- Hey, what's up? MKBHD here.
And, yes, this is the Nothing phone,
the first phone from the startup
that gave us the Nothing Ear 1 earbuds in 2021,
a big step into establishing their own ecosystem
that they're building.
And it looks familiar,
but also very different.
So we live in an age right now
where so many of the top phones, the most popular phones,
are designed to appeal to the masses.
That's the point of them.
And so they all end up kind of looking basically the same,
all very similar.
Big screen up on the front, couple cameras on the back,
a couple pale colors, nothing too crazy, just a glass slab.
So if a startup were to come along
and make another average phone,
it would probably fit in pretty nice,
but there wouldn't really be any reason to switch to it,
to buy that one.
So what Nothing has done
is they've made a pretty unique-looking phone
that also happens to have a bunch of cool features
surrounding that unique look.
I think it's pretty sick.
Now this phone isn't out yet, FYI.
It's coming around July 12th.
So definitely get subscribed
to make sure you see the full review of the entire phone
and everything about it when it does come out.
But until then, what I am allowed to show you now
is the back of the phone.
So the Ear 1 earbuds that came from them last year,
played off of this transparency theme,
not fully transparent,
but definitely with some clear plastic bits that look cool
and then reveal some shielding inside
that's strategically placed and painted to look sweet.
That's kind of the look this phone also has going on too,
but the way that really stands out
is with these lights on the back.
So the phone has what I would basically call
the ultimate notification LED.
So the notification LED on the back of a phone
has been a dying breed lately.
You don't see 'em very much, but when you do, which is rare,
it's so nice to just have like a subtle little glowing LED
that just tells you what's going on.
You can tell if you have a new phone call
or a text message or a new tweet.
And this is sort of a exaggerated all-out version of that.
So there are just over 900 LEDs
making up a pattern across the whole back of this phone,
around the dual cameras,
around the wireless-charging pad in the middle,
and then some stripes up into the corner,
and then down by the charging port at the bottom.
And they do a great job frosting over them.
So the glow really cleanly appears
as just a solid continuous light bar.
So they call it the Glyph Interface,
and it has a bunch of real functionality.
So first of all,
it does light up and pulse for your notifications.
It'll also light up and glow when you're wireless charging
or reverse wireless charging, which is neat,
but there's also a feature,
where when you plug into USB-C to charge,
it lights up that bottom bar
and then acts as a progress bar indicator.
And of course, you wouldn't want that
to stay lit up all the time, so it turns off,
but anytime you wanna check on it,
all you gotta do is just wiggle the phone a little bit,
and it lights up again so you can see how far you've gotten.
That is dope.
The entire Glyph Interface can light up at once
as a fill light for the cameras.
These are pretty bright LEDs.
Normally, some lights on the back of a phone,
I wouldn't say make much of a difference,
but for some sort of closeup subjects or in darker rooms,
this can actually make a difference versus the normal flash
that's also on the back of the phone.
Plus, there is a blinking red light on the back here,
which is a recording indicator
for when you're recording videos.
And then Nothing has built an entire user interface
into the settings that let you control exactly
how the lights work when they turn on
and what they light up for.
So the most impressive part to me for sure is,
there are 10 built-in ringtones,
and you might not use ringtones that much,
but these are cool.
They each have a light pattern that lights up
to perfectly match the ringtone.
And so then you can pair ringtones with certain contacts.
So when you see a certain light pattern,
even when the phone is muted,
you know who's calling you just by looking at it,
and on launch,
you'll be able to have different light patterns
for notifications from different apps too.
I imagine they can add more stuff like this
through software updates over time,
but that is a really interesting
actually new feature in a smartphone.
We don't see that very often so that's pretty cool.
Now whether it'll be enough
to actually get people to buy the phone
or whether it impresses people
who would usually put a case on their phone anyway,
that will have to wait until launch to see.
But I think it looks pretty sick.
Honestly, it looks like a movie prop
in my hand in certain environments.
Plus, I'm sure there's a clear case coming from Nothing.
I think now that there's like renders floating out there,
the most common description I've seen
of the look of this phone is like,
"Oh, it just looks like an iPhone 12
with a transparent back," which sure.
With the dual cameras and the general shape,
you could reduce it to that if you want to.
But also that's pretty cool actually.
But actually, for what it's worth,
a clear-backed iPhone 12 would look like this,
which is a little bit different.
So love it or hate it,
Nothing's phone looks kind of different.
So no matter what happens with the rest of the phone,
mission accomplished there.
I guess the question we're left with at this point is,
does this work,
like is this different enough looking to actually work?
Are people gonna buy it?
Are they gonna wanna actually switch
to this slightly different-looking phone over the safe bet?
And I guess the answer really is, it's a real strategy.
Like look at these three phones.
There's a Naruto phone,
a League of Legends phone,
a Dragonball Z phone,
all super unique, deep collaborations with custom packaging,
custom designs, wallpapers, icon packs, the whole thing.
They go the extra mile.
So this strategy of standing out with cool features
or sweet design is very intentionally
to steal away a small amount of the most loyal customers.
It's literally a customer acquisition cost.
And maybe if the first run is successful enough,
then they can make a slightly more broadly appealing,
slightly better phone overall that sells more.
And if that one works,
then they can make an even more broadly appealing phone
that sells even more,
and then even more broadly appealing and even more,
until you've made a very broadly appealing phone
that sells the most,
but that feels like it abandoned your original fan base.
Sound familiar?
Either way, this phone is definitely super different.
I think the lights are pretty cool,
but we'll have to see how it goes.
So I'm gonna keep an eye on it.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.