Going by early teasers you might have expected the Nothing Phone (1) to sport a completely 'out there' design, but it seems the talk of a transparent rear was overstated, and the first official image of the phone shows that, while yes there are transparent elements, the bulk of the components are still hidden.
You can see some screws and the wireless charging coil, but that’s about all. What’s potentially more interesting is the white strips, which look like they might illuminate. In practice that might either look good, or garish like so many gaming phones – we’ll have to wait and see.
The Nothing Phone (1) then certainly looks different enough to stand out from the crowd, but we can’t escape the feeling that this was a missed opportunity. There are so many components in a smartphone, and showing off more of them could have made for a really interesting design, packed full of details to spot.
What we’re actually getting will still stand out though, so we don’t want to be too down on it.
Other details that this image shows off include a dual-lens camera – which isn’t many in this day and age – and a white finish, though it’s unclear whether other colors will be offered.
We should find out on July 12, as that’s when the company is fully unveiling the Nothing Phone (1), though if anything we’ll probably learn plenty more about the phone before then, given that the company keeps drip-feeding information about it.
Analysis: the dual-lens camera could be a real highlight
You might have looked at that dual-lens camera with disappointment. After all, even many affordable phones now have quad-lens snappers, and while the Nothing Phone (1) isn’t expected to be a high-end handset, it will probably at least have a mid-range price.
But a lot of cheap phones opt for quantity over quality, offering completely disposable macro and depth sensors alongside their actually useful cameras.
By just having two lenses, Nothing might have been able to boost the quality offered by them. It also looks like these lenses might be a reasonable size, which bodes well – though it’s hard to say for sure.
We’d guess they’re probably wide and ultra-wide cameras, since that’s the standard if a phone is only going to have two lenses, and we’re optimistic from this that they might be better examples of those than are found in many similarly priced handsets.
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