The illuminated smartphone attracts positive attention

Now we come to Nothing’s second smartphone. The new Nothing Phone 2 is also equipped with nice lighting and has better specifications. In our Nothing Phone 2 review, we look at the device from all sides. What possibilities does a smartphone offer?

Nothing Phone 2 review

In 2022 we saw one of the most talked about smartphones of that year hit the market; It was Nothing Phone 1. In our Nothing Phone 1 review, we were positive about the manufacturer’s first device. As with any device, there is room for improvement. And according to Nothing, we see that reflected in the Nothing Phone 2. We’ve been testing the Nothing Phone 2 extensively in recent weeks and you can read our findings in our Nothing Phone 2 review.

When we look at the specs, Nothing Phone 2 sits in a higher bracket than the first generation Nothing phone. Therefore, they are about 200 euros more expensive. Is it also the best smartphone?

retail package

Square package contains Nothing Phone 2. Smartphone is supplied without data cable or charger. What is included is a Sim needle, which has a transparent end. A USB-C cable with a USB-C connection on both ends is also included. This is also provided with a partially transparent end. Obviously, none is still focused on its product design. Case is not included.

Design and interface

There’s a lot to say about the Nothing Phone 2’s design. Nothing stands out in clear-case smartphones. This doesn’t mean that you immediately see all the separate parts like the battery and chipset, because it’s a deeper layer, but it still gives a nice dimension to the phone. But of course the LED strips are also processed on the back of the phone. It can light up a large number of things, for example with a notification, actions or incoming calls. We’ll come back to that later in our Nothing Phone 2 review.

Nothing Phone 2 features a 6.7 inch OLED display that offers a resolution of 2412 x 1080 pixels and an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz. The fingerprint scanner is integrated into the screen and does its job well. Your phone will be unlocked in no time. The volume key of the device is located on the right, and on the left are two volume keys. At the bottom you will find a SIM card slot.

The back of the smartphone most of the time consists of lighting and various parts. We also see two cameras on the back. This is a 50MP main camera and a 50MP wide-angle lens. We’ll come back to this later in our Nothing Phone 2 review.

Avatar interface

It’s Nothing Phone 2’s main feature, so it’s no surprise that we took the time apart; Avatar interface. Nothing Phone 2 is equipped with an illuminated LED backlight. This shines with new messages, calls, and notifications arriving on the smartphone. The displayed lighting is set to the selected ringtone or notification sound. And speaking of tones; The ringtones that come standard on Nothing Phone 2 are of a completely different caliber than many other phones. It’s quite futuristic and busy, and in my opinion, there are also plenty of ringtones that will get on your nerves, and the same goes for notification sounds. Fortunately, you can of course also choose your own ringtones with a small turn.

You can also use Glyph Composer. Here you can put the tones in a row and compose yourself. You can also choose the Swedish House Mafia voice pack. The possibilities are somewhat limited for each sound package, so don’t expect a full toolkit with options to make your ringtone completely your own.

user interface

Nothing puts its own sauce on Android. And this interface looks good. Looks a little dated with a lot of options. Of course, you can start with the background and the corresponding colors. You can choose from a dark or light theme, grid size, and types of icon styles. None also added many of its own widgets to the phone, including several clock widgets and quick settings. The advantage is that there is no more bloatware. summit!

communication

Of course, you’re using 5G with Nothing Phone 2. At the bottom of the smartphone you’ll find a SIM card slot. The phone gives you the option to use a dual SIM, so there is room for two SIM cards. Everything works as you would expect. Call quality is good and we had no issues with reception.

Nothing Phone 2 also offers support for Bluetooth, WiFi and of course GPS and NFC is also present on the smartphone. It all works as you would expect, without further problems.

Multimedia

Nothing Phone 2’s screen is more than good. The images are easy to read and readability didn’t prove to be an issue even on sunny days. So the phone can be used very well for multimedia use. The viewing angle is good and the images come into their own on the screen. In the display settings, you can still choose to adjust the color temperature, choose a more vibrant color, or just standard.

For music lovers, Nothing Phone 2 is equipped with stereo speakers. These provide very good sound quality. The volume could also be loud enough. If you prefer to listen via a headset or earphones, you can connect them via Bluetooth.

camera

You’ll find two 50MP lenses on the back of the Nothing Phone 2. One lens is for the main lens and the other for wide-angle photos. It is a pity that the telephoto lens is missing. Although, you can use the 2x zoom mode on the phone using software zoom. The camera app is easy to use and works as you would expect. You can also choose to put a filter on your photos and you can choose a spirit level and a watermark.

What about the Nothing Phone 2’s picture quality? Obviously that’s fine. You can take 12MP photos by default, with pixel binning being used for a better end result. The images captured are sharp, with good detail and realistic colours. Sometimes the smartphone camera tends to pull it to the dark side, but that’s certainly not annoying. Nothing also works well in dark hours and delivers good photos.

We also compared the Nothing Phone 2’s camera against the OnePlus 11. We see that the results are pretty close. There is no direct winner. We see here that nothing sometimes chooses the dark side a little faster. Maybe nothing can be set here with the update. If you want to see more photos we took with the phone, check it out here digital photo album out of nothing phone 2.

Video camera

When shooting a video, you’ll come across another LED light on the back of the Nothing. The kind of red switch you find at the top right can blink red while you’re shooting, so it’s obvious that recording is happening. If desired, you can disable this via the phone settings. the video quality is excellent; You can view the sample we made below.

performance and battery

Nothing Phone 2 is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 octa-core processor. This is last year’s high-end processor, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The processor, along with the 12GB of RAM, ensures a fast smartphone. We don’t notice any crazy hitches or annoying delays. Everything is perfectly coordinated. Depending on the choice, the phone offers 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB storage. This memory cannot be expanded.

battery

Nothing Phone 2 has a 4,700 mAh battery. In addition to this, you can charge this smartphone at 45W and you can also choose to charge it wirelessly at 15W. The endurance of a smartphone is not only due to the battery capacity. Many other things play an important role, including the processor and software.

And apparently nothing is right, because carrying the Phone 2 can only be described as insane. With heavy use, you don’t have to worry about the battery. At the end of the day, we have about 35 percent left. If you use the device less intensively, you can also get a couple of days without much effort. When fully charging the battery, we notice that the screen usage time is approximately 4.5 to 6 hours, depending on usage. Insanely good score.

Although you can charge the phone at 45W, you must have your own charger, which is not included. Nothing in itself sells this, with a transparent bezel, for €35, though you can also look elsewhere for a PPS charger. Without a PPS/PD charger, charging takes longer. Charging with a fast charger takes over an hour. For example, the Anker Nano II works perfectly for this.

update policy

In the three weeks that we’ve now owned the Nothing Phone 2, we’ve already received two major updates with many improvements and improvements. The manufacturer immediately made it clear at launch what the update policy would be. Nothing Phone 2 will receive three Android updates (Android 14, 15 and 16) and four years of security updates. These security patches will be rolled out every two months; Although this has already happened more than once. The update policy is more than good with that promise. Samsung only offers smartphone updates for another year.

to rule

The Nothing Phone 2 surprised me positively. It’s a very nice phone and it does everything really well. In particular stamina. Hats off to battery consumption. In many areas, Nothing Phone 2 can compete with competitors from the same and sometimes even higher price ranges. In fact, Nothing Phone 2 is the smartphone you prefer to look at from the back. The camera is good, but could use some fine tuning to make it look less dark. Moreover, it is a very nice smartphone and the luminous back is a very nice addition. Hopefully nothing will allow users to customize it further in the future.

There is competition in the price range; Including from OnePlus. For the same money, you have the OnePlus 11 (see also our OnePlus 11 review), which is lightning fast and offers excellent performance. The Samsung Galaxy S23 also falls into the same price range (as we wrote about in our Galaxy S23+ review); It wins with the camera, but it has to let Nothing Phone 2 get ahead of the endurance.

You can buy Nothing Phone 2 at Simple callAnd cool blueAnd MovingAnd T-Mobile And Tele2.

Check out our special product page for more news, specs and pricing.

Prices start from: 679.00 EUR