As much as I like the vision of Nothing, I also hate to say that the brand right now is incompetent in producing and selling smartphones and in my honest opinion did not live up to the hype.

Tagging people just to let them know what exactly is wrong @Carl @Rudi @MeghaVishwanath @manu

Note: What I’m writing here is just my personal experience of purchasing and owning the device, the Nothing Phone (1).

Blunder with the sales

First of all trying to get the phone was a task. With all the invite code system and giving special codes to the community members saying “the community gets it first”, then silently axing the whole invite system, making it available to everyone and later the phone not being available on the mentioned sale date (thanks to Flipkart and it’s exceptional service) felt like the brand was quite in a rush and wasn’t sure about the stocks they should’ve maintained.

I finally managed to order the phone, after a couple of days of Flipkart managing to fix it’s website. Couldn’t get the variant I wanted. The one I was looking for was base 8/128 but since it was out of stock (again thanks to Flipkart and its exceptional service) I had to shell out more to get my hands on but that’s fine. All I wanted was to get my hands on this phone.

Excitement turned into Disappointment
The phone finally arrives, started using it & I was pretty happy & impressed with the phone. The software was great and so were the cameras. Everything was going good until one day I saw a small black dot right in the middle of the screen. Later I saw another one around the status bar. And the next day I saw another other one. There were 3 dead pixels on the screen which appeared only on grey background and when the brightness was under 60-70%.

I immediately opted for a replacement.

Disappointment turned into Regret

By the time I opted for a replacement, I knew I wasn’t the only one having issues with the phone (1) . There were numerous posts on twitter complaining about how their phones have green tint issue, dust inside the back, some had vibration motor issues, and more. After seeing those tweets I had no hopes of getting a replacement device with zero issues and I wasn’t wrong. The replacement device was much worse than the previous one. This one had very visible green tint on the bottom part of the display and multiple lint/dust inside the back of the phone.

Now I’ve opted for a refund and the only thing I have now is the Nothing charger that I cannot get a refund for since the return policy has ended.

The hassle of purchasing, getting a faulty device back to back & multiple calls and chats with Flipkart Customer Service Executives. The experience has been pathetic.

All that hype was for Nothing

I’ve lost faith in the brand and for now, I won’t be buying any of the products nor do I recommend someone to buy. I wish Carl and the Team the best of luck for the future!

    Related discussions

    Vinayak Yep it’s India specific. There’s high demand & because of their last minute decision for open sale, now they’re just rushing on the production & ignoring QA!

      I share your feelings, albeit without ever having received my device.

      This is a run through of how my ‘priority’ order has been progressing so far:

      I’m a UK investor, who spent £20 on a pre-order pass. I ordered directly from the Nothing website on 13th July, having sat on my invite for 24 hours.

      The expected dispatch date came and went, but I eventually received an email from 51 Cargo on 21st July, informing me that my package would arrive on the 25th July (slow progress, but progress).

      I tracked the delivery and it arrived at my local DPD depot at 5am on 22nd July (things were looking better).

      At 8:30am, on the same day, the status changed to ‘your parcel is on its way back to 51 Cargo services Ltd’ I asked DPD what was going on. They told me I had to speak to 51 cargo. I didn’t have any contact details for 51 cargo, so I raised a ticket with Nothing support (I am yet to receive a response).

      On the morning of the 25th I received an automated email from Nothing telling me that my package was indeed on its way. The email included the same tracking number that I received from 51 cargo, together with a link to track my delivery via the DPD site. That link just takes you to the home screen of the DPD Group website, rather than the UK specific tracking portal (did anyone actually check the link?).

      The delivery didn’t arrive on the 25th - no surprise there. A follow-up email was sent to nothing support, together with a screen print of the tracking details from DPD.

      The order status on the Nothing website now shows that my order has been fulfilled - it hasn’t. The 51 cargo link maintains that I can still expect the package to be delivered on the day before yesterday…. transparent time machine anyone?

      So I’m no closer to getting the order I paid for two weeks ago, and I have no reliable way of knowing when I may get it, or what happened to the package that should have arrived on the 25th. It’s a complete shambles.

      When @Carl announced the invite system, he told us that there were two approaches they could have taken: 1) to build up inventory over several months, or 2) introduce an invite system so that those who have supported the company could get their hands on a device sooner. The reality is that they did neither of those things. Instead they opened up the floodgates and allowed far too many people to order. Add to that a complete inability to sequence the fulfillment of those orders correctly, and you have many disappointed customers, and investors who feel like they have been conned.

      At this stage I am allowing them until the end of the week to respond and provide a firm delivery date. If that doesn’t happen I will be cancelling my order and walking away with just a black dot NFT to show for my troubles - I hear that will provide me with early access to further disappointed at a later date though…. every cloud…

        OneMinusOne At this stage I am allowing them until the end of the week to respond and provide a firm delivery date. If that doesn’t happen I will be cancelling my order and walking away with just a black dot NFT to show for my troubles - I hear that will provide me with early access to further disappointed at a later date though…. every cloud…

        You’re not alone in this case.
        And dont worry, they’ll not responde as i wrote several post on investor part of this forum and discord, and still no real respond, just one from the support that said “we’re sorry”

        Ashamed

            OneMinusOne They won’t address it and will stay silent or try to erase any criticism made. I wouldn’t be surprised if they delete the post & kick me out of the community. That’s what Carl has been doing on Twitter since day 1, blocking people even for fair criticism.

              Update on getting the Refund process

              It has been a couple of days since I opted for a refund and I’ve been receiving calls every day from the Customer Support Team asking the same question “what’s wrong with the device?”

              Like how many times do I have to explain to them the issues? I’ve spoken to them about 7-8 times already, but there has been no update yet and they keep on calling and asking me what’s wrong. How can the Customer Support Team be so dumb and pathetic? Even AliExpress has better Customer Support than these dumbnuts.

                Ankit Gondalia
                If the issues cropping up with the phone aren’t enough, Flipkart has become another one as it has always been.
                I had to explain them the same situation near to 18times with a call i had a few mins ago with them.
                I had to kidnly cut the call as i couldn’t bear the mental agony people at Flipkart have been causing.

                    hemanth_kona wait till the Technician arrives at your home. 😂

                    The technician arrived just a few minutes ago and he said refund cannot be approved for the display tint as it’s not considered as an issue by us however the Nothing customer support says the opposite.

                    Luckily I had dust particles inside the back and because of that my refund got approved.

                    • Rudi replied to this.

                        Rudi thanks Rudi for the reply! Hope the QC issues are sorted out asap.

                        Also I have no complaints with the Nothing Customer Support. They have been quite helpful but I would be skipping this phone just because of Flipkart & it’s horrendous Customer Support. Will wait for the phone to be listed on a trusted website, maybe Amazon.

                          Rudi Thank you for taking the time to reply.

                          I think CS need to at least add a sentence to their automated reply that reads something along the lines of - bear with us, we have a backlog but we will get back to you. The customer expectation at the moment is that a reply should be received within 48 hours (as per the website). People get infuriated when that timescale drifts by serveral days .

                          I also think people that are calling to raise queries are getting a very different service to those that are using email, hence the differing views on CS.

                          It may be too late for me but I hope things improve.

                            Thanks @Rudi for your response. If you have a chance, please put a request to the management to choose Amazon as the preferred sales partner for the next product release.

                            I hope it all makes a difference in the end and probably soon @Rudi
                            Appreciate you acknowledging this and for the words that followed

                            I actually got a reply from support - not to the ticket I raised a week ago, but a separate follow-up email I sent last night. No resolution as of yet, but it’s enough to passify me for now. To be fair the email read well and felt like a personal response.

                              Rudi I think this reply is what everyone wanted, just Nothing to acknowledge the issues they’re facing. Most of us here understand this is Nothing’s first big product and there are going to be teething issues and things will only get better over time. From what I can tell, it seems the issues (at least in India) have more to do with the local partner Flipkart and BYD’s QA/QC than Nothing itself, and Flipkarts handling’s (from CS to logistics/fulfillment) is causing people to have a bad impression of Nothing. I just hope most regular (those outside of the community) understand it’s a learning curve for nothing and that this isn’t Nothing’s fault.

                                7 days later

                                Update on getting the refund for the Pre-order Pass: This is another headache I’ve been going through. Flipkart was supposed to resolve it by today of the complain I raised on the day of returning my phone. Now they’ve extended it to 10th August.

                                I’ve also heard from some people that the Pre-order Pass isn’t refundable. I hope that’s not true.

                                Anyone from the Nothing team reading this, please please avoid Flipkart for any of your future products. These people are incapable and it’s just going to tarnish your brand image.

                                Update 2 : Now been contacted by FK support and have been told that the refund will be initiated with 15 working days. Will update here once I receive the refund.

                                Hi folks, I’m able to place orders for all the black versions at least since lunch time today and until now, in Portugal (EU market)! Something is happenimg, thinks are moving and it sounds good.

                                  OneMinusOne I actually got a reply from support - not to the ticket I raised a week ago, but a separate follow-up email I sent last night. No resolution as of yet, but it’s enough to passify me for now. To be fair the email read well and felt like a personal response

                                  I’m afraid I’ve heard nothing more from support (9 days since their reply).

                                  It’s now been over two weeks since my items were returned to sender, halfway through the delivery process. I still don’t know why the package wasn’t delivered , or when I can expect my order to be sent out again

                                  I have now ran out of patience and have asked support to be cancel my order and to refund all monies to me. I’m not confident that will happen without further intervention from me though.

                                  On Friday it will be 30 days since I placed my pre-order. That’s a significant milestone for UK customers because Nothing will be breaching the Consumer Rights Act by not delivering the items without undue delay. That’s not good, not good at all.

                                  So that’s me done as far as the phone 1 is concerned. I can’t see me coming back for a while, despite investing in the company.