Hello from Texas!

I purchased a Nothing Phone (2) four days ago and received it yesterday (shipping was FAST!). I’ve been acquainting myself with it. So far, I’m absolutely delighted by it. I’d say I absolutely love it, but I don’t want to jinx myself. 😆 Coming from a Pixel 7a, I will say the Phone (2) has a lot a lot of personality. The Pixel does, too, but the Phone (2) takes it up several notches, thanks mostly to its distinct UI elements, sounds, and features like the Glyph Interface and lock screen / AOD widgets.

I’d heard of Nothing several years ago, before the original phone was revealed, and, having been a previous OnePlus 6T owner, I was curious to see what would come of Carl’s new venture. I’ve always preferred a “clean” Android experience - I have little interest in feature overload and gravitate toward experiences that are simple and elegant, while also being unique and refined (early Moto phones, also of which I was a fan, are a good example of this). I enjoyed my OnePlus 6T, but I also started to see where OnePlus was going, and it wasn’t for me, thus my move to Pixel.

Recently, however, I started seeing more and more in the news about Nothing, especially the new 2a. While that product is certainly interesting, it doesn’t have the 5G bands that T-Mobile uses in my area. Still, it was enough to further my curiosity about Nothing, so I started to research the (2). It has more 5G bands, including those that T-Mobile uses in my area, and it packs a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which I presumed would be a nice bump in performance over the Tensor G2 in my Pixel. I wasn’t wrong.

This phone, the Phone (2), is FAST. It reminds me of the OnePlus of yore (“Fast and Smooth”). It also appears to be very well made. When I saw the first Nothing phone, I thought the design, including its transparent back cover and Glyph Interface, was a bit gimmicky; however, having now experienced the (2) in person, I can genuinely say I’m a fan. It’s a genuinely unique aesthetic, served with a healthy side of practical fun. But there are so many other great features, from the lock screen / AOD widgets to the cheeky bundled sounds, the Quick Settings widgets to the resizable icons, the AI wallpaper to the support for icon packs - and that’s just scratching the surface. Circling back to the hardware, I should mention that the stereo speakers sound just fine. Zero complaints, but certainly nothing special. The screen, however, is gorgeous. Living in Texas, I’ve ALWAYS struggled to see my phones’ screen in direct sunlight, but the (2)'s display laughs in the face of the Texas sun. Indoors? I don’t recommend setting it to full brightness if you value your eyesight.

All of the above wonderful things having been said, I do have a few nitpicks / suggestions, assuming the Nothing folks peruse these forums in search of product improvement ideas:

I’m currently using a mix of Nothing and Google widgets. On the Nothing side, I’m using the Swiss-style clock (very fancy) and an assortment of Quick Settings widgets (these are brilliant). On the Google side, I’m using Google’s new At-a-glance widget, their screen time widget, and their Fit widget.

I tried the Nothing Quick Look widgets, and I took issue with two aspects of them: 1) As with the Pixel’s fixed At-a-glance widget, the date and temperature are so close together that it’s frustratingly easy to inadvertently tap one when meaning to tap the other. 2) While tapping the temperature opens Nothing’s Weather app, the app leaves a bit to be desired. I love that the consistency of its UI with that of Nothing OS; unfortunately, as is, it’s not very good at actually communicating the weather - not without looking at it long enough to “figure it out.” Adding a little color, with restraint, would go a long way here - blue dots for rain, yellow for sun, and so forth. Expanding on the information in the app would be a nice plus, too, as jumping from the Weather app to the AccuWeather website for more info is visually…jarring. 😁

Regarding the Nothing pedometer widget, it’s cute, but it doesn’t seem to sync up with or link to either Fit/Health Connect, which presents two issues: 1) The data presented in the Nothing widget is different from that presented in the Google widget (I tend to believe the Google widget is more accurate, based on my history with a treadmill and Google Fit) and 2) tapping the widget doesn’t do anything. It would be nice if it opened Google Fit, for example, or some other tracking app.

As for the screen time widget, its shortcomings are similar to those of the pedometer widget’s - it doesn’t seem to be as accurate (based on my observation of Digital Wellbeing’s dashboard details and some quick math) and it doesn’t link to anything (like the abovementioned dashboard).

Last thing I’ve got: Allowing icons to be selected from an installed icon pack on a per-app basis would be amazing.