Nothing product prioritisation - discussion

SoumyaNC · 2025-07-31T04:34:31+00:00

I am requesting everyone to go through the post and save your money from wasting. I myself using Nothing Phone 2. Nothing follows a very unconventional product strategy compared to giants like Samsung or Apple. Here's a breakdown of why Nothing feels "strange" and what's really happening behind their decisions: \--- ⚙️ Nothing’s Product Prioritization – A Contrarian Playbook 🔄 Focus on Latest Launches (Even if Lower-End) When Phone (3a) and 3a Pro launched in 2025, Carl Pei and the marketing team put massive emphasis on them. Meanwhile, the Phone (2) — their flagship of 2023 — got almost zero continued spotlight. Similarly, when Phone (2a) launched in 2024, it received more marketing push than Phone (1) or even the still-premium Phone (2). > 🔍 Feels like: A company putting more marketing weight behind new, cheaper models rather than maintaining hype for premium ones — a sharp contrast to Samsung’s S-series strategy. \--- 🤔 Why Nothing Might Be Doing This 1\. Audience Focused on Freshness, Not Legacy Nothing targets trend-following, design-conscious, younger users — who crave “what’s new” rather than “what’s best.” In this mindset, newness trumps legacy — even if the new phone is technically weaker. 2\. Design-Centric Hype Machine Their glyph lighting, transparency, and minimalist aesthetic create visual uniqueness. So when a new design (even in a cheaper model) hits the market, it grabs attention more than spec sheets. 3\. Smaller Team, Limited Resources Unlike Samsung or Apple, Nothing is still a startup with limited engineering and support staff. They likely can't afford to continuously optimize older high-end models like Phone (2) while simultaneously pushing out and supporting new launches. 4\. Their Business Model Is Not Flagship-Centric Unlike Samsung which sells millions of Galaxy S-series, Nothing likely makes more money and market penetration via mid-tier volumes (3a, 2a). **So they treat the flagships more as "halo products" — meant to build brand image — but they monetize through mid-tier launches.** \--- 📉 Potential Problems with This Strategy **Lack of Loyalty from Power Users: Tech enthusiasts buying a high-end Nothing phone might feel abandoned quickly.** Update Prioritization Issues: Users have noticed that older flagships often get updates slower than newly launched mid-range models. Confusion in Product Hierarchy: Naming like “3a Pro” can confuse customers about what’s truly the best device. \--- 🆚 Compared to Samsung Strategy Element Samsung (e.g., S24 vs A-series) Nothing Flagship Support Long-term updates, camera tweaks, feature enhancements continue for S-series Flagship gets spotlight only around launch Marketing Focus S-series promoted throughout year Focus shifts to latest release regardless of tier Volume Strategy A-series = mass volume, S-series = brand loyalty Nothing aims to ride hype across all models \--- 💬 In Summary You're spot on — **Nothing acts more like a hype-driven design company than a traditional tech brand**. Their model is focused on keeping attention fresh, even at the cost of older high-end users. It's bold, but risks alienating buyers who invest in their premium gear.

CMF1_hacker

JP that’s what you get when you ask genAI for a business strategy. Man, I hate marking garbage like this that students submit. We’re considering changing to vivas (oral exams) for most university-level work just to remove the use of genAI.

Womey

CMF1_hacker

While in college, I used to put myself out there and present on every group project. Just wanted the public-speaking practice as well.

Now I do calls, with over 500 people, and present in front of execs as a PM.

I see the benefit of having all oral exams, but weary for those with learning disabilities. AI really complicated “learning.” 🤔

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

Oh really? You want us to buy phone 3??? And waste our money. I am using phone 2. I have seen Nothing as a company de prioritize earlier phones when new phone launches. Do you think customers are fool. And what’s the problem with ChatGPT 😁

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC this is one of the problem with genAI usage; loss of mental acuity. never once did I mention anyone buying a PHONE (3).

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker omg. Are you mad? You asked me to use Phone 3 in your first comment. How will I use it without buying it? Nothing is going to give me a Nothing Phone 3 for free !

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC sure, using a PHONE (3) doesn’t require purchase. why would anyone purchase a phone without using it first?

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

Are you a bot? Your replies and comments are confusing

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC I see. Trolling now, are we.

I would expect most people to test a phone before commenting or spending nearly £1000 on it? I do, with the exception of some that Chinese-only phones that I buy grey-market from HK as I don’t have access to them unless I’m in China. But, a global release like the PHONE (3), I would use before purchase.

SoumyaNC

Do you have a problem understanding English? Read the entire text carefully. I’m not concerned about Nothing as a company or its team or its profit or strategy. What matters to me is the product I purchased — and that product feels neglected and less important every time a new phone is released. Do you get it now?

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC how about you tell us about your experiences and not regurgitate genAI output?

or do you simply follow what genAI tells you, which is sad and dangerous.

JP

SoumyaNC first…you posted some “words” without reading it and understanding it… YOUR POST HAS EVERY ANSWERS TO YOUR PROBLEM… why who what when how they are not listening to a PRECIOUS coustomer of them .. who’s crying for updates because its 2 days late…

And i said what you’ve asked for .. why your phone is neglected…because any brand want to grow ..not just focus on one phone…phone 2 or whatever phone you are using is getting updates … do you need carl to come to your house and sit with you and solve your problem… world doesn’t revolve around phone 2 updates

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

Boss, forget about GenAI. Check my posts for last 2 years. I myself is a victim of strange strategy of Nothing. 50000₹ Phone 2 getting less importance than 24000₹ 2a. When I am seeing company like OnePlus, Samsung caring about their high end phones rather than creating hype with low budget phones, I feel disgusted. Want any more personal experience reviews?

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC

(1) You started this with genAI. Thus, by default, I question your ability to make an argument.

(2) Newer products should receive more support than older products or else they won’t sell.

(3) NOTHING ® is a smaller company, thus I would by default expect less support than 1+, Samsung, etc… this is common sense, or? The trade-off is that they can be much LESS conservative in design (glyph lighting) as they’re niche.

(4) what’s confusing about any of this? it seems like a bog standard strategy for a company making market inroads. It’s no different than with 1+ originally back in 2013/14. (Which is why I’m here).

KamiKaze

SoumyaNC 😂

SoumyaNC

I am again saying, I am not bothered about Nothing company’s strategy. I am warning people to stay away from Nothing’s so called high end products.

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

Ok. There is no question of placing my points. You will not understand. You want Nothing to give more importance to phones like Nothing 4a around 30000₹ when it will be released after few months rather than a 80000₹ Nothing Phone 3. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 What a logic. So it is clear Nothing will continue focusing on quantity rather making their flagship phone better. No problem you guys carry on. I am the owner of a marketing company in India. Perhaps you know business better than me. Carry on 👍🏼

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC I think you need to understand how a company transforms from an SME w/Series C funding to a more sustainable IPO.

NOTHING TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED received ~100MM USD Series C funding with GV in there. This was in Autumn 2023. That’s decent. The last biotech I was involved with did 100MM USD Series B funding lead by GV and a few 50MM USD rounds after.

This is where NTL needs to show strong sales and head towards a sustainable IPO. Thus, the pricepoint on the NP3 was quite high by their previous standards at £799+/80K INR.

Again, all of this common sense (even chatGPT could tell you that) and one should expect a reduction in support for legacy devices as brand survival is dependent on NP3 returns. That’s the fun of a small brand. If you don’t like that stay with Xiaomi/Smasung/1+, etc…

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

It seems you have a problem with LLM models. Don’t worry. ChatGPT won’t replace human.

First of all I have never used Chinese brands other than OnePlus. Also I left Oneplus when it officially merged with Oppo ( Oxygen os to Oppos Color Os). Secondly I don’t need anyone’s suggestion which brand should I try.

Let’s talk again after few months when a new budget phone from Nothing will be released. I want to see the NP3 buyers reactions and frustrations at that time.

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC I only worry about genAI dumbing people down. As shown by the direction of this thread. (People would have been more receptive if your last post was the first post … I’ve done my job as an educator to get you to correct endpoint … hurrah).

Anyone with an NP3 and an understanding of Series A-D to IPO would understand potential lapses in legacy support when new products roll out. It’s predictable as you stated, so I find this entire thread confusing as it’s expected (what I am doing here is providing context for why that would happen). The dev budget at NTL has to be smaller than any other reasonably sized brand. One could argue that they have fewer phones to support (NP1/NP2/NP2a/NP3a/NP3apro/NP3/CMF1/CMF2pro) but that budget will go quickly. That biotech I was in burnt through USD 150MM in ~12 months with only 50 employees and no actual product costs.

The net positive of NTL is that they can more flexible in their hardware approach than an established firm. They can’t compete on price but they can compete on design/OS (NOTHING OS is indeed stellar) and when limited resources exist to deploy one can estimate where they’ll be deployed and it should be obvious that a smaller percentage will go to legacy devices than R&D for the next device.

(Providing the context is very important and this where genAI usually fails … as it has no experience to pull from and just make synopses of written text. It also should demonstrate to others how genAI output is received by the layperson/public).

SoumyaNC

CMF1_hacker

I can understand your pain. Very hard to digest blunders, mistakes.

CMF1_hacker

SoumyaNC I think you’re confused. I haven’t made any mistakes/blunders that I’m aware of.

Coldpaw

Nothing isn’t a “traditional” tech company - even Carl Pei once said he somewhat doesn’t even really see it as a tech company on the long run.

Being a long term Samsung user myself, their update policy also isn’t as glorious as you are making it to be. Once a new flagship hits, the previous variant is literally being kicked off the stage and only plays a backstage role. Sometimes it’s not even like that: Both Fold 3 and Fold 4, although they were Samsung’s most expensive phones at their time, got less frequent security updates than the less expensive Galaxy S counterparts. In addition not all updates are always good, for instance I much prefered One UI 6 over the new 7 on my Galaxy Fold 4.

Getting back to the Nothing Phone (2): It was the first device to get Nothing OS 2.5 (Android 14). When Nothing started beta testing OS 3.0, the phone was only included in the second testing wave, that’s true - but that was a beta test only. When the public live version of OS 3.0 got released, Nothing Phone (2) again was in the first wave of phones which got the upgrade.

There have been camera upgrades over time, needless to say there seems to be much more room for improvements when it comes to the image processing. Will they come? I sure hope so and I have some hopes for Nothing OS 4.0: They now should have released all phones for 2025, so their camera team now has more time to focus on improving the (2) and (2a) line of devices. Nothing already mentioned they are looking to bring the improvements introduced with (3a) series to the previous phones, but also said it is going to take a while.

The lack of communication regarding OS 3.1 / 3.2 for legacy devices was a typical Nothing fault, for an open communication, community centric brand their communication really is still lacking IMHO and really should be improved. Just saying “The old devices won’t be getting greater 3.x steps, but instead will be improved with OS 4.0” would have cleared and prevented confusion in the first place.