BARCELONA—Nothing CEO Carl Pei says his company is eying a wider launch for the Nothing (2), a follow-up phone to the company’s first effort, the Nothing (1).
Notably, the Nothing (2) will swap out the MediaTek processor of the former in favor of the top chip from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 series. This will give the phone a more competitive edge as it goes head-to-head with 8 Gen 2-powered devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 and OnePlus 11. Pei shared the news during a lengthy interview with TechCrunch(Opens in a new window).
The Nothing (1) is an interesting design study with its light-up glyphs on the rear panel. It has more personality than many phones on the market thanks to the unique patterns and behaviors of the lights. Nothing didn’t sell the device in the US, however, due to a lack of resources. Though 80% of the company’s employees are engineers, Pei said it didn’t have the means to certify the phone for US carriers.
Nothing Phone (1)
(Credit: Molly Flores)
As for the sequel, Pei said, “We’ll have a much stronger focus on software. With our engineering in-house, there’s a lot more we can do. We have a more robust roadmap, both in terms of design and how we can make it more useful.”
The Nothing Phone (1) shipped with no bloatware and a minimalist build of Android. It will be interesting to see just what the company does with a future build of Android.
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One thing we shouldn’t expect from Nothing? A foldable. “I personally think foldables are supply chain-driven innovation and not consumer insights,” said Pei. He explains that OLED manufacturers were able to create flexible OLED and pushed device makers to use it. “Foldables [don’t] come from solving customer pain points, it’s probably not going to be something we’re going to look at.”
Pei didn’t offer a real timeframe for its next act. The Nothing Phone (1) went on sale globally in July 2022, so it hasn’t even been out for a year yet. The company likely won’t have anything to show us until mid-year at best.
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