Nothing Phone 2 Review: Continues the legacy of the Nothing with very good upgrades but is it worth the asking price?

 

Is the Nothing Phone 2 a worthy successor to the Nothing Phone 1?

After the success of the Nothing Phone 1 (Review) which was a well-put-together premium mid-range smartphone with a few bugs here and there, Nothing has come up with its predecessor i.e. Nothing Phone 2 which brings some perfect upgrades and carries over the Nothing character especially those Glyph LEDs placed at the back of the smartphone.

While the Nothing Phone 1 brought in some of the best specifications like a transparent back with Glyph LEDs, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 778G chipset, 50MP dual cameras, 4500mAh battery with 33W wired and 15W wireless charging, now the Nothing Phone 2 brings in a slightly larger display, a better and powerful chipset, improved cameras, the Glyph interface provides more customizations, etc.

However, the design remains the same just like its predecessor and with some of the improvements, Nothing has slightly steeped the prices to justify its presence in the market. So can the Nothing Phone 2 make a bold statement for itself just like its predecessor in this highly competitive market considering the robust offerings from other manufacturers and is it worth buying? 

Let's find out in the full review.

Nothing Phone 2 Design:

In terms of build and design, the Nothing Phone 2 resembles the same design as that of the Nothing Phone 1 where the back has a transparent look with a set of Glyph LEDs that light up accordingly whenever any new incoming notification or call comes up. But this time Nothing has further expanded the functionalities of the Glyph interface. 

The back has dual cameras along with a transparent back and you can see the wireless charging coil also. The back glass is made up of Gorilla Glass and this back has an IP54 rating which makes it splash and dust resistant. The Glyph LEDs are placed slightly differently compared to the Nothing Phone 1 as the C surrounds the camera module and G around the charging coil that has interruptions present.

Since the curves are rounded around the sides like its predecessor, it makes it easier to hold in hand.

The Nothing Phone 2 weighs around 201 grams making it 8 grams heavier than the Nothing Phone 1, but still, it does not feel heavier to hold. Around the sides, surrounds an aluminium frame that houses the power key on the right side whereas the volume keys are present on the left side. 

At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a USB Type-C port and a loudspeaker grille. There is neither a dedicated slot for a microSD card for storage expansion nor a 3.5mm headphone jack present. On the top, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone only and all around the sides, you can see multiple antenna lines present. 

On the front, there is a single punch-hole display with the punch-hole located at the centre on the top and around the sides, the bezels are uniform but slightly thicker. The front of the Nothing Phone 2 is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass which version has not been specified by Nothing yet. Overall, the build and design look promising as the uniqueness gets carried forward from its predecessor.

Nothing Phone 2 Display:

The Nothing Phone 2 sports a slightly larger 6.7-inch Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9 that makes it slightly larger compared to its predecessor i.e. Nothing Phone 1 which comes with a 6.55-inches display. However, now this display is an LTPO panel which can refresh as low as 1Hz to all the way up to 120Hz.

Talking about the refresh rate, there are three different settings to choose from - Dynamic, High, and Standard. Setting the display to Dynamic or High, the smartphone display usually refreshes at 120Hz while gaming or scrolling through webpages, 60Hz while watching any video, 90Hz while viewing videos on Netflix or YouTube and as low as 10Hz while viewing static content like images present in the gallery.

Other than that, if you set the display to Standard setting, the display only refreshes at 60Hz and the display shows static 60Hz for all the applications. Combined with the high refresh rate, you get a 240Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses. In terms of display brightness, the display can reach a peak brightness of 1600nits which is really good and visibility under direct sunlight is also good.

As usual the normal brightness hovers somewhere around 1000nits of brightness which is achieved at maximum auto brightness and around 500nits when used during normal scenarios. The Nothing Phone 2 display has two different settings to choose from - Alive and Standard where switching to the former provides eye-pleasing colours with punchier blues and blacks and covers the DCI-P3 gamut space.

On the other hand, setting the display to Standard mode provides balanced colours on the display and it covers the sRGB colour space. Since it has an AMOLED display, you get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which works accurately and is faster. The display has support for HDR on YouTube and you get Widevine L1 to stream HDR content on OTT platforms but currently Netflix does not have any support.

Nothing Phone 2 Performance:

This is one area where Nothing has made a significant upgrade from the Nothing Phone 1 to the Nothing Phone 2 as it boasts the much more powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset which was the flagship chipset found on some flagship smartphones of 2022 and also this year's newly launched OnePlus 11R, iQOO Neo 7 Pro, etc. 

This chipset is based on an efficient 4nm process. Nothing has slightly underclocked the chipset on its smartphone compared to other Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1-powered smartphones to prevent any kind of thermal throttling or heating issues. Combined with the chipset, you get a powerful Adreno 730 GPU which handles almost all the tasks easily without breaking a sweat. 

All heavy games like BGMI, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc. run easily at the highest graphics settings and BGMI could easily run at Ultra HD graphics with Ultra frame rates without any stutters or lags. After continuous hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone did not feel warmer as the dedicated vapour cooling system placed underneath dissipated heat faster.

In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone was able to maintain a sustained performance of around 70-75 per cent with a lot of throttling present which is not so good considering the better-sustained performance found on other smartphones having the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. However, the benchmark scores came out really good.

In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation and 10-11 bands of 5G. The Nothing Phone 2 is available in three different storage variants -  8GB RAM with 128GB storage, 12GB RAM with 128GB storage and 12GB RAM with 256GB storage where RAM is of type LPDDR5X and storage is of UFS 3.1 speeds. 

Nothing Phone 2 Software:

The Nothing Phone 2 runs on the newer NothingOS 2.0 which is not much different from NothingOS 1.5 found on the Nothing Phone 1. By default, you get Android 13 out of the box. NothingOS brings with it a lot of features like widgets like clock, weather, quick settings, calendar, etc, there are larger folders and icons present, and quick system shortcuts are present on the home screen.

You can customize the icon shape, size, and colour also. Usually, Nothing uses the Roboto interface and its signature dot matrix font for most of its UI elements like headings in the Settings application, lock screen, charging animation, custom home screen and lock screen widgets. Other than that, there is the Always-On Display which dims the wallpaper and provides a monochrome look. 

There are also experimental features present like the Connect With Tesla option which lets you control some features of a Tesla vehicle which comes in handy, Enhanced Touch Response is present which provides faster touch responses during multitasking, Airpods Support is present to show Airpods icon and battery info in the settings and the Glyph progress which is integrated with third-party applications.

There is a dedicated Game Mode which contains the Game Dashboard which provides a Game Dashboard floating icon and the Do Not Disturb Mode for Games which blocks an incoming notification or call while gaming. The most significant feature is the Glyph interface which controls the LEDs at the back of the smartphone. 

The Glyph interface provides a lot of features like Brightness, Ringtone, Notifications, Flip To Glyph, Glyph Timer, Composer to set different Glyph ringtones, Charging Meter, Google Assistant, Visual Feedback for volume control and each of the notification sound and ringtones show a different kind pattern of LEDs placed at the back while playing.

In terms of bloatware, there is no such bloatware present except for a few of Nothing's own custom applications which is really good. In terms of software updates, the Nothing Phone 2 will receive another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security patches which is good. 

Nothing Phone 2 Cameras:

The Nothing Phone 2 sports a dual camera setup which consists of a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX890 sensor for the main camera with OIS which comes as a good upgrade over the 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX766 sensor found on the primary camera of the Nothing Phone 1 whereas the secondary 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera remains unchanged on the Nothing Phone 2.

On the front, there is a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor for the camera. The images from the main camera come out at 12.5MP by default and these images come out with good dynamic range and details look sharper, contrast is good and colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening. There is a 2x Super High Res zoom present which results in sharper details and good dynamic range.

The colours look really good without any oversharpening and there is also less noise present in the background. At 50MP resolution, the images come out with good details and dynamic range but it does introduce some noise in the images and crop in slightly to provide images at 50MP. During the night, the Auto Night Mode is triggered automatically for the primary camera.

The images come out with sharper details and good dynamic range with good exposure in low light, and colours look natural without much oversharpening and you get decent details in the shadows. The noise is less and with the Auto Night Mode turned off, the images look brighter with saturated colours but details look slightly softer and there is a larger amount of noise introduced in the background. 

The images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details and dynamic range but there is some amount of noise present in the background and around the edges, there is some distortion present. The colours look really good without any oversharpening just like the main camera. The ultrawide camera also doubles up as a macro camera so it has support for autofocus and can focus as close as 4cm.

The closeup shots came out with good details and dynamic range with less noise in the background. However, the images do come out with softer details at times because the autofocus does not happen properly. In terms of portraits, you get sharper details and good dynamic range with less noise in the background. The edge detection could have been improved slightly but you get proper background blur.

The selfies come out with good details and dynamic range. The skin tones look good with natural colours and not any kind of noise present in the background. The selfies come out in two fields of view - wide and cropped. In terms of selfie portraits, the details look sharper and have great dynamic range with less noise but the edge detection is not so good and proper background blur needs to be implemented. 

In terms of video recording, both the main and the ultrawide camera can record 4K videos at 60fps whereas the front camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps. The videos from the main camera come out with sharper details, good dynamic range, and less noise in the background. The colours look natural without any oversharpening and even at night, the videos come out with sharper details as OIS is present.

The videos from the ultrawide camera have sharper details, contrast and dynamic range are good, colours look well saturated and noise is slightly less in the background as EIS works fine at this resolution. The selfie videos come out with slightly softer details, and a decent dynamic range and there is a lot of noise present in the background as the EIS is not so well implemented. 

Nothing Phone 2 Battery Life:

The Nothing Phone 2 sports a larger 4700mAh battery which is 200mAh more in capacity compared to the Nothing Phone 1. With normal usage including casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. the smartphone easily lasts for one and a half days with heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI for 3-4 hours, taking videos from the cameras, attending phone calls, etc, the smartphone lasted for a day easily.

Another good upgrade that the Nothing Phone 2 has is the support for 45W fast charging over the Nothing Phone 1 which supports 33W fast charging only. However, just like the Nothing Phone 1, the Nothing Phone 2 also does not get a charger bundled inside the box you can use any third-party 45W fast charger that can charge the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent within 1 hour and 5 minutes. 

The standard screen-on time with normal usage came around 4-5 hours. With heavy usage, the standard screen-on time comes around 7-8 hours which is really good considering the size of the battery. Other than that, there is support for 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging using which you can charge other wireless charging-enabled devices when ket on the back of the Nothing Phone 2.

Nothing Phone 2 Audio Quality:

The Nothing Phone 2 sports a dual stereo speaker setup with the top one being the earpiece and at the bottom being the loudspeaker grille. The sound output is very good and does not feel muffled at the highest volume settings but the sound is not evenly distributed with the loudspeaker being more louder compared to the earpiece. The haptic feedback could have been slightly better.

Verdict:

Overall, Nothing Phone 2 is a solid product that brings all the specifications right. The design is significantly one of the best in the smartphone industry with those Glyph LEDs on the transparent back looking amazing, the 120Hz AMOLED display with stereo speakers is great for multi-media consumption, the battery life is excellent, performance and gaming is flagship level, and a clean software experience with no bloatware.

However, there are some areas where Nothing Phone 2 still needs some area for improvement. Though you get a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, there is some amount of thermal throttling present, the cameras perform well during the day but do struggle slightly in low light, front camera selfies, and images from the ultrawide camera could have been better.

Though you get good battery life on the smartphone, there is no charger bundled inside the box which is a slight problem. Another minor problem is that with the Nothing Phone 2, Nothing has significantly increased the price which makes it slightly difficult to recommend in the market considering other smartphones within this price segment that offer much better value. 

So overall as a package, the Nothing Phone 2 is the best buy for those who want the best build and design, a great display, a clean software experience with no bloatware, excellent battery life, flagship performance and gaming and is not concerned regarding cameras and other issues like thermal throttling, higher price and no charger inside the box. 

It is definitely worth buying over the Nothing Phone 1 with those good upgrades only if the slightly higher asking price is not your concern.