I’ve been on Apple my whole life but got a PC 2 years ago, an android tablet 3 months ago and now the Nothing Phone 2a two weeks ago. And man am I grateful for it; my wallet has taken much less of a hit and the customisation is amazing, and the upgrade on hardware as compared to the same price Apple products is amazing (and that goes for phones, watches, earphones, etc.). And as a bonus the design of the 2a is awesome, I’m a nerdy software engineer so it’s cool to have some of that come out in my phone.
95% of the setup was about 45 mins, and the last 5% was about two days. If I was in the android ecosystem already it would’ve been 45 minutes and easy but transferring everything from Apple took time, but Nothing was not at fault for that at all. The setup was super easy and intuitive, and any warnings were displayed where needed and were very helpful. I will note the loading bars during this setup were unhelpful, being stuck at 99% for the majority of the time. The toggle switches were also very low in contrast so it was hard to tell when it was in its off state and when it was in its on state.
Before buying the phone I’d seen some reviews mentioning the haptics being trash, and I immediately agreed. I turned most of them off (as I did for my iPhone anyway, I don’t find them useful) so that wasn’t much of a downfall.
Not all apps fitting in the nothing icon theme is kind of unfortunate, the automatic fix isn’t the worse but I’d like to see more apps integrated with this, which I’m sure is being worked on.
Something to get used to that I think I don’t like as much as iOS is the notification centre and quick settings. For iOS, if you swipe down from the top middle you are welcomed by the notification centre, which contains any notifications and the time. If you swipe down from the top right you find the quick settings section. Nothing has combined these and the larger quick settings section is find with a double swipe down. It’s not that bad, but I do find iOS’s implementation of this neater and easier.
Android doesn’t have numbers within the notification dots above the app icon? Weird… I like seeing how many messages I’ve missed.
I’ve had mixed feelings with the Google Gemini, it’s slower than Siri and seems slightly better but not by a large margin. I’ve moved back to Google Assistant, mainly for the fact it works without the phone being unlocked which to me is the whole point of using ‘Hey Google’.
Having the message bubbles pop up is amazing, and not having to move in between apps while people message me is game changing, I’m sure iOS will bring that out soon and tout it as amazing upgrades.
The camera app is ok but the lag between taking photos and the shutter doing its thing is really noticeable and quite bad. The photos don’t look as good as my iPhone 12, but they’re useable as I don’t care much for photos anyway.
The android customisation is amazing, absolutely game-changing when having moved from Apple.
The alarm sounds suck, but I can use songs from Spotify so I’m happy.
The app selection screen (where you swipe up and all your open apps appear) is janky and slow compared to the iPhone 12, I’d love to see this given some love and optimisation.
Would love if you could change the app icon for individual apps, whether with emojis or whatever we want.
A question: Should I close apps or leave them open for performance? It used to be that we should always close apps that are open in the background, but Apple made it so it’s actually better for your battery to leave them open. Is this the same on Nothing or should I be closing these apps?
TLDR: It’s solid. I’m very happy to have moved over to the Nothing ecosystem. It’s not without its downfalls but I say it’s a trade I’m very willing and happy to make. I’m now looking at the watch and ears to further join the ecosystem and can say I’m looking forward to it. Turns out Nothing looks good on me.
