Nothing Phone 2 Review: Can it outperform its predecessor?

July 16, 2023, 01:03 PM
by Shahriar Rabab

UNB News
Publish- July 16, 2023, 01:03 PM
Shahriar Rabab
Update- July 16, 2023, 01:30 PM

Nothing Phone 2

Back in the day, Carl Pei challenged the status quo of flagship smartphones with his revolutionary OnePlus One. Fast forward 9 years and Carl has moved on from OnePlus and founded Nothing, no pun intended. With Nothing too, Carl wanted to disrupt the existing smartphone ideas. To that end, the company just announced the Nothing Phone 2, a successor to their Nothing Phone 1 released last year. So how is it as a device? What new features does it bring? Or is it just “nothing”? Let’s find out.

Key Specifications of Nothing Phone 2

Design and Build Quality

Those who are familiar with the Nothing Phone 1 would feel comfortable with the Phone 2. For a brand that brought a completely fresh design element with the Nothing Phone 1 has remarkably stayed true to the original design language.

Experts claim that this could be due to brand establishment needs. Nothing is a completely new player in the smartphone industry. So going for a drastically different design in just the second iteration would negate the brand establishment prospects.

Regardless, there are a few new things on the Phone 2. The most striking change is in the colour. The black variant of the Phone 1 has been replaced with a light grey colour which pops the clear back design more prominently. The clear back design has also been subtly tweaked to give a more polished and minimal look.

Dimension-wise, the Phone 2 is a tad bigger and heavier at 162.1mm by 76.4mm by 8.6mm and 201.2 gm respectively. The front and back of the device are glass with Corning Gorilla Glass protection with an aluminium frame in between.

The front camera has been moved from the side to the centre now. The uniform front bezel has also been reduced a bit to allow for an 87.2% screen-to-body ratio. It's not the best in the market, but the uniform distribution makes it look much slicker than most other smartphones at this price point. The usual ports and buttons are all in the same place as Phone 1 with no headphone or card slot, unfortunately.

Nothing has also upgraded the dust and water resistance from IP53 to IP54. Overall, the design element of the Phone 2 has slightly changed from the Phone 1. This has split the opinion of many. But as a brand, the choice of Nothing to stay with a similar design will only help to solidify their brand.

The Glyph Interface

The glyph interface has been one of the highlights of Phone 1. Simply because no phone before has incorporated such design elements. You can read more about the glyph interface in our original Phone 1 review. Not much has changed since then except for a few additional tweaks here and there.

The two most noticeable changes are in the red LED indicator and the centre strip. The video recording indicator has now been stretched to the edge instead of being a blinking dot. The centre strip has also been broken down into six separate pieces.

Nothing has brought some new functionalities to the glyph interface. The glyph on the top left will work as a priority notification indicator. It can also work as an indicator for car or food delivery ETA (available for Uber and Zomato on an experimental basis).

Users can now compose their own notification sound complete with glyph animations which is like another gimmick. In essence, barring a few useful additions, the glyph interface still remains a novelty trinket to have on a smartphone.

The Display

The display on the Phone 2 is a 6.7 inches LTPO OLED display with an 1080 by 2412 Pixels of resolution, 1 B colours, HDR10+ support, and a bumped-up 120 Hz refresh rate. The display has a 394 ppi density because of the uniform panel alignment. It was expected that the Phone 1 would feature a higher resolution panel but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Regardless, the FHD+ panel still looks excellent as ever with 1600 nits HBM and a higher refresh rate. The uniform flat display alleviates the overall design aesthetic of the Phone 2. It almost feels like using an iPhone with Android OS.

The panel has excellent viewing angles and good color calibration. Overall, the display is easily one of the key strong points of the Phone 2.

Nothing Phone 2

The Camera

The camera on the Phone 2 has had some internal upgrading. The sensors are still a 50 MP main (f/1.9) sensor and a 50 MP (f/2.2) ultrawide one. But the aperture size of both the sensors has been increased for better low light performance.

In the test, Phone 2 performs similarly to Phone 1 in daylight. Images look clear and sharp with good dynamic range. The exposure issues from Phone 1 have also been addressed for reliable performance. The low light performance on the Phone 2 has improved significantly thanks to the live HDR and larger aperture. The front camera has also been bumped up to 32 MP (f/2.5) compared to the 16 MP of the last gen.

The videography on the Phone 2 is rated at 4K@30/60fps and 1080p@30/60fps. The stability on videos is pretty good thanks to the OIS, gyro-EIS, and PDAF.

The Phone 2 camera won't really rival the flagships like S23 or iPhone 14 series but it's definitely a punch above the rest in its price class.

Processor and Performance

Perhaps the biggest upgrade on the Nothing Phone 2 is on the processor end. Last year, the Phone 1 came with the mid-range 7 Gen 1 processor. This year, Nothing has decided to go with last year’s flagship processor, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset based on 4 Nm architecture. The processor has an SOC design of 1 3.0 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3 2.5 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4 1.80 GHz Cortex-A510 chips with the GPU being Adreno 730.

The move has worked wonders. The GeekBench score of 4219 and GFXBench score of 60 fps are both considerably higher than the last gen. This coupled with a dot matrix style minimal NothingOS and high refresh rate makes for an impressive user experience.

The device is also no slouch when it comes to gaming. Leading titles like PUBG, Genshin Impact, and COD all run in max settings without any lag or frame drop.

The Phone 2 also does a good job at thermal management as there wasn’t much noticeable heat even after 45 minutes of continued gaming.

Overall, the Nothing Phone 2 brings a perfect mix of all the right features and addresses all the failings of the Phone 1.

Battery and Charge Time

The battery on the Nothing Phone 2 is a 4700 mAh one. It might seem a bit less but the LTPO display coupled with a highly efficient processor provides around 6 to 7 hours of continued usage. The device also has a 45W wired fast charging which can take the device from 0 to 100% in 55 minutes. The device is compatible with 15W wireless and 5W reverse charging.

Pros and Cons of Nothing Phone 2

Pros:

- Unique looks and design

- Upgraded performance and battery life

- Above average camera

- New glyph functionality

- Materialistic stock UI

Cons:

- Repetitive design

- Priced a bit on the higher side.

Price of Nothing Phone 2

The current price of the Nothing Phone 2 in India is 44,999 INR for the base 8/128 Gb variant. The price roughly translates to 59,488 BDT (1 INR = 1.32 BDT). However, the price will grossly differ once it becomes available in Bangladesh due to several factors like tax and imports.

Final Words

The Nothing Phone 2 is a worthy successor of the Phone 1. In a sense, Nothing has listened to its customers and addressed almost all of the major concerns with Phone 1. The Phone 2 has a better camera, better performance, and better battery life. The design may feel a bit repetitive but that’s about it. There really is no other room for complaints on the Nothing Phone 2.