Nothing Phone 2 review: Should you buy it?

Nothing Phone 2 review: At a glance

Should you buy the Nothing Phone 2?

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

The Nothing Phone 2 carries over the same transparent glass design and LED lighting array — portentously dubbed The Glyph — from the Nothing Phone 1, but ups the ante with more powerful internals, subtle build tweaks, and other minor spec bumps. The result is a familiar Android phone with a fractionally higher price tag, but one that pushes beyond the mid-range trappings of its predecessor to take on the biggest names in the business.

The Nothing Phone’s part-retrofuturistic overall aesthetic is kept intact, but when I put the Phone 2 next to the Phone 1, the tweaks to the formula — admittedly one still heavily indebted to the iPhone — started to show. The lighter two-tone shades of the Dark Gray model I have on hand work in tandem with the more varied and defined textures and lines to emphasize the internal components and carefully positioned covers far more than the Phone 1. I haven’t seen the White version in person, but it looks just as refined at a glance. The haptics have also been further tuned, and while the uniquely precise and crisp feel and sound of Nothing’s particular vibration style will continue to be an acquired taste (I personally love them), they’re far from the buzzy mess you can get from sub-flagship tier phones.

The overall footprint of the Phone 2 has increased and it’s marginally heavier, but it’s far from weighty and is actually thinner than before. The biggest difference in the hand is the rear glass, which is now subtly curved as it tapers into the squared-off recycled aluminum frame, eliminating some of the jagged edges of the Phone 1. Sadly, the actual glass on both the front and rear is still Corning’s aging Gorilla Glass 5 rather than a newer grade like Victus; a strange concession considering both the increased price tag and the fact that Nothing hopes you’ll keep the phone face down, glass first, to see all those funky Glyph lights. I haven’t seen any cracks or scratches on my unit yet, but I’ve been a little extra careful and wary because of it. It’s still a slippery customer too, so you’ll need a good Nothing Phone 2 case (preferably one that doesn’t obscure the back).

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

As for The Glyph itself, Nothing has stuck with the same enigmatic layout of lines of curves, but has split the strips into 11 sections in total up from six, and added more lighting “zones” (read: more addressable LEDs; 33 up from 12), for greater diffusion and to allow for more functionality. I won’t go through all the new Glyph features here — read more at the link. The main additions I found useful were the Essential Glyph to distinguish WhatsApp messages from key contacts and the Timer to track timer progress at a quick glance.

The Nothing Phone 2’s Glyph and transparent design stand out in a world where smartphones are almost uniformly generic slabs.

Does all this make the Glyph a killer app? Honestly, no. The broader feature set makes it less gimmicky than before, but the actual use cases aren’t exactly groundbreaking, and some are clearly underbaked (like the Progress tracker which currently only works with Uber; not particularly useful in my rural village where Uber is non-existent). For The Glyph to really take off, it needs app developer buy-in, and considering it’s a niche feature on a niche phone from a niche brand, well, I don’t see it. That said, I’m glad Nothing is sticking with it. It’s a novel, eye-catching design quirk in a world where smartphones (at least ones that don’t fold) are almost uniformly generic slabs, and the 8-bit-like tones and discordant beats (which you can customize in the Composer) that accompany Glyph arrangements are a genuine delight for nostalgia hounds like me (also the club ringtone is a “bop,” as the kids say).

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

The Nothing Phone 2’s display sticks to an FHD+ resolution with a 20:9 aspect ratio and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. The pixels-per-inch ratio is technically lower (392 down from 402) but you can’t tell the difference. Plus, the thinner bezels and larger size of the Phone 2 allow for more screen real estate, stretching from 6.55 inches to 6.7 inches. As with the Phone 1, it’s a nice panel with high contrast OLED colors, though it’s made even better by an increased peak brightness (up to 1,600 nits) for improved outdoor visibility, and the use of LTPO technology for adaptive refresh rates as low as 1Hz to preserve battery for static content. The only other change is the newly-centralized punch-hole for the selfie camera.

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

These minor upgrades are nice, but the biggest spec change lies at the heart of the Nothing Phone 2. Despite courting a captive audience of power-hungry early adopters, the Nothing Phone 1’s Snapdragon 778G Plus was something of a disappointment for many. It ran fine for everyday tasks in my experience, but gaming lagged behind (sometimes literally) and the customized version of Qualcomm’s mid-range chip began to age pretty quickly as more and more features were added to Nothing OS. The Nothing Phone 2 blasts all that with 2022’s marquee processor, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.

The massively improved peak performance goes a long way to justifying the Nothing Phone 2’s higher (yet still affordable) price, though throttling is an early concern.

We already know from our extensive Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 testing here at Android Authority that the overclocked chip can offer significant peak burst and sustainable performance upgrades while improving efficiency and limiting temperature spikes over the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It may have been superseded by the Gen 2 in 2023, but the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is a great choice for a sub-$600 phone, and the generational improvement, as seen in the benchmarks below, is a massive leap forward over the Nothing Phone 1 that goes a long way to justifying the MSRP increase on its own.

I had no complaints about performance or overheating during my hands-on tests, be it general use multitasking with GPS and music streaming on the go or gaming with the power-sucking Honkai: Star Rail and a few demanding emulators. It should be noted, though, that the sustained performance drop in the 3DMark Wild Life stress test raises some questions about throttling under load. A 36% drop in GPU scores after just five runs is quite aggressive for this chip, and while overall stability of 54.3% over 20 runs still keeps it above the Pixel 7’s Tensor G2 throughout, it’s far below the steady performance we’ve seen from other Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 phones — the OnePlus 10T, for example, only dipped to 91% of its maximum in the same test. Here’s hoping Nothing can eke out more sustained GPU power through firmware updates.

I tested the 12GB RAM variant and memory management wasn’t an issue. I can’t vouch for the 8GB RAM base model, but we’ve seen this exact same setup (with matching LPDDR5 RAM) on the Motorola Razr Plus with no issues whatsoever. If you’re looking for full future-proofing, I’d recommend going for the 12GB model as you’ll also double your fixed storage to 256GB too.

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

Another significant area of improvement for the out-of-the-box experience for the Nothing Phone 2 is the software. I called Nothing OS anemic in my Nothing Phone 1 review as it felt incomplete and underbaked, with missing stock Android features and a lack of anything new in its place. Over time, Nothing worked hard to change that perception with frequent updates filled with tweaks to existing features and entirely new ones. This has culminated with Nothing OS 2.0 on the Nothing Phone 2, and the custom skin finally feels ready for prime time.

Running over Android 13, Nothing OS 2.0 brings over all the great additions like the custom weather app, one-handed mode, and Glyph customization options, while adding more room for personalization. You can read about all the Nothing OS 2.0 features at the link, but my favorites are the monochrome mode icons (pictured) and the custom app folder illustrations that let you pick from pre-set dot matrix-style covers and hide the app clutter on your homescreen.

Nothing OS no longer feels like a beta.

The only mild criticism I can level at Nothing is that its ambitions of an “open ecosystem” with support for third-party brand devices isn’t really evolving. Support for AirPods battery icons and Tesla connectivity have been stuck in the Experimental Features section for months now, and it’s unclear what the endgame is. Props to Nothing for not locking its features to its own ecosystem, however. Even if you pair some Ear 2 buds, they’ll work the same as on any other Android device. The NFT widget appears to be gone, too. I won’t miss it!

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

The Nothing Phone 2’s camera setup is another area where Nothing Phone 1 users will feel a pang of the familiar, but the changes (and in some cases, lack thereof) are notable. I’ll include some samples below, but for more shots at full-res check out this Drive folder.

The main camera has the same overall specs, but swaps the Sony IMX766 sensor for the newer IMX890. This is the same sensor we saw on the OnePlus 11 (that Nothing-OnePlus heritage just won’t fully go away will it?) and the results aren’t too dissimilar, albeit with some custom image processing that builds on the Nothing Phone 1’s already solid main shooter.

The biggest improvement is in dynamic range, as multiple light sources are handled expertly. Noise has been reduced in shadows in good lighting, though the white balance does still tend to get a bit skewed in overcast settings (and I see a lot of those here in the UK). The colors continue to be contrast-heavy, which can bleed into other objects and surfaces, though sharpening is kept to a minimum and the auto HDR is far more punchy. AI-assisted motion capture technology also helps avoid blur on moving targets. There’s definitely a warmer temperature to photos captured by the Nothing Phone 2 compared to its predecessor, a look I prefer and one which is far more suited to hoarding those Instagram likes. The auto-night mode feature helps clean up noise in low light, though I’d prefer if it was a constant toggle option rather than one that only appears when the phone detects dim lighting.

A subpar ultrawide shooter, slight shutter lag, and 1080p-capped selfie video are sore spots in an otherwise impressive camera setup.

One mild disappointment is the presence of shutter lag. This was tolerable on the Nothing Phone 1 as it ran on a weaker chip, but the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1’s raw grunt and upgraded ISP should breeze through rapid snaps, yet there’s a half-second delay over my Pixel 7 Pro (running the same chip as the equally-priced $599 Pixel 7). It’s faster than the Nothing Phone 1 and possibly not enough that you won’t notice without direct comparisons with other devices, but I still hope Nothing can eliminate the slight lag with updates.

Nothing calls its 2x zoom “Super-res Zoom,” which, aside from being a branding that Pixel-fans will immediately raise an eyebrow at, is essentially a digitally-assisted crop of the main sensor. Detail is surprisingly decent at 2x, but anything beyond that starts to fall apart, though that’s to be expected with no telephoto lens on offer (just like the Pixel 7, no less).

Unfortunately, the ultrawide camera continues to be the odd one out in an otherwise decent group of cameras. It sticks with the same Samsung JN1 sensor as the Nothing Phone 1 and benefits from that phone’s myriad firmware updates that targeted the ultrawide shooter, but overall the results still suffer from muddy textures and halo effects around objects. The macro mode remains its saving grace, as it uses the high-megapixel ultrawide camera and autofocus to take usable extreme close-ups.

That just leaves the selfie camera, which has doubled its megapixel count to 32MP. I was really happy with the snaps, especially the detail and color accuracy. Natural bokeh is already decent, but you can take it further with portrait mode. The edge detection missed a stray clump of hair in the seaside wind in my tests, but in calmer environments, it was far more consistent.

Video also received some love, with Action Mode (capped at 1080p/60fps) offering superior stabilization for fast-moving footage. You can still use the Glyph as a fill light and the red video recording light dot is still there buried in the camera app settings for alerting someone when you’re filming them. The real headscratcher, though, is the continued lack of 4K video on the selfie camera, let alone 4K at 60fps. Why this restriction exists on a phone intended to appeal to vloggers and the TikTok generation is beyond me. At least the rear cameras now shoot 4K/60fps to match the competition.

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

The Nothing Phone 2’s larger footprint allows room for a slightly larger battery. With the 4,700mAh cell, combined with the efficient processor and LTPO display tech, the Nothing Phone 2 comfortably outlasts the original. For my average mixed use (music/video streaming, photography, plus general social media and web browsing), it pushed through a day and a half before dropping below 10%. That fell to the following morning with more stressful testing and gaming, but it’s still early days as Adaptive Battery gets used to my usage patterns. Overall, pretty great, as is the charging; 45W Power Delivery PPS support means you’re looking at just under an hour to go from zero to 100%, and 50% in closer to 20 minutes. You’ll need a compatible brick to hit those top recharge speeds, but the Phone 2 supports a smorgasbord of fallback standards in case you have an older adapter. Add in 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse charging for your accessories and you’ve got an all-round impressive phone for battery life.

Questionable durability and tinny speakers rank among the few areas where the Nothing Phone 2 falls short of nearby rivals.

Middling cameras and not-quite-tough-enough glass aside, the Nothing Phone 2 does have some pesky flaws that keep it from true greatness. Chief among them is the IP54 rating. It’s a notch above the IP53 rating on the Nothing Phone 1, so it’s now protected against sprays of water from any direction, but it’s still not officially rated for immersion or completely ingress protected. At $599, we’re in full water and dust resistance territory for most phones, and it falls behind even cheaper options from Apple, Samsung, and Google. The optical in-display fingerprint reader is also a finicky customer that doesn’t always work the first time, and its oddly low placement means you have to stretch with your thumb if that’s your usual choice for fingerprints. Elsewhere, the bottom speaker has an extra gap in the grille, and the balance between it and the earpiece speaker has been fixed, but the sound the pair delivers is quite tinny and lacks any depth at any volume; again, a tough pill to swallow at this price considering the richness of the Pixel 7’s audio.

Finally, Nothing’s update policy is good enough, with three years of OS updates and four years of security patches. That’s a decent stretch of coverage and Nothing has thrown off any worries that it won’t deliver long-term support with the way it treated the Nothing Phone 1. However, four years of security support does fall one year short of Samsung’s mid-rangers and (once again) Google’s Pixel 7 that linger around the same price tag.

Nothing Phone 2 specs

Nothing Phone 2 review: FAQ