone as I’m ready for an Uber, so it doesn’t appear that helpful to me. Nothing anticipates bringing extra third-party apps on board, and I can see myself utilizing it for one thing like monitoring a meals supply, which appears to be on the roadmap. 

Now you can add some primary widgets to your lock display, and so they’ll stay seen on the AOD

On the software program facet, Nothing’s Android OS pores and skin now consists of an choice to show all your app icons to monochrome, and it enables you to set up them into folders with little dot-matrix cowl icons. The concept is to tamp down the distractions from colourful app logos. Personally, I felt a little bit bit misplaced each time I opened up the app drawer on the lookout for one thing particular and got here face-to-face with a wall of black-and-white icons. I suppose I depend on coloration to identify the app I’m on the lookout for rapidly, and sadly, the shortage of colourful logos didn’t make me any much less vulnerable to senseless Instagram scrolling. 

Nothing’s up to date always-on show is rather more useful: now you can add some primary widgets to your lock display, and so they’ll stay seen on the AOD. There are a number of climate widgets you’ll be able to add for extra element on the day’s forecast, a clock you’ll be able to set to maintain tabs on one other time zone, and fast settings shortcuts. Notification icons seem under all of this as they usually would. If there’s one factor that was only at stopping me from choosing up the telephone and getting sucked into an unscheduled social media scrolling session, it’s the information-rich AOD — not the glyphs.

Nothing OS comes with a brand new choice to vary all of your app icons to monochrome.

What this boils all the way down to is that the Cellphone 2 has two programs for notifications: one primarily based in software program and one primarily based in {hardware}. The corporate appears to need us to embrace the latter extra, however I had a tough time with it myself. It’s such a reflex to set my telephone down with the display dealing with up that I needed to remind myself to flip it over.

And I usually need extra data than much less — even when the important Glyph lights up, I choose the telephone up and normally find yourself simply dismissing the notification that triggered it as a result of it wasn’t all that essential in any case. It seems like much less of a distraction to only look on the show, learn the Slack notification that simply arrived, and dismiss it. 

It’s such a reflex to set my telephone down with the display dealing with up that I needed to remind myself to flip it over

I requested Nothing CEO Carl Pei why he felt it was essential to develop this hardware-based notification system on the again of the telephone relatively than one thing like Apple’s Dynamic Island, placing progress indicators and updates on the display, the place your consideration normally is. He mentioned that if notifications are on the display, “Then there’s all the time the temptation to only do one thing else in conjunction to checking for that standing.” The various hours of display time I log on daily basis are inclined to agree with that assertion.

The Cellphone 2 is designed to progressively “nudge” individuals towards Nothing’s imaginative and prescient of placing your telephone down extra usually, Pei advised me. The 2-ish weeks that I’ve been utilizing the telephone aren’t actually sufficient time to say whether or not I’ve modified my telephone habits considerably. However to date, I haven’t. Perhaps it’s my anxious mind demanding extra data after I see an “important” Glyph seem. Perhaps it’s the truth that I’m additionally utilizing a Pixel Watch that already lets me triage notifications with out choosing up the telephone. Perhaps I’m too used to having all of my notifications seen without delay. It’s in all probability all the above. 

The Cellphone 2’s entire deal can be tiresome if it wasn’t additionally a very good telephone.

I feel you in all probability already know if the Nothing Cellphone 2 is for you. For those who admire the eye-catching design and a no-screen focus mode sounds interesting — and also you’re not on Verizon — then you definitely’ll be lots proud of this machine. The little upgrades all through the {hardware} and software program make a major distinction. I didn’t really feel fairly as very like a beta tester utilizing Cellphone 2 as I did with Cellphone 1.

Going again to the numbers for a minute, the Nothing Cellphone 2’s clearest competitor within the US might be the also-$599 Google Pixel 7. I can’t consider a telephone extra not like the Cellphone 2. If Nothing desires to make your life simpler utilizing {hardware} and good old style blinking lights, then Google’s more-software-is-better method is about as far-off as you will get. So we may go down the spec record, however I feel your private tech ideology might be a greater compass right here. In case that doesn’t suffice: the Pixel 7 has an IP68 ranking and a greater total digicam system however a worse display.

Your private tech ideology might be a greater compass right here

The Cellphone 2’s entire deal can be a little bit tiresome if the machine itself wasn’t good. That’s not the case. This can be a completely good midrange telephone, and it’s attempting to do one thing a little bit completely different. I admire that. I simply don’t assume it’s for me — however possibly I’m a misplaced trigger. On the very least, I admire having Nothing formally on the scene within the US, even when the Cellphone 2 isn’t fairly my vibe.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Conform to Proceed: Nothing Cellphone 2

Each good machine now requires you to conform to a collection of phrases and circumstances earlier than you should use it — contracts that nobody truly reads. It’s unattainable for us to learn and analyze each single one in all these agreements. However we began counting precisely what number of occasions you need to hit “agree” to make use of units after we overview them since these are agreements most individuals don’t learn and undoubtedly can’t negotiate.

To make use of the Cellphone 2, you could conform to:

Google Phrases of ServiceGoogle Play Phrases of ServiceGoogle Privateness Coverage (included in ToS)Set up apps and updates: “You agree this machine can also mechanically obtain and set up updates and apps from Google, your service, and your machine’s producer, probably utilizing mobile information.”Nothing finish consumer license agreementNothing privateness coverage

The next agreements are non-obligatory:

Again as much as Google DriveProvide nameless location information for Google’s companies“Enable apps and companies to scan for Wi-Fi networks and close by units at any time, even when Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is off.”Ship utilization and diagnostic information to GoogleAccess your Assistant with Hey GoogleActivate Voice Match for Hey GoogleAccess your Assistant with out unlocking your deviceNothing’s consumer Expertise program, System stability program, and firm notifications

Last tally: six obligatory agreements and a minimum of 10 non-obligatory agreements.

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