Nothing Phone (2) Review: A Design-First, Mid-Range Challenger

• The Nothing Phone (2) is a solid mid-range phone that punches above its weight
• It has one of the most distinctive designs for a phone in recent memory, and turns heads
• In saying that, some of the Nothing software innovations left us frustrated

It’s rare to see a challenger brand appear in the smartphone market, so when it happens, it’s worth taking note of. UK-based Nothing is an interesting beast in the tech field, somehow staying relevant in a field dominated by a few of the biggest companies on the planet right now, and has carved itself a niche within the market by delivering weird and wonderful hardware ideas at affordable prices.

Take one look at the Nothing Phone (2)’s translucent backplate and you’ll understand what I mean, but even its ‘budget’ brand CMF has done some interesting stuff with its first product launches.

We’ll see what the brand has up its sleeve for the Phone (3a) – and eventually the fully-featured (3) – pretty soon, but for now, I’ve been using the brand’s current flagship phone for the past few months to see how it holds up almost 18 months after release.

It’s a beautiful phone, and although I’m not a huge fan of bigger, 6.7” phones, Nothing definitely tries to make the most of the extra real-estate afforded by a bigger screen through its Nothing-branded widgets and software features, such as a pop-up app view that allows you to have a full-screen app shrunk down and float above other apps: I found it’s less useful in practice than it sounds, but it’s a good idea that has some legs to it.

Which, honestly, is about how I feel about the Nothing Phone (2) experience as a whole. It’s a good, solid device, but still has some growing pains to go through to deliver something that doesn’t just feel like a pretty phone with some serviceable software inserted into it.

For what it’s worth, the basics of what is expected of a smartphone in 2025 is all here: decent battery life, a nice screen, good audio and video quality, Wi-Fi 6, etc. It’s just that Nothing also takes some stabs in other directions that can be hit or miss.

Comparing the Competition

	Nothing Phone (2)	Google Pixel 8a	Samsung Galaxy S24 FE
Price	From AUD$1,149	From AUD$849	From AUD$1087
Display	– 6.7” OLED – 2412 x 1080 resolution – 120Hz refresh rate – Gorilla Glass 5	– 6.1” OLED – 2400 x 1080 resolution – 120Hz refresh rate – Gorilla Glass 3	– 6.7” AMOLED – 2340 x 1080 resolution – 120Hz refresh rate – Gorilla Glass Victus+
Operating System	Nothing OS 2.0 – 3.0	Android 14 – 15	Android 14, One UI 6.1
Internals	– Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 – RAM: 8 or 12 GB – Storage: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB	– Processor: Google Tensor G3 – RAM: 8GB – Storage: 128GB, 256GB	– Processor: Exynos 2400e – RAM: 8GB – Storage: 128GB. 256GB, 512GB
Networking	– 5G – Wi-Fi 6 – Bluetooth 5.3 – NFC Capable	– 5G – Wi-Fi 6e – Bluetooth 5.3 – NFC Capable	– 5G – Wi-Fi 6e – Bluetooth 5.3 – NFC Capable
Camera	Front: 32MP (wide) Rear: 50MP (wide), 5P (ultra-wide) Can record up to 4K@60fps Can record slow-motion up to 4K@120fps, 1080p@480fps	Front: 13MP (wide) Rear: 64MP (wide), 13MP (ultra-wide) Can record up to 4K@60fps Can record slow-motion up to 1080p@240fps	Front: 10MP (wide) Rear: 50MP (wide), 8MP (telephoto), 12MP (ultra-wide) Can record up to 8K@30fps, 4K@120fps Can record slow-motion up to 1080p@240fps
Battery	4,700mAh	4,492mAh	4,700Mah
Other Features	– Single USB 2.0 Type-C port – Fingerprint reader – Glyph lighting on rear of device – IP54 dust protected and water resistant	– Single USB 2.0 Type-C port – Fingerprint reader – IP67 dust and water resistant	– Single USB 3.2 Type-C port – Fingerprint reader – Samsung DeX IP68 dust tight and water resistant

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Why Trust Us

Here at Man of Many, we use a wide variety of technology. We’re not fans of any one brand, like to get our hands on the latest-and-greatest tech before we call it the next-best-thing, and we’ve built up extensive experience in reviewing tech as a publication over the past 10 years.


The author of this article, Dean Blake, is Man of Many’s technology journalist, and has followed the industry for years. He’s reviewed a fair bit of the competition, and was provided the product by Nothing for the purposes of this review. No money exchanged hands, and all opinions expressed are those of the author and haven’t been seen by Nothing ahead of time. For more information on our independence, testing and review guidelines, you can read our full editorial policies here.

The Good:

Colour, Material, Finish

Easily the most impressive bit of the Nothing Phone (2) is its design. Compared to other phones on the market, which are largely just glass and aluminium rectangles of varying shapes and sizes, the Nothing Phone really stands out.

The second I pulled the phone out of its packaging, I had co-workers around my desk checking it out. The main draw is the light-up ‘glyph’ on the back, which reacts to phone calls, messages, and alarms to make sure you don’t miss a thing. In fact, you can even create your own little light-shows using a Nothing-branded app.

It’s a great differentiating feature that does something it’s competition can’t steal, and it ensures whenever you pull out your phone everyone in the room knows exactly which type of phone you have: it’s free marketing for Nothing, essentially.

However, that’s also a double-edged sword. It didn’t take long before I turned the glyph off entirely. As someone that doesn’t want to bother everyone around them anytime they get a message or phone call, the idea of having a flashing phone made me uncomfortable. Exhibitionists would probably love this thing, but that ain’t me.

Still, it’s refreshing to use a phone that doesn’t just look like another black rectangle, and can serve as a conversation starter in the right company.

The entirety of the back panel is a showcase of Nothing’s design aesthetic. At first blush you’d think it were the internals of the device put on display, like an old crystal GameBoy or something, but in actuality it’s just a custom design made to imitate that look: you’re not looking at the phone’s actual heatsink or anything, but white material covers that hide the actual goods underneath.

That back panel is made up of a slightly curved panel of Gorilla Glass 5 – it’s not thicker than other panels, mind you, but curved like a tortoise shell, leaving a slight gap between the internals and the protective layer. It’s a little concerning from a ‘please-don’t-break’ point of view, but the phone feels solid in the hand, if not a little slippery.

In fact, let’s talk about that: of all the phones I’ve tested so far, the Nothing Phone (2) felt the most like it was going to slip out of my hand at any moment, actually did slide off of surfaces that weren’t flat a few times – like my couch’s arm rest, for example – and fell out of my pocket when I’d sit down. Thankfully that didn’t lead to any damage, but I would definitely recommend a case with a grippy texture to it with the Nothing Phone.

It definitely feels Nothing focused a bit more on the design of the phone than the usability with the curved back, or maybe I’m just not a fan.

On the other side of the phone, the display is a stunning 2412x1080p AMOLED panel that hits a max refresh rate of 120Hz: more than enough for most people, and very much in-line with its Android competition.

Widgets and Apps Galore

I have a confession to make: I don’t really use, or like, widgets. I tend to find that they clutter up a phone’s home screen, which I prefer to keep as minimal as possible.

However, Nothing’s take on widgets actually got me mixing and matching. The brand’s distinct ‘LED’ style design language translates well to the screen, and the fact that everything is nice and uniform in design scratches my brain in a good way. I ended up with a ‘quick view’ widget detailing details about the day ahead, alongside a battery percentage, a pedometer, and a Nothing-themed game of snake, created by the brand’s community and released by the brand on the Play Store.

Nothing also has its own versions of basic phone apps – weather, voice recorder, and camera – alongside a Nothing X app, which syncs Nothing’s other devices to the phone. I don’t have any of Nothing’s earphones or watches, so I ignored that app.

All in all, I like the Nothing software ecosystem: it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of fluff here, it’s barebones in the sense that it is only showing the most important information to keep from wasting your time, and in a world where every app and website I open wants to suck up as much time as it can, I appreciate the restraint.

The Bad:

Pop-Up Problems

The software isn’t all good, however. One particular feature of Nothing OS actually drove me a bit nuts in its exectution, though I can appreciate the thought behind it.

See, when you’re closing an app on the Nothing Phone you’ll also have the option of turning that window into an pop-out view instead – turning it into an independent little window that can be moved around the screen, and interacted with while also running something else in the background.

I like the idea, but in my opinion the screen isn’t big enough to facilitate that kind of pop-out experience: whatever is turned into the pop-out becomes too small to read or interact with in any meaningful way. I think an adjustable split-screen option would have probably worked better.

The other issue I ran into is that simply trying to close an app would regularly turn whatever I was trying to close into a floating pop-up, essentially keeping me from quickly closing apps and pages and adding an additional step to trying to quickly use the phone. This could be solved by spending more time changing my own swiping behaviours to this phone’s intricacies, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth in the first few weeks of use.

With Nothing’s recent Nothing OS 3.0 update, that process seems to have been made easier to close, with a nice big X at the top of the floating window acting as an easier way of shutting it down, so I’ll give credit where credit is due: it was clearly an issue, and they’re taking steps to fix it.

The End (of Software Updates) is Coming

In a world of near constant cyber threats, it’s always important to make sure your phone is relatively up-to-date in terms of its securty, and ‘older’ phones are definitely in a difficult space. Brands can’t support every phone forever, and aging hardware eventually becomes incompatible with the way future phones will be made.

Nothing has said the Phone (2) will get 3 years of Android updates, and 4 years of security patches. This means, as it stands today, the phone is about halfway through its update cycle.

During my time with the phone Nothing OS 3.0 launched, and the Nothing Phone (2) has quite happily upgraded and, honestly, hasn’t missed a beat. It’s likely that, assuming Nothing releases a Nothing OS 4.0 upgrade next year, that’ll be the Phone (2)’s final major update.

What I’m saying is that, assuming you want your phone to last as long as possible, you’ve got about a year-and-a-half of updates left, and about two years of security updates.

That’s not bad, but it’s also not great.

Do We Recommend the Nothing Phone (2)?

The Nothing Phone (2) is a great mid-range phone with a lot of identity and personality, but also some strange software decisions that are still being ironed out. It’s a decent option for any Android-user looking for a relatively cheap 6.7” display, and, with a bit of elbow-grease, is more repairable than most other phones on the market today.

However, with the Nothing Phone (3a) coming in just a few months, it’s tough to recommend the Phone (2) when a newer, and potentially cheaper and more comfortable version might be just around the corner.