Nothing Phone 1 review: an Android with funky lights on its transparent back

The Phone 1 is the first smartphone from the British technology startup Nothing, led by the OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, who set up on his own with the aim of bringing back a bit of interest and excitement to the increasingly samey world of consumer electronics.

The glyphs and transparent back add a bit of interest to an otherwise fairly understated design. The recycled aluminium sides and flat OLED screen look remarkably similar to an Apple phone, leading more than one person to ask if I was holding an iPhone 13. Still, the build quality is very good, and the full HD 6.55in screen is excellent for the money: big, bright, crisp and super-smooth, thanks to a 120Hz refresh rate.

The phone has a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G Plus chip, which is perfectly capable in day-to-day usage, with the interface and apps feeling pretty snappy.

The battery life is good, lasting about 38 hours between charges including two hours on 5G, putting it on a par with most top devices. You will probably have to charge it once a day.

Nothing rates the battery for at least 800 full charge cycles while maintaining at least 80% of its original capacity. The Phone 1 is generally repairable in the UK and the battery is replaceable by Nothing.

The Phone 1 is made of 100% recycled aluminium with more than 50% of its plastic components made from bio-based or recycled materials. The company plans to publish an environmental impact report for the phone, which it says has a carbon footprint of 58.5Kg CO2 equivalent.

The Phone 1 ships with a stripped-back version of Android 12 called Nothing OS. It provides all the features you would expect but without the bloat of duplicated apps, mostly relying on those provided by Google, which is a good thing.

The interface is sprinkled with a touch of dot-matrix nostalgia in its widgets, typeface and logos, plus some custom wallpapers and a voice recorder app with a novel record-player-like interface. It is attractive without being too radical.

Nothing OS was smooth and stable but I encountered a few small bugs, some of which were fixed within the testing period, so I have no doubt these remaining problems will be sorted out. When restoring the phone from a cloud backup of my data, autorotation between portrait and landscape did not work, and neither did the Glyph light showing Google Assistant activity. Setting up the phone without restoring my data fixed the problems.

Both cameras are good for the money. The main camera produces the best images that have generally good colour balance and detail. Photos can lack a little sharpness and fine detail when viewed at full size, and it can be a little difficult to get a sharp shot in low light. The ultrawide produces images with cooler tones and softer detail but is still decent. The camera can occasionally oversaturate parts of an image, such as red flowers losing all definition and almost glowing.

The phone has no telephoto camera but the digital zoom produced usable images at 2x, becoming full of artefacts after about 5x magnification. The glyphs can be lit up to create a fill light at night instead of using the flash, which is novel but produces a blue hue to the images. The selfie camera is equally good, producing detailed photos in good light.

Video recording was solid for the money but only up to 4K at 30 frames a second, not 60 as is increasingly common.

The Nothing Phone 1 costs £399 (A$749) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, £449 (A$799) with 8GB and 256GB, or £499 (A$849) with 12GB and 256GB, and is available in black or white depending on the model.

For comparison, the Google Pixel 6a costs £399, the Samsung Galaxy A53 costs £399, the Fairphone 4 costs £499, and the Apple iPhone SE costs £419.

The Phone 1 is a remarkably well-executed first attempt at a smartphone from Nothing.

Its design is distinctive on the back and simple elsewhere. You might not like the iPhone-like look but the recycled aluminium sides certainly feel more premium than the competitive mid-range price might suggest.

The glyph lights on the back are certainly novel and eye-catching but remembering which pattern is which is difficult, and I typically avoid putting phones face down to prevent scratches. It is good to see something different and fun, though.

Despite an odd bug due to be fixed, the Android software is pleasingly bloat-free, which helps the phone feel snappy in use. The battery life is pretty good, too. Four years of promised software updates is good but not the best, and relies on Nothing succeeding in fulfilling its commitment, which is not guaranteed for any new entrant.