Speaker 1: The flashy nothing. Foam two is here and we're excited.
Speaker 1: The first Nothing Phone impressed us with its solid all-round performance. It's relatively affordable price tag and of course the flashing lights, but it never [00:00:30] officially made it to the us So those of you watching this video were probably left out of the loop, but the second generation is here to change that when it goes on sale in the US and the wider world on the 16th of July, the nothing phone two will come with a range of upgrades from the design to the components and only five $99. It is still a relatively affordable option, but the competition is much more fierce here then is what you need to know about the Nothing Phone. Two. [00:01:00] Visually there hasn't been a huge departure from the first model. The back is still transparent letting you see a little inside the phone, including these exposed screw heads in various connecting components. The glass is now gently curved at the edges though, which does just give it a slightly more premium feel when you're holding it. But it's those flashing lights or the glyph as nothing calls it that is the big family resemblance here.
Speaker 1: [00:01:30] Those LEDs light up the back of the phone and can be used to alert you to all kinds of incoming notifications or for alarms or as a battery meter or simply to use as a fill light when you're filming videos. The phone too has slightly more sections to those L e D things, so it allows for slightly deeper customization to create your own light patterns for different apps or contacts. There's also a glyph timer and that can just be used as a literally countdown timer [00:02:00] if you are boiling an egg. But it could also link with apps like Uber and it will count down as you are waiting for your car to arrive. That's handy if you are in a bit of a rush and you still need that time to do your hair, but want an easy visual cue of exactly when your car is going to arrive and nothing says it will be working with other developers to bring that kind of timer functionality to other apps.
Speaker 1: The gly lights certainly help the first generation stand out against the competition and sure they are arguably [00:02:30] something of a bit of a gimmick, but it is genuinely nice to see a little bit of fun and flare in phones, especially in the more affordable mid-range sector where things like fancy designs and cool new aesthetics tend to take a bit of a back seat in order to keep those prices down. But those lights are not the only physical thing to care about. The metal frame is made from a hundred percent recycled aluminum. It is IP 54 rated to keep it safe. If you are taking calls in the rain and there is a fingerprint [00:03:00] sensor invisibly hidden underneath the display, the 6.7 inch display is big and bright enough to do justice to those fancy games or colorful beauty videos you might be watching on the move and it's adaptive frame rate can let it go from only one Hertz to help preserve battery life and then ramp up to 120 hertz for more smoother gaming.
Speaker 1: Powering the Nothing. Phone two is a Qualcomm Snapdragon eight plus gen one processor backed up by either eight or [00:03:30] 12 gigabytes of ram. Now that is a slightly older generation processor now, but it's still a potent chip so you can fully expect the nothing phone two to handle pretty much anything you'd want to throw at it from gaming to photo editing or video streaming. Nothing said it wanted to use an older chip because it wanted something that's tried and tested that will offer a more stable platform while still keeping those costs down. And to be honest, I think that is a fair trade here and it's not to say that it's an underpowered older [00:04:00] processor far from it. Bear in mind that phones like the one plus 10 T and the Samson Galaxy Z fold four both have that same processor and they're both absolute powerhouse.
Speaker 1: Flagship phones only launched last year, so don't worry at all about this phone being able to handle any of your daily needs. The phone two rents Android 13 at its core, but nothing has done quite a lot to customize the look of the interface. It's a very stark monochrome experience with quite a heavy, heavy [00:04:30] reliance on dot matrix style texts and icons. There are a variety of widgets that use these aesthetics, but even some of the actual app icons themselves can be made black and white to fit in with that whole look. Now that could make it quite difficult to find your apps, especially if like me, you tend to rely on those color cues to find exactly which one you need. So thankfully you can turn that off if you want to. A feature that I can see being quite useful though is creating a folder of apps on one of your home screens [00:05:00] and then hiding that folder behind an icon.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining filling a folder up with some of my main work apps, things like Outlook or Slack or Zoom and then I can hide all those behind an icon, maybe a briefcase to indicate work and just keep those hidden out of way so I don't have to worry about them on my weekends. I often don't really like custom skins that really change the look of Android, but there is something quite stark and stylish about what nothing has done here and if you are into that kind of monochrome minimalism, then you [00:05:30] will enjoy the interface. Nothing promises that the phone two will receive three years of OS updates and an additional fourth year of security updates. Now that isn't bad, but it is a little bit below the five years of security updates that other companies including Samsung are starting to offer on their phones. I would want to see all phone manufacturers offering up to and beyond five years of security updates. It'll keep those phones being safer to use for longer and therefore keeping them out of landfill.
Speaker 1: [00:06:00] On the back of the phone you will find a 50 megapixel main camera and a 50 megapixel ultra wide camera. Hardware-wise, that is pretty much the exact same setup we had on the nothing phone one, but the improved Snapdragon processor on the nothing phone. Two lasts, the much better image processing and indeed nothing is promising improved colors, improved exposure and improved HDR skills, all of which should hopefully help you take nicer looking shots. I've spent some time testing the camera [00:06:30] and so far I am pleased to see generally vibrant images with plenty of detail and a decent enough handling of exposure. So while there's no major improvement here in terms of sensor size or zoom lenses, those software updates should definitely help you take better photos on this phone than you could on its predecessor, but as bigger competition is going to come from the Google Pixel seven A, which can take stunning photos and is quite a bit cheaper than the nothing phone two. So I'm really looking forward to see how those [00:07:00] two stack up.
Speaker 1: The phone two will shoot 4K video at 60 frames a second and it's 32 megapixel. Front facing camera should be more than enough to capture some really embarrassing selfies. Powering the phone is a 4,700 million power battery, which should be capacious enough to help you get through a full day of use. But as with all phones, your actual results will just come down to how much you hammer your phone. [00:07:30] If you spend all morning gaming and streaming videos, then you can expect to need to give it a top up sometime in the afternoon. More general mixed use. Getting through a full day should be fine and you can probably just expect to give it a full charge overnight as we all do. It supports 45 what fast charging, which nothing says will take it from empty to full in about 55 minutes. A fast charger does not come in the box, so you will need to factor buying one of those.
Speaker 1: When you look at the prices, it has 15 watt wireless [00:08:00] charging as well and you can reverse charge through it so you can give your headphones a little boost or even charge up another phone entirely. So is the nothing Phone two actually a good phone to buy? Well, if you're after a flashy phone that really stands out from the crowds and the Nothing Phone Twos, LEDs does somewhat put it in a league of its own. They certainly do make a statement to, well, I can't honestly say I would find myself using them every single day. They could well be a useful addition. Beyond [00:08:30] that, the phone does have plenty going for it from its big screen to its potent processor and that quite cool looking software, but it's more expensive than the first version. And that extra price means it is got a lot of competition.
Speaker 1: And in fact at 5 99 it's quite a big step up above the 4 49 that Google wants for the excellent Pixel seven A. And while I don't expect the Pixel seven A to compete on processing power, Google's cheapest phone does take amazing photos for the price and its software [00:09:00] is a dream to use. The mid-range phone market has become one of the most hotly contested areas in 2023. And the nothing Phone Twos high price does mean it's now got an even bigger fight on its hands to convince people to make room in their pockets. What do you think of the new nothing? Phone two. Do those flashing lights convince you or are you looking elsewhere? Do you make sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below and make sure to check out the video description for a lot more information.
