Nothing Phone (2) | Hacker News Reader

Nothing Phone (2)

us.nothing.tech

63 pointsoutcoldman59 comments

" Nothing OS 2.0 Your stamp on Nothing "

Seems not much more than a custom android for me. Do we really need a new android phone that will probably have a very short shelf life and then be abandoned?

I scanned the page but couldn't find a single appealing feature. Is there any?

Worst: the differences between nothing phone 1 and 2 include things like: "10 new ringtones and notification sounds"; but that is just content! Ok, the chipset is different, but listing something trivial like content, smells like a very locked down device for me.

The LEDs in the back can act as progress bars for various things.

My Galaxy Note 2 has a RGB led which is accessible through /sys . It may sound like the guy who compared dropbox to a self hosted ftp, but It is possible to write scripts using termux to make it react according to any event you can imagine!

Mine, out of the box, informs me if it is connected to cell network, low battery and missed calls or messages.

That's on the front of the screen, though -- so provides a useful notification LED when your display is off.

What the Nothing's progress bar requires is for you to put your phone screen down which is very different.

Is that really useful considering they're on the back of the phone? I mean, maybe if something's taking so long you're going to put it down while waiting.. but otherwise I don't want to turn my phone around to see it. Cute, but seems rather gimmicky.

I don't think it's terribly useful as an indicator of software progress. Like you say, it would be simpler to keep the screen partially on (it's OLED).

But I guess it could be used for notifications or for more hardware-y things like show your daily steps count (old fitbit style) or battery level (remember when motorola batteries had those super cool led bar graphs on the back in the 90s?).

Good points! The possibility for notifications does sound neat.

Hardly innovative though. My Android has an LED at the top which signifies notifications, even with different colors, even my old Android had that...

If you need continous data it might be more useful, but I can't think of a usecase where it is more than a gimmick

It's annoyingly hard to get fine grain control over which app uses the LED and what color the app uses.

Their earbuds(1) are the worst piece of hardware I've ever owned, and they won't fix it or accept that the problem is on their end, with support just telling you to repair them. ANR drops out all the time, and they tend to just not connect, forcing you to put them back in the case and take them out again until it works.

Both are very popular complaints and they haven't gotten an update in months. Definitely not inspiring confidence in any of their hardware and it turned me off of it for the foreseeable future, even though I probably would have been in the market for their phone otherwise. These things are expensive and I expect something to work if I spend money on something that is advertised as quality hardware.

I agree in that the lights on the back thing is not that useful.

I miss my Nokia 3220 not only because it was a solid phone and its customizable experience - but mainly because its side lights.

I think I've told this before in here, but those side lights were not only cool - they were useful. You could tell when it was ringing wheter it was a call or a message just by looking at the light pattern. It was really useful when you needed to put it in silent mode or you could not hear the ringtone nor "feel" the vibration. Sometimes at night at crowded and noisy places I even could tell who was calling because the lights were shining through the pants pockets! You could saw the colored lights wether your phone was face-up or face-down.

So additional to the audible ringtone, the on-screen message and the vibration thing, the side lights worked as another way to let you know if anything was happening. Not that almost invisible tiny LED light of nowaday's phones, nor like in this phone where the lights are at its back (?), but an array of shining lights at the sides of your phone.

Granted, the process to customize those light patterns was a bit obscure (programming a couple of MIDI extra tracks along a sequence) but I could somehow do a Metallica's Hit the lights ringtone with its light sequence.

It's been like 18 years yet I still wonder why nobody has done something like that ever since with a modern phone.

note for web designers: if you're going to put your promotional images in carousels that flip between images on a timer, start the timer when i scroll to it, not when the page loads.

all the carousels on this page flipped over to the next slide just after i scrolled down to them.

or this: https://shouldiuseacarousel.com/

The font also seems to be optimized for Chinese where the latin letters look strange for Western eyes.

Which localization are you looking at? Because the typeface used on Latin versions of the website is not used on any of the Asian versions I've checked (Korean uses AppleSDGothicNeo, Japanese is Hiragino Sans, for Chinese it's PingFang HK).

The Latin script font they're using – inspector is telling me “NType82Mono” – is a bit quirky but it's not a poor quality font. I think they're trying to go for a LaTeX kind of aesthetic.

Also, for the record: Nothing Technology is based in England.

I'm looking at the German version. To my eye the Latin characters look similar to Latin characters from many Asian fonts, where the shape and spacing between letters seems "bad" to me and presumably(?) to other Westerners. It seems like monospaced serif, which is uncommon in Western fonts.

NType82Mono seems to be their own custom typeface [1]. if it's actually monospace, as the name suggests, i'm guessing it's a case of lazy designers who decided they wanted a monospace version because variable character widths were just too hard to deal with (mostly because that seems like the sort of thing i'd do)

https://www.reddit.com/r/identifythisfont/comments/116xpz6/i...

that website is perfect for making the timing on the carousel way too fast, thus showing you another annoying thing about them.

Fixed:

> if you're going to put […] carousels, don’t

Also if you are going to create a 360 rotator, you don't need to kill the rotation as soon as the cursor is not on the element.

The company name is "Nothing". I thought it might be something like the "NoPhone" just from the title.

https://thenophone.com/

They have a huge number of employee's on LinkedIn due to the fact that people will use the company name of Nothing when they literally mean nothing.

I have never seen this phone in person. But for me (as iPhone user) this phone looks very appealing. The build of this phone looks like an iPhone. Obviously hate that this is similar to iPhone Pro Max size.

Just out of curiosity tried to compare to iPhone Pro Max:

- IP54 vs IP68 (iPhone) - so just limited dust and water splash

- 2412x1080 - 394ppi vs 2796x1290 460ppi (iPhone)

- 1,000,000:1 vs 2,000,000:1 (iPhone) contrast ratio

- 1-120Hz vs 1-120Hz

- 1000 nits outdoor, 1600 nits HDR vs 100 nits typical, 1600 nits HDR and 2000 peak outdoor

- $799 (512GB model) vs $1399 (512GB Model iPhone)

Maybe better compare it to iPhone 14 Plus,

- Nothing Phone (2) has better brightness, but less contrast, and less ppi, but up to 120Hz refresh rate.

- $799 (512GB model) vs $1199 (512GB Model iPhone)

I doubt many people choose between IOS/Android based on specs. Androids with better on paper specs than iPhones have existed for a long time.

The promised API for glyphs never arrived

There is no greater control over app permissions, which are just like any other phone

No way to disable screenshot shortcut which inadvertently gets triggered when you pick the phone up across the middle. The pop up on screen doesn't have a delete screenshot right away either

As much as I'd like to have a good alternative to iPhone, and something unusual in the smartphone space, I'm afraid this is just a standard clumsy Android phone with a gimmick back lights:(. Probably now it's way too difficult to compete with Apple and other top companies in the space unfortunately.

As a phone 1 user I'm offended . The backlights are a significant trick to invoke minimalism in smartphone use. Screens are more addictive than led lights. So it is actually useful. You don't need to look at phone screen and then get distracted away.

I mean, the lights look cool, but they are too low information and I don’t want the immediate notification anyway. I’m happy to have an always on screen I can quickly check to determine if a notification is actionable and have no problem flipping it back over.

There are much more important things in the world right now to get "offended" over, than the majority of people not fitting into the niche you found yourself in.

Given the "LED lights" can tell you things like if there's something on the screen to look at, it arguably just leads to the same thing in the first place -- and it's not screens that are addictive, it's content.

If you get so distracted by an on-screen notification that you need to get a phone with a rear-facing notification LED, you've got much more serious problems.

It's still run of the mill android

It's still mediocre camera software

It's still average hardware specs

So what's the point? A few gimmicky LEDs? Everything is so samey, is there a point even choosing anymore?

I commented something similar when the first Nothing Phone was released and people generally had rather hostile responses, but it would appear that the marketing hype has worn off. Influencers in particular was hyping that thing, while completely failing to explain why it was special... It's a riced up Android phone, and an ugly one at that.

For the Nothing Phone 2, I'm quite happy to see a focus on sustainability, but sadly that part is drowned out by the flashy nonsense.

What's the point of any new phone, really. You just pick a new one when the old one breaks (or the battery dies). People aren't just sitting around looking for new phones to buy.

A phone that puts a nonsense youtuber on their homepage as an ad is a phone no one should want or own.

The price is better than I would've expected, but other than that I don't see much interesting or even that compelling.

The LEDs seem like a gimmick. My OP5T has a little notification light (Im sure most phones do) which seems to be more than I need. They list it as a way to get less screen time, but I doubt anyones phone addiction stems from checking who's calling them.

No headphone jack is no buy for me anyway, but its not exactly tempting me to change my mind

It's using a nearly 2 year old SoC.

Tbh, I'll actually defend that. Newer Snapdragon processors have bad heating problems at launch and a lot of people are complaining about that. And as this phone focuses more on sustainability, I get why they aren't using the latest SoC.

This is simply not true. The current SD 8 Gen 2 SoC smashes the efficiency rate and battery life of previous SD SoCs. This was a cost cutting move by Nothing and nothing more. In fact, by not using the SD 8 Gen 2 I would recommend people not even consider this phone as you will get less battery life than the current generation and since we're near the introduction of the SD Gen 3 SoC I would wait a bit longer, if price is a major consideration, for the SD 8 Gen 2 phones to drop in price as the SD 8 Gen 3 phones are introduced.

Huh, when I analysed the situation a bit more, your argument makes good sense. I think you're right.

I dislike that this website disregards my languages preferences. it forces me to use what it deems appropriate based on my IP

if their website already ignores my preferences and dictates choices for me; I have no hopes for the software in the actual device... yay! more software telling me what to do and how to think; which is only weird because I grew up learning how to do the opposite

Seems like an overreaction.

unnecessary comment of the day

No problem here, you have your settings correct?

EDIT: The page I get is in English, but the URL auto-redirects to https://nl.nothing.tech/pages/phone-2. Sets the right currency and prices I guess.

But please let me select that myself...

I am in Germany and my browser is not set to use German. I was redirected to de.nothing.tech.

I typed us.nothing.tech hoping I would end up in the US site. I was redirected to de.nothing.tech.

OP is right. If their product designer thinks they know better than me even when given the information on the contrary, I take it as a sign that their whole product will follow that philosophy.

I feel like it is a new norm for websites to provide you language based on the location and not language settings. I have noticed that too, when spent 2 months in Mexico in the beginning of this year. Even Google decided to show half of the pages in Spanish. My guess somebody posted some answer somewhere on StackOverflow how to identify the user's language with GeoIP instead of just reading the Accept-Language.

I also dislike that their "Keynote" is some stupid video about them going to rollercoaster.

Works find on safari (in France with En)

My still have a OnePlus 5T from 2017 that till works like a charm, but I would mind if it finally breaks a bit less now.

It looks cool and comes with mostly stock Android right? No need to get rid of any bloatware that you get on the average Samsung etc?

funny, I'm in the exact same situation, with the same exact phone. Haven't had security updates for years now and considering pulling the trigger on this phone. Just waiting a bit to hear reviews.

It's cool to hear other people (including me!) still using the 5T. Is Nothing as appealing to you as it is to me?

I remember buying the 1+1 and having people ask me what that phone was. That metal bezel was surely something. May sound a little pretentious, but I really liked being supportive of a company that (at that time, at least) did something different. To me, Nothing really seems to be continuing on with that philosophy. Even if this phone isn't spectacular in specs or otherwise, it has that one thing: it's unique. And I like that.

Now, I'd like it 10000x more if it also had a color notification LED...

I scrolled the whole page and couldn't figure out what they are selling, beyond an android phone. Something about you need to memorize combinations of lights on the back? The whole site is like an episode of Silicon Valley.

That’s a normal phone artificially blocking apps from appearing. There is nothing “nothing” about this and it smells of Trojan horse of selling you a “something” when it’s time

I thought the "Nothing" Phone was a terrible name, and "Nothing (2)" is somehow even worse.

It's a small phone company, they need to stick out from the rest...

Special would have been an apt model name.

Sure, but what were they thinking it would do exactly?

Looks like vaporware but we'll see

It is. The glyph will get almost nobody making custom light shows for it.

Almost everyone puts their phone in a case, not sure what they were thinking there...

I don't use a case, and I actually was interested in the first Nothing phone but didn't buy it because the lights are stupid and I had doubts that I would be able to install my own ROM on the phone. I'll stick to my iPhone.

It's true! I opened the website and there was nothing there.

Just a blank white page...

I don't get it

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