The Nothing Phone (1) did things a little differently from the rest of the Android manufacturers out there. With a unique sense of style and ‘glyphs’ you could never accuse it of being boring, but Nothing confirmed that its next phone will be more “premium” so let’s imagine what could make it among the best Android phones when it launches this summer.
1. Embrace the design
I love the look of the Nothing Phone (1) and while we don’t know exactly what its successor will look like, it would be brilliant to go the whole hog with something that really stands out.
Looking at Nothing’s headphone range like the Nothing Ear Stick, you can see an even more avant-garde almost naked design with visible circuit boards and components. I’d love this on the phone as well and it might go some way to slimming down the bulkiness that we weren’t keen on with the original.
The light-up glyphs are set to return (pictured above) and while they look cool, as noted in our Nothing Phone review, they eventually just become a gimmick. I’d love to see them given a real purpose. Like how Apple made the dynamic island something that some people now can’t do without.
2. More power
For the price, the original Nothing Phone was speedy enough, but with the expected price bump to around £600/$600, I’d like a bit more oomph. Leaked specs suggest it will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset which is fine, but Geekbench benchmark scores for this leak suggest performance will be fairly mediocre.
Hopefully, the clever folks at Nothing have designed a phone a bit like the Google Pixel 7 Pro which runs slightly differently and thus benchmarks poorly but performs incredibly well. If not I’m worried that Nothing will be releasing a functional, but not flagship-worthy, device.
3. Better battery life
This was a big sticking point with the first phone, our reviewer (Tech Editor Mike Lowe - hi Mike) often found himself having to charge his phone overnight and again in the middle of the day. The 4500 mAh battery should have been perfectly reasonable but Nothing’s Android skin was a real battery guzzler.
Hopefully, the OS has been optimized, but a 5000 mAh battery as found in the likes of the similarly priced OnePlus 11 would be a nice upgrade.
