"Just buy a different brand" is not a solution

Anonymous978

I see this phrase thrown around everywhere here whenever somebody brings up an issue with a Nothing product. It's far from being a real fix because, despite how cheap they are compared to competitors, tech is still expensive.

Let's take Indian prices-one of their biggest markets, as an example.

I paid 25000 INR for my 3a. That's equivalent to:

3 weeks of my dad's salary (Zero to 30000/month)
8 months of my mom's salary (3000 INR/month)
A year of rent (2000/month)
Five months of my fees in a highly "prestigious" school (4000-5000/month)
A year of my sister's college fees
Original price of the 80 books on my shelf I've collected over seven years

I'm still considered extremely privileged. If I face a serious issue with my 3a (which I haven't yet), I won't be able to just sell it and get a different brand. Cashify covers just over half the cost:

Similarly I paid 1700 for my CMF Buds 2a on discount. If the sound suddenly stops working, I don't even know where to exchange it.

Ant-e-so-shial

Anonymous978 I paid 25000 INR for my 3a. That's equivalent to:

3 weeks of my dad's salary (Zero to 30000/month)
8 months of my mom's salary (3000 INR/month)
A year of rent (2000/month)
Five months of my fees in a highly "prestigious" school (4000-5000/month)
A year of my sister's college fees
Original price of the 80 books on my shelf I've collected over seven years

Then why did you buy a phone worth 25,000 INR if you care that much family's expenses and spendings that much? Woulndn't a 2,500 INR Jio phone be enough? or under10,000 INR, 10,000 - 20,000 INR CMF or POCO or REDMI or SAMSUNG, or any other low priced phone? That seems like a logical and economical desicion for someone who cares about thier family money isn't it?

Apart from that, A phone bought at 25,000 INR having an exchange value of 16,000 INR is really, REALLY surprising cause go check exhange values of other around that same price range its 12000 - 18000 INR.

and if you really care about money THAT much and really think 16,500 exchange value for a 25,000 INR phone is bad then "just buy a different brand"

TanmayBiswas_rnnCj54taf

Anonymous978 wowwww intresting story

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Anonymous978 This is so well written. You absolutely nailed the reality check.
No one - and I mean no one - buys a smartphone with the plan to dump it and sell it for half the price a year later. Asking users to 'just sell it if they don't like it' is nothing but pure privilege and arrogance talking.
Most typical users buy a phone expecting to keep it for at least 3 to 4 years. That's why those update promises are such a huge deal for brands. If someone had more money, they'd buy a new flagship, but even those people often hold onto their top-tier phones for 4-5 years because it's their budget and their habit.
The rest of us, who are okay with making a few compromises with a brand like Nothing, still need that phone to last the full 3-4 years. Telling people to sell it is a complete non-solution. It just forces them to take a huge financial hit, which your price breakdown shows is a massive deal for most people.
Honestly, it's a total waste of time and energy to try and explain this basic reality to people arguing from that privileged point of view. It's never going to sink in. My best strategy is just to ignore them. Seriously, use the ignore option on those trolls and people who make no sense. It'll save us a lot of time, energy and it's peaceful too. I'd highly recommend you to try it.

pollenjh

Ant-e-so-shial you're not a financial advisor 😹 stay out of it if you have nothing good to say

Anonymous978

Ant-e-so-shial Because this phone has the capacity to last for much longer than those other brands. Ads, bloat, unnecessary features slows stuff down long term.

I still have an AIO with a Celeron chip from 11 years ago because I installed minimal linux software on it whereas windows 10 wouldn't even boot. Tried applying the same philosphy when buying a phone and had to decide betwen Pixel (which can extend even more using custom roms) or NothingOS

All the samsungs and xiaomis my friends and family had died within two or three years when all they do is use whatsapp

Coldpaw

People here rarely bring up "Should've bought another brand" when it comes to bugs, defects, general errors and issues. That's something related to every brand and of course Nothing / CMF should provide help in ironing these out, be it via updates which provide bugfixes or actual customer service with repairing or exchanging a faulty device.

People do bring up the topic however when it comes to obvious things, which are simply part of the brand and everybody, especially those who are about to make such an expensive purchase as you mentioned, can research easily before spending months worth of salery:

Hardware design and build quality of a device.
UI design and style of the device. Nothing isn't Apple or Samsung, they have developed their own style. You can see it on demo units, press photos and especially video reviews on platforms like YT. If you want a vibrant, colorful, transparent glass bubble effects, you should've gone with a brand which offers an UI in that kind of style.
Security updates. Nothing is known for typically providing only bi-monthly security updates. So if you want timely security updates within the first week of each month, it's just the wrong brand. A Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy is more likely providing that.
Update policies, as we've just recently seen in complains from NP1 users: Nothing is pretty clear about their update policy of each device. The policy is not enough and you want more years of updates, either look for a different brand or Nothing product. (like NP3 with a long term update policy)
Customer service: If you want face-to-face service in shops or service centers, check prior where those are located. For example Nothing has just one single shop in all of Europe, while Apple has stores in pretty much every single major city. Even Samsung has multiple shops and service centers in Germany. So I either have to deal with their online customer service or hop on a train or plane and travel to Soho, London to get service for my Nothing product.
First party apps: Unlike Samsung, which pretty much offers a first party app for everything, Nothing so far only offers very few of their own apps, like voice recorder or gallery. While it's always one thing suggesting new apps, complaining about why there is no Nothing branded browser, dialer or keyboard on your freshly purchased Nothing Phone, would be another case of "should've done your research and purchased a different." - again their is quite a number of users who actually did chose Nothing because the devices aren't cluttered with apps.

Anonymous978

RADIOAC2IVE_AG3NT I committed to three years of new features and Nothing's promises to build a cool functional phone, switching should be the last resort.

But if people are so easily recommending to switch, that signals to Nothing that they can do whatever since everyone is leaving anyways while their most loyal fans are okay with it.

I don't have any problem with the direction they're headed in, but I understand what other people are facing. I want the experts making really cool stuff here to stay on Nothing so I can use their apps, instead of pushing them away. Camera presets, EQ (once I get a device that supports it), Nothing Keyboard, etc. are really useful. I don't think it's even possible to replicate the good parts of Nothing properly on a different device e.g. EQ is stored directly on the headset for better clarity instead of phone software

Amudhan_Sundararajan Well as Coldpaw explained, it's not necessarily coming from a place of privilege. But I disagree with Coldpaw that it's only about obvious things.

Nothing was heavily against bloat, now they're preloading Meta apps. It does not affect current users, but their next phone might not be a Nothing if their app selection expands to include even worse software and/or if they take back their promise of easy uninstalls. A valid concern. A lot of people were comparing them to Chinese brands—offering the same bloat but with better specs, and got told to just use those brands.

hmdimitrov

Well, ironically "buy another brand" is a very valid solution. Another quite valid solution is "start your own brand"…

You can't expect to buy something that has been envisioned by its creator to be what it is and then start nagging said creator to change it into something else.

JochieSantiago

hmdimitrov but they advertised the brand as something that they are deviating from today 🤔

So if they can do a 180 turn on their vision, we can "nag" about it.

CMF1_hacker

well, for me a 3a is working from arriving at the office on MON until the end of MON lunch give or take.

thus, the OP shouldn't broadly generalise.

even then, I try the tech out before fully committing payment to it, even the CMF1 which was £169 or so.

hmdimitrov

Perhaps this is a very long subject.
Firstly, I admit, I am probably late to the party - 2-3 weeks since my first Nothing phone - so I have not heard or seen any promises. I was sick of many other brands and wanted a phone that was interesting and fresh. I got just that and I am loving it.
But, lets look at the broader picture, because we will probably find agreement here.
Every brand that uses Google's Android is a business first model. If you run a business, you run it for a profit. Everything that runs Google's Android is completely compromised regarding privacy. It really doesn't matter weather it has bloatware or ads onboard or its "clean" - everything is spying on you, is using bandwidth, is nibbling at your battery, etc. I think Nothing is taking taking the more humane path here - crap can be not turned on or uninstalled, plus they seem to be relatively transparent (perhaps after a nudge or two) about it here.
For the life of me, I cant think of an actual brand that provides something better in this regard. And Nothing is a business, it aims to provide something more unique than others, but at the end of the day sales and profits have to make economical sense and often compromises have to be made, and I am well aware of that weather I like it or not.

Which brand is actually better in this area? Where would you go? Actually everything disappoints sooner or later.

And there are alternatives like GrapheneOS and LineageOS - all clean and everything but at a usability cost.

M_BhaveshKiran

Actually I want to say one thing I don't know know it was a good time to tell or not my friend buyed his fav waiting mobile nothing phone 3 mobile in first sale around the 73_80k price but he is now suffering so much due to low price and he want to sell in second hand mobile literally nothing comes out so sad unlucky man 🥲

DineshChandrasekar

I just switched to s24 ultra, honestly this is far much better than my nothing 2a plus. The problem is that nothing has turned into a marketing stunt company more than a phone experience ones..a lot of you would say that it's the price. No, it's not just the price, I couldnt even get 50% of satisfaction that I got with a one plus phone

RADIOAC2IVE_AG3NT

What was even the reason for this post? Just curious

Coldpaw

Anonymous978 You are completely missing my point here I'm afraid, since ads and bloatware hasn't been topics I mentioned and even in your opening post, which I kindly suggest to read again, you never mentioned the issue of future ads and bloatware.

You talked wrote about the "Just get a different brand!" attitude and how expensive a Nothing Phone is in your country and I simply tried to explain why people - like myself - use the term and especially when we use it.

Low resale prices is a general issue for pretty much all Android phones, it's something out of Nothing's control and also happens to bigger players like Samsung. For example if I'd now sell a Galaxy S25 or S25 Ultra which I purchased back in spring, I could barely get half the money I originally paid for it earlier this year. The unfortunate truth is: If you want better resale value for a phone, there is no way around an Apple iPhone, as demand and resale values are more stable for these devices.

Yet of course that would be one of those prime "Get a different brand!" (in this case Apple) examples, since it's a simple fact if you want a better phone resale value, you won't find it on any Android phones. It's not an Indian thing by the way, that's also the case in western markets. For example the NP 3a with 256 gigs had an MSRP of €379 back in March, if I would now sell one in mint condition to a reseller, I'd get around €214. The similar priced Samsung Galaxy A36 5G with 256 gigs of RAM also cost around €379 and if I'd sell one now to the same company, they'd offer me just €161 for a mint unit.

Now if I would have purchased an Apple iPhone 16 with 256 gigs last year at the MSRP of €1079 and would yet again want to sell it to the same company, they'd offer me €632.

Just writing that I notice the Nothing Phone actually didn't fair too bad in terms of value loss and is only slightly worse than the iPhone.

CMF1_hacker

Again, I find the tone from certain posters, like the OP here, very antagonistic and solely being employed to cause debate and division among the community.

Personally, people should test the phone before purchase or baring that possibility, purchase the device form a retailer with an ample return policy.

No one is forcing users to purchase these phones and simply expecting NTL to bend to the wishes of dissatisfied customers is foolhardy.

Again, this community should expend its efforts on non-divisive posts such as these. Posting one's income (or their family income) as evidence that NTL or its community should follow a certain pathway is in very poor taste.

AbiS_MjZL72iTVk

CMF1_hacker So you are concerned about division among the community ?

What about that "NTL CREW"🗣️ ?

CMF1_hacker

Coldpaw this is true for any product when someone pays RRP for a new product (bicycle, electronics, clothes etc…). I would assume an automatic 40% hit for opening the container that it's shipped in.