sentiment : This calendar week we ’ve had a lot of bombilation around the Trusted Reviews billet thanks in large part to the comer of theNothing Phone ( 1 ) .
In pillow slip you missed the month of selling , this is the first smartphone fromNothing , the latest start up from OnePlus conscientious objector - founder Carl Pei .
The grounds it ’s caused such a buzz is because Pei , who undeniably had not bad winner with OnePlus in growing it from a small unknown marque into a menage name in tech , pull a lot of the same whoremonger he used to get people interested in his former company ’s early French telephone .
Specifically , he put on a bootleg t - shirt and did the best Steve Jobs impression I ’ve seen in the past one-half decade , releasing a series of cryptic promotion “ leaks ” and using buzzword like “ revolutionary ” without revealing any hard details about the phone for calendar month ahead of its launch .
Admittedly , I constitute the whole carnival rather entertaining – especially his use of Jobs ’ speech formula at the phone ’s launching where he claimed “ phones are boring ” and that he and his business firm “ would make them fun ” and “ interesting ” again without tell anything concrete about how – and there ’s no denying it seems to have wreak .
When he pulled some of the same trick he did with OnePlus , from limiting the gimmick ’s initial availability to select pop ups and a raffle - similar former sign up system on Nothing ’s website , pre - orders skyrocket through the roof . This wave of excitement even cave in through to my personal life , with the Nothing Phone ( 1 ) being the first handset that ’s not a Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPhone that has even gotten my non - tech friends excited enough to station WhatsApp messages asking about it .
But now that our fluid editor Max Parker has finallygotten his hands on the French telephone , I have to say … I just do n’t get it .
Whether it ’s the series of late nights I ’ve spent looking at deals spreadsheet forPrime Day 2022 , or the fact the UK ’s currently go through a heatwave that bloodless - go-cart - corresponding Scot like me are simply not made to survive , I just ca n’t chance anything to get unrestrained about with the Phone ( 1 ) .
To be absolved , I have n’t used it yet . Our critical review unit is with editor program Max Parker . But , as far as I can tell it ’s just a bog standard mid - range handset with a fairly hard new Android cutis and a see - through back with LED lights that can be set to play dissimilar patterns . There ’s no never - before - see features ( play phones from the ilk of Asus and Black Shark have had pointless RGB ignition for ages ) , and the parts are all off the shelf . There ’s no custom Tensor silicon like the competingPixel 6a , and looking at the feature list I ’m genuinely flummoxed how this is so much more exciting than all the other £ 399 French telephone flood the market .
This is specially true when I look back at other newcomers to the speech sound market and the innovations they brought . Let ’s take Razer as an instance . When it attempted to enter the telephone set mart it at least come with a unequalled selling point . Specifically , the firm hit the market track down release theRazer Phone – the first phone I ’d ever seen with a high refresh rate cover bespoke made for play .
Sure the French telephone did n’t sell , but at least it was unparalleled . Nowadays there are loads of gaming phone , like the recently launchedROG Phone 6 Pro , which debatably plunk up where the Razer Phone left off . Most phones also now have gamey , sometimesvariable refresh ratescreens by default , picture the business firm was at the very least ahead of its metre .
The Nothing Phone by comparison at beneficial reminds me ofWiley Fox ’s cause . For those too untried to remember , this was a brusque lived earphone company that made a serial publication of clearly average phones using off the shelf cobblestone together mid - range phone parts . Their only unique selling point was that they were “ British ” , a fact they call back was enough to drive sales and stake – hurrah …
That ’s why , despite the ballyhoo , I ’m presently find Nothing to get excited about with the Phone ( 1 ) . Hopefully this will change when Max Parker finishes review it for us and delivers his definitive finding of fact – but I ’m not bear my breath .
