It looks like the Nothing Phone (1) will release on July 21st for roughly €500 (about $675 CAD) if recent leaks are accurate.
This lines up with Pei’s stated “summer release date.” The price isn’t confirmed yet, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Pei attempt the same flagship killer strategy he pioneered at OnePlus and used for his company’s Nothing Ear (1)s.
I want to be transparent with my followers (and everything we design). We cracked a transparent design with ear (1) and now it’s time (2) do it again. pic.twitter.com/APQW3XNHvu
In an interview with Wallpaper magazine, Pei and Nothing’s head of design mentioned that the phone will feature a clear back similar to the Nothing Ear (1) buds, and that the wireless charging circle inside the phone will be a major design focal point.
We also already know that the device will be made of recycled aluminum (likely the edges) and that it will run stock Android software called Nothing OS, which is available to demo now.
It’s exciting to see a new phone maker attempt to break into the space, but Nothing will need to reveal a really compelling phone if it aims to compete with Google, Apple and Samsung.
The Nothing Ear 1 wireless earbuds are special, but it’s not the sound quality that sets them apart from their competition.
When the earbuds dropped last summer, they faced criticism because the company spoke a big game about competing with AirPods Pros, when in reality, they’re just well-designed mid-range buds. This over-hyped bravado is annoying, but after a few months with the Ear 1s, I’ve mostly forgotten about it.
People don’t love shelling out $240 on AirPods, so something with a little less wallet impact is always attractive. If they sound good and look cool, that’s an added bonus. In those regards, the Nothing earbuds check a lot of boxes.
I’m reaching for the Nothing Ear (1) buds more than I thought I would, and I think many people will feel the same.
Hitting the bar
The Nothing Ear 1s sound fine. They have a reasonable soundscape that holds up well at average listening volumes. If you start to crank the sound, you hear a shallower bass punch, but they’re passable. For $130, I’m just thankful the tuning is balanced at all.
During my testing, I’ve found that the sound quality of wireless earbuds fall into three camps: terrible, normal and surprisingly good. Not a lot of earbuds jump from the ‘normal’ baseline into the ‘surprisingly good’ category without well-implemented new technology like Dolby Atmos or Spatial Audio.
This means that the Ear 1s are fine by my standards. They don’t distract from my music, and I can confidently put them in my ears and know that I’ll get lost in the tunes.
If you care about wireless sound quality, I’d recommend the LG Tone Free FP9s, but I’ve been enjoying the tuning of the Nothing earbuds. After running them through my earbud test tracklist to get a basis for comparison, I don’t have many complaints. Classical music like FKJ’s Last Hour sounds beautiful with these buds. Newer tracks like Remi Wolf’s Liquor Store seemed to have some distortion in the modern 808 bass kicks, but I still found myself rocking out to it just as much as with other earbuds. When I first switched, I noticed slightly more hum in the background of some tracks and less detail than buds that cost twice as much. But compared to their closest competitor, the Beats Studio Buds, Nothing’s Ear 1s sound remarkably similar.
Let’s make tech beautiful again
There should be essays written about Teenage Engineering’s design prowess. The Swedish electronics and design powerhouse was brought into the Nothing fold early on, and that’s probably one of the smartest moves Carl Pei made for his fledgling company.
Teenage Engineering makes headlines in gadget and music press every once in a while with its fun and quirky music-making tools or a limited edition run of other products like a PC case. However, possibly by choice, or the nature of the products the company makes, the company has yet to go truly mainstream. There’s no doubt the OP-1 and the Pocket Operator are popular, but they don’t have the potential to be in everyone’s hands or ears like Nothing products do.
That takes us back to the Nothing Ear 1s. The larger than average case is enclosed in clear, almost seamless plastic that looks something like a vintage sci-fi prop you might find in Alien. It retains this retroism through transparency compounded with subtly textured plastics. It’s incredibly intriguing to look at and hold in your hands. It’s the product that I’ve gotten the most questions about from friends over the past few weeks and one that I wanted to show off. There’s no denying the understated elegance of the AirPod cases, but you can get lost staring at the Nothing Ear 1s.
That being said, this beauty doesn’t come without tradeoffs. Since the case is larger and boxy, it’s less pocketable than AirPods, Beats Fit Pro and Galaxy Buds. The clear plastic also scratches just as easily as you’d expect. I don’t usually mind a few scuffs on my earbud’s case since it’s meant to be tossed into bags and pockets with abandon, but I was sad to see my first big abrasion on the previously pristine Nothing Earbuds case. The company ships the case with a simple, almost unnoticeable, sticker protector on the top and bottom of the case, but to me, it felt silly to obstruct the beautiful design with what’s essentially a tiny screen protector. Therefore, I’ll live with the scratches and my bad choices together.
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As much as I wish the case fit in my pocket a little easier, I wouldn’t trade the good looks for a smaller size so quickly. There’s something nice about the large lid on the Nothing buds’ case. It feels like you’re opening up classy cufflinks instead of the Zippo Lighter feeling that you’d get from popping open the AirPods or the meh-feeling from opening up the Beats Fit Pro. The small square-ish Galaxy Buds case Samsung offers comes close to being as satisfying since it feels like a small a ring box, but Nothing’s springy hinge is better.
Moving inside the case, each bud rests in a small alcove and is magnetized to stay in place. The left bud has a white dot on it, and the right bud is marked with red. These dots coincide with the large magnets on each side of the case. It’s a small thing, but it makes placing the Ear 1s back into the case straightforward. As someone who still puts their AirPods in the wrong ears all the time, this is a nice touch.
Each bud sits atop a transparent stem that says “Nothing Ear (1)” in the dot-matrix font inspired by industrial pipe marking guns. Now is also a good time to mention that the clear plastic Nothing uses has a bit of an iridescence to it. This can cast rainbows in the plastic at off angles, kind of like a pool of oil. It’s an excellent effect and comes across nicely alongside the black backdrop of the earbud stem.
The sharp contrast of the top of the buds being wrapped in glossy white to the stems being transparent and black, is a nice effect too. It makes the buds look significantly different from AirPods, while still retaining that shape that works well in many people’s ears. However, the silicon tip is more like the AirPods Pro than traditional AirPods.
On the inside of each stem, you can see the magnets and the two connectors for the charger to push power through. It all looks very cool and adds to the retro-futuristic aesthetic that Nothing is now known for. I hate to say it, but there’s not a smartphone capable of matching these incredibly trendy buds.
Other Perks
One thing that shouldn’t go unnoted is how well Nothing’s software works with the Ear 1s. Generally, if you’re not getting earbuds from a big-name company, the app that controls them sucks. Luckily, that’s not the case with the Ear 1s.
Like several other modern buds, the buds feature in-ear detection, and it works pretty well. I’d say about 80 percent of the time, it’s perfect at pausing the music when I take a bud, or both, out. However, putting them back in doesn’t always work as well. The touch controls work alright, but I am a little annoyed that Nothing decided to make the double-tap gesture play pause when it’s a single tap on like 80 percent of other buds. The touch and hold to toggle active noise-cancelling, transparency, and no effects worked well enough.
Battery life was fine on these earbuds, and they easily got me through a day of use at work and, with the charging case, almost a whole week of intermittent use. As for sound quality, a lot of wireless earbuds last long enough now, so the Nothing buds haven’t let me down yet. They’re only rated for around five hours and that seemed accurate in my tests. The case adds an extra 24 hours of charge if you use active noise-cancelling and 36 hours without. The case supports wireless charging, which is nice to see.
These buds also support Android Fast Pair tech, so if you use them on Android, your initial pairing setup should be streamlined and straightforward. However, during my review, I did need to re-pair them to my Mac since they wouldn’t connect seamlessly sometimes.
A standard microphone
You can watch the full video above to hear how the Nothing earbuds sound, but my overall impressions are that they were fine in a quiet room, but my friends did complain about some background noise when I tried to use them in louder rooms and even areas with ambient AC noise.
Carl Pei’s startup Nothing has released a minimal Android phone launcher to get the hype train rolling again. It’s very simplistic looking and light on features, but it’s still a pretty slick launcher.
Its Google Play Store page says that it’s only compatible with Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 6 devices, plus Samsung’s Galaxy S21 and S22 series phones. During my testing, I was able to get the home screen replacement running on an Android 10 Pro right from the Play Store.
Other phones were a bit more of a hassle since I needed to find an APK (Android app file) to download, but the process was still pretty seamless. That being said, the BlackBerry KeyOne refused to run it. That hurt, obviously.
But surprisingly, the Nothing Launcher works pretty well on the Essential Phone.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that regardless of which route you take to download the launcher, both still use beta builds of the software.
How to install the Nothing Launcher normally
Supported phones
Pixel 6
Pixel 6 Pro
Pixel 5
Samsung Galaxy S21
Samsung Galaxy S21+
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S22
Samsung Galaxy S22+
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
OnePlus 10 Pro (kind of)
To start using the launcher on these phones, simply download it from the Play Store, open up your phone’s settings page, and navigate to the ‘Apps’ section. In that menu, select ‘Default apps,’ then an option that should either be named ‘Launcher’ or ‘Home app’ depending on your phone. Inside this final menu is where you enable the Nothing Launcher.
This is relatively standard practice for enabling third-party launchers. Still, other options like Niagara Launcher and Nova Launcher make this process easier for users by ensuring their launcher starts as an app that users can open to initiate the process.
Lots of Android phones from the past three years but not the BlackBerry Key One. 🙁
Installing the launcher this way is pretty much the same as stated above, but there are a few extra steps. First, you need to find an APK online. I’ve been using this option from APK Mirror.
Once you download it, you can try to open it from your notifications panel. If you’ve downloaded apps from your web browser before, the app will download normally, and you’ll be asked to install it. If this is your first time, a menu should pop up asking you if you want to allow installs from places outside of the Play Store. Choose ‘yes,’ and then you should be brought to a settings menu where you can toggle on that option.
Once you’ve installed the app, you need to open up your phone’s settings page and navigate to the ‘Apps’ section. In that menu, select ‘Default apps,’ then an option that should either be named ‘Launcher’ or ‘Home app’ depending on your phone. Inside this final menu is where you enable the Nothing Launcher.
Modern Samsung and Pixel owners can now download and try out the new ‘Nothing Launcher.’
The minimal-looking Android launcher is live on the Google Play Store but be warned that it’s still a beta. That means it’s subject to change and features the odd bug.
The Play Store says that anyone with Pixel 5/Pixel 6 or Galaxy S21/S22 can download the launcher. The store listing also mentions that OnePlus support is coming soon.
After sending myself a link to the launcher, I was able to install it on my OnePlus 10 Pro relatively easily. It seems a little janky on the 10 Pro, but it also performs that way on the Pixel 6, so I think that’s just the nature of this being a beta.
It’s worth noting that I was only able to set the launcher as default through the phone’s settings. There’s no Nothing Launcher app to initiate the setup like several other launchers.
Two of the three Nothing widgets and a look at a ‘Max Folder.’
On the Play Store page, the company is hyping up its ‘Max Folder’ widget that looks like Apple Store apps in the App Library on iOS. This means that three of the apps in the folder are still tappable and you can tap on a smaller collection of more apps in the bottom corner to access the full folder. This design works fairly well in iOS, and so far, it’s pretty good in Nothing’s launcher too.
Beyond this, the launcher is simplistic and reminiscent of the Pixel Launcher, which is a good thing since I suspect Android purists will be the main users of Nothing’s products.
That said, the launcher is probably a little too simple right now, but hopefully, Nothing will roll out more features before its smartphone launches this summer. There is a side of me that likes the old-school Android simplicity the current launcher offers, but if Nothing wants to compete with devices like Google’s Pixel, Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphones and OnePlus, it has a ways to go.
The launcher also includes a custom background and you can download more from a Dropbox folder Nothing has only shared on its Discord server for some reason. There are also a few default Nothing widgets for the clock and weather. You can also make giant app icons that look similar to widgets. I like them since they look cool, but this isn’t a make-or-break feature.
The dropbox folder that the company has shared is the most interesting aspect of the launcher since it includes access to three demo sounds from the upcoming Nothing Phone. I’ll admit that I was skeptical when Nothing said that it used industrial gadgets and medical tech for its smartphone sounds inspiration, but the demos have convinced me its claims are accurate. For example, the alarm demo sounds great and is also quite unique.
If you want to report bugs or talk about the Launcher, you can join the Nothing Discord server. When I briefly checked out the server, Nothing founder Carl Pei asked what other launchers have good system search tools. The Nothing Launcher won’t replace the Niagra launcher for me any time soon, but it’s a solid base that, hopefully, Nothing can improve on substantially before release.
After last week’s disastrous ‘Nothing’ presentation, the company is back at it again, hyping up another announcement. The event is set for April 1st, April Fools Day, too… so there’s that.
The teaser image shows off the bottom of a smartphone, hinting that perhaps we’ll finally catch a glimpse of the long-overdue Nothing smartphone. But at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Carl Pei just came out and showed us tangible proof that he actually was the first person to buy an iPod, or something.
Since the Nothing Launcher is scheduled to drop in April, my bet is we’ll get more information about it and possibly even a release date.
The company has retooled its Twitter and Instagram presences to be called ‘Another,’ and you can see the phone’s teaser image on both accounts. The bottom of the device features curved sides that look suspiciously like the OnePlus 10 Pro, but with more symmetrical speaker grills.
Carl Pei took the stage to announce what’s new from his ‘Nothing’ startup and said, “tech companies aren’t on the consumer’s side anymore, and no one is innovating.”
Then he proceeded to show off a skinned version of Android, some LSD-fueled hieroglyphics and then asked the community for $10 million USD (roughly, $12.5 million CAD).
I’ll give Pei credit. He almost had us in the first half, but after building this much hype and then not revealing a product, he’s starting to come off as more of a salesman and less of the saviour who’s actually going to shake up the tech world.
But I guess that’s the promise of Nothing.
What we learned at the event (NOT THE TRUTH)
To start off, Pei dropped several fun stats about the Nothing Ear (1)s and the Nothing company in general. The wireless earbuds have almost sold half a million units in half a year, and there are now over 300 people working at Nothing.
He also clarified the company’s supply chain is ready even though a large tech company tried to block them. Regardless of that, Pei claims the company has large partners like Google, Samsung and Qualcomm on board to help push the first Nothing phone out this summer.
Carl Pei standing beside the Nothing Phone (1) symbol. This is all that was shown on the phone at the event.
The company even cut the presentation to give us a trailer showing off this symbol. I’m sure people will be unpacking it over the coming weeks, but to me, the bottom exclamation mark stands for fast charging, the symbol in the centre is wireless charging or some sort of MagSafe ripoff. Furthering my speculations, the top left ‘C’ is likely the camera, and the ‘/’ symbol is the antenna for 5G.
Perhaps this symbol will also look similar to the back of the phone since we’re expecting it to be transparent like the Nothing Ear (1)s.
In his whirlwind of hype, Pei started talking about the phone by painting a picture of Nothing as the only true alternative to Apple and the enclosed fortress known as the Apple ecosystem.
The Nothing ecosystem, by comparison, will be open and designed to work with a wide variety of tech products ranging from AirPods to Telsa vehicles. However, he never really gave us any clear specifics about what this might mean. To me, it seems more like Pei is just trying to do a better job at marketing the openness of Android than Google is.
Nothing OS from left to right: Always-on display, the home screen, lock screen and home screen with Nothing widgets.
It was also hard to listen to Pei talk about taking on Apple and innovating in ways that we can’t even comprehend while showing off Nothing OS, which looks like a lightly skinned version of Android 12.
Sure the design is cool and uniform, but design is subjective, and while I might find this one cool, I’m pretty sure my mom isn’t going to be into the cyberpunk aesthetic.
A look at Nothing’s take on Android’s Quick Settings.
The Nothing Launcher for Android is going to launch this April, so I’ll withhold judgment until I can get my hands on it. Pei did mention that it will only be available on select smartphones. My guess would be Pixels and Samsung devices due to the previously mentioned partnerships. However, I’d be excited to see it running on an Essential phone or a modern OnePlus device.
The launcher is supposed to have minimal animations and a high level of brand uniformity. This just looks like a pixel filter on the app ions and a lot of dot matrix design elements to match Nothing’s logo. That being said, the company did show off a cool-looking recorder app that pushes the cyber-punk aesthetics much further than the launcher.
A few angles of the Nothing Recorder app.
Pei also promised smarter RAM management, but that’s only coming in the Nothing phone, not the launcher. This seemed like an odd thing to bring up on stage since most modern phones with 4-6GB of RAM seem fine to me. Perhaps the Nothing Phone (1) will truly feel faster or maybe Pei is prepping us for a phone with less RAM than its competitors?
Nothing is promising three years of OS updates and four years of security updates when the phone launches.
In an email to ‘Nothing’ fans, the company has revealed when it will launch its next product — we just really don’t know what that device is yet.
The event is scheduled for March 23rd at 8am ET/5am PT. You can sign up to get notifications about the event on Nothing’s website.
It’s widely assumed that this new device will be a smartphone, and the Snapdragon logo on Nothing’s site all but confirms this. There are also rumours that Nothing founder Carl Pei showed off this device at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Other leaks indicate that the phone will feature transparent elements similar to the Ear (1) earbuds.
Nothing has a habit of milking its product launches, so instead of re-writing the same info over and over again, here’s my recap from last week regarding what we expect. The only other twist is that more than one potential device could be announced at the event.
The Verge reports that Nothing will reveal a “product roadmap,” suggesting that we could see a new pair of Nothing earbuds or perhaps an entry into a new product category. For instance, just purely based off Nothing’s Vibes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it drop a Bluetooth speaker.
We’ve previously reported that the Nothing smartphone would hit store shelves in April, so the company revealing the device in late March lines up well with this timeline. This also means that the Nothing phone will likely compete directly with the OnePlus 10 Pro in Canada.
Carl Pei’s tech startup Nothing has rolled out an update for the Nothing Ear (1) buds that makes them more functional with voice assistants.
The most significant update allows users to triple-tap on the earbud’s touch pannels to initiate their phone’s default voice assistant. This is likely not something everyone will use, but it was odd that Nothing launched the buds without it.
Beyond that, the company also optimized the buds to be more stable when swapping between Bluetooth devices. Adding to that, the company is also claiming that the update will allow a stronger connection with third-party apps and laptops, so all around, this update should make these more stable.
The final aspects of the update improve the battery readout in the Nothing app and the functionality of the in-ear detection feature.
You can update your Nothing earbuds in the Nothing app (Android/iOS). The update is version 0.6700.1.86.
OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company, Nothing, launched its first product earlier this year: the Nothing Ear (1) earbuds.
The buds sport a very unique look with a mix of white and transparent plastic. However, some people absolutely must dark mode all the things, so it unsurprisingly didn’t take long for people to start asking Nothing launch Ear (1) buds in black. Now, it seems the company might actually do it.
Starting at the beginning, YouTuber Casey Neistat posted a picture of Nothing Ear (1) buds on Twitter that he coloured black with a Sharpie. Nothing shared the tweet, asking if it was something people wanted.
Fast forward several days, and renders of black Nothing Ear (1) buds are making rounds on Reddit, and leaker Evan Blass posted a picture of a black Ear (1) design. The Redditor who posted the renders claims they’re from assets in the Ear (1) Android app.
While that doesn’t necessarily mean Nothing will launch black Ear (1) buds, Blass’ involvement suggests the product could actually be on the way. And if the Redditor did get the renders from Nothing’s app, that would further indicate the company plans to launch a new Ear (1) colour.
Finally, Android Police spotted a tweet pointing to a Nothing video uploaded in July that clearly shows part of a black Ear (1) bud on the desk (it’s visible at 0:39 seconds). So, it seems that Nothing at least toyed with a black colour option before launching the Ear (1) in August — if the company’s already done that, it might not take long for it to get a black colour option ready to sell.
Carl Pei, former OnePlus boss turned CEO of his own tech startup, ‘Nothing,’ has shared that an unnamed tech giant is making it harder for his company access key earbud manufacturing components.
At no point does Pei hint at what company it might be, but I’d expect it would need to be a large tech giant in order to influence how the supply chain flows to a company as small as Nothing. Specifically, Pei says, “To add to the fun, we’ve also had a major incumbent attacking us in the supply chain trying to block our access to key components. We should take that as a sign of respect.”
Also, in his blog post, Pei says that Nothing has shipped out 180,000 of its Ear (1) earbuds with 140,000 more orders to fill. He also claims that he thinks the company will push out 600,000 units of earbuds.
I hope that Nothing can sell that many and continue to make cool-looking tech products, but, unfortunately, the reviews for its Ear (1) Buds haven’t been overwhelmingly positive and they’re constantly out of stock.
