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Nothing Phone 2 was officially launched globally by Carl Pei at a launch event broadcasted on the official Nothing YouTube channel. Pei set the tone of the launch event by shooting a casual intro with Caey Neistat. That in itself indicated the direction Nothing is going with its latest launch. When the brand introduced itself with the Nothing Phone 1 in 2022, the US market was not on its radar, causing a hue and cry from users in the country.
That brings us to the five most significant changes between the two Nothing phones. The first didn't come to the US, but the latter's launch event took place there. Let's look at the five most significant changes made to the Nothing Phone 2 over the Nothing Phone 1.
Nothing Phone 2 vs Nothing Phone 1: What are the biggest changes?
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The newly launched Nothing Phone 2 might look similar to its predecessor but it is a significant upgrade. It resembles its predecessor design-wise, to which Carl Pei said, "We don't want to change the design for every generation, so you don't recognize it. We want to build icons. Products that you can recognize from 10 meters away."
So, while it is pretty much the same visually except for a subtle curve on the back panel, reduced bezels, and a changed Glyoh interface, a lot has changed under the hood.
1) Advanced Glyph interface
The Glyph interface was one of the most significant contention points when the first renders of the Nothing Phone 2 were out, indicating it looked the same as the Phone 1. However, Nothing has tweaked the Glyph interface and made it better.
For starters, the Nothing Phone 2 has a whopping 33 LEDs compared to 12 on the Nothing Phone 1. And 16 of these LEDs sit inside just one strip of the massive C-shaped Glyph in the middle.
On Phone 2, Nothing has split the C-shaped Glyph into six separate LED zones and the camera glyph into two for better control and a new Glyph composer. It's an app developed with house music group Swedish House Mafia to create custom ringtones. The app has a Glyph sound pack containing ringtones mixed by them.
Users can customize these ringtones or create their own ringtones using the app. Having separate LED zones allow users to fine-tune the appearance of the Glyph interface to their liking.
Meanwhile, the 16-LED zone is in the upper right corner, below the slanted Glyph strip. It's an interactive strip, just like the exclamation glyph at the bottom, but it does much more than show battery levels. It can be used by third-party apps like Zomato and Uber (for now) as a progress indicator like order status or cab ETA.
Moreover, the slanted Glyph on the top can be used to light up notifications from preferred apps and will stay on when there is a notification from those apps. In short, the possibilities are endless with this.
2) Improved display
Nothing has also improved the display on the Phone 2 with a flexible OLED panel to reduce the bezel size and offer uniformity on all four sides. Nothing claims that the Phone 2 has 0.35mm narrower bezels than the Nothing Phone 1. The latest launch features a 6.7-inch Flexible OLED LTPO display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
The display is slightly larger than the 6.55-inch FHD+ OLED display on the Phone 1. Moreover, the LTPO panel means the screen can automatically and dynamically adjust the refresh rate from 1-120Hz, depending on the content displayed. The new Nothing Phone 2 also has a 10-bit panel with 1,600 peak brightness.
According to Nothing, the display consumes 30% less power than the Phone 1 because of a new, more advanced IC with smaller transistors.
3) Flagship performance
Coming to the performance, the Nothing Phone 1 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 series processor - Snapdragon 778G+. The Nothing Phone 2, meanwhile, is a giant leap ahead in comparison, as it is equipped with the flagship Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.
According to Nothing, the processor upgrade sees an 80% jump in performance compared to the Nothing Phone 1. Moreover, the brand claims that the app opening and closing speed on the latest smartphone is now twice as fast.
The company has also increased the battery capacity of the new phone by 200mAh to 4,700mAh. Carl Pei claimed that thanks to the bump in capacity and optimization offered by the processor and Nothing OS 2.0, he noticed around 40% more battery backup in the Nothing Phone 2.
4) Better cameras
Nothing has also upgraded the cameras on the Nothing Phone 2. It has the most significant camera upgrade from 16MP on the Nothing Phone 1 to 32MP on the Nothing Phone 2. The selfie camera is a Sony IMX615 sensor, which is 30% bigger and offers f/2.45 aperture and ½.74" sensor size. This means the selfie camera now has improved light intake for clearer and sharper self-portraits.
On the rear is a 50MP dual camera setup. While the primary camera is the same 50MP, the sensor has been upgraded to Sony IMX890 with f/1.88 aperture and 1/1.56 inch sensor size. According to the brand, the new sensor is faster and offers up to 4,000x more data to the image signal processor or ISP for better image processing.
The Nothing Phone 2 feature a new advanced HDR technology, which captures eight frames in the background with various levels of exposure in RAW format. It means Nothing Phone 2 processes three times more data than Phone 1. This advanced HDR tech picks the best details from each frame and creates a more realistic and true-to-life picture.
Nothing has also improved the motion-detecting algorithm on the Phone 2. It detects fast-moving objects more accurately to click sharper and more precise shots of moving objects.
5) Price
Nothing 1 launched in the US with a price tag of $299, but the brand called it a beta launch. This means it has not been launched as a complete product. It is because the phone was launched in the country with partial United States carrier support and an unfinished operating system. It was also limited to 4G connectivity and not designed for the carrier-dominated US market.
On the contrary, the Nothing Phone 2 has been officially launched in the US and is market-ready. The company has set the Nothing Phone 2 price in the US at $599 for the 8GB + 128GB, $699 for the 12GB + 256GB, and $799 for the 12GB + 512GB variants.
Nothing has started taking pre-orders for the Phone 2 on its official website, with shipping set to start on July 17. This will include special gifts for early buyers.
The Nothing Phone 2 has a more advanced and improved Nothing OS 2.0. The new OS is also expected to come to Nothing Phone 1 soon. However, the Phone 2 is a more advanced and fine-tuned version of its predecessor in all other aspects.
