Jaheim2 Hey, really appreciate your reply ā and thanks for sharing about the dyslexia and autism. It honestly means a lot that youāre putting your thoughts out there, and I totally respect how youāre using AI to help express yourself. Thatās a great use of the tool, especially when it helps you stay part of the conversation.
Since you brought up OnePlus and long-term phone use, I just wanted to add something from my own experience.
Iāve been holding on to my OnePlus 6 for years now ā not because itās super powerful anymore, but because of custom ROM support. Iāve been able to run stuff like LineageOS, Ubuntu Touch, and even Mobian on it. That kind of flexibility has kept it going way beyond its official support period.
But hereās the thing: newer OnePlus phones just arenāt like that anymore. Sure, you can technically unlock and root them, but flashing ROMs isnāt easy. You often need to physically go to a service center just to relock the bootloader or fix things if something breaks. And now that theyāre not releasing kernel sources and hardware details properly, even the dev community canāt do much with them anymore. Once support ends, the phoneās basically done.
With Nothing, Iām seeing a completely different approach. Their older phones ā like the Phone (1) ā already have a bunch of custom ROMs available. Thatās a really good sign. It shows that theyāre at least open to community development and keeping devices alive beyond the official update window. For someone who actually wants to use a phone for years, thatās a huge deal.
I recently picked up the Phone 3a Pro and honestly, itās blown my old OnePlus 6 out of the water. It uses the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, and even then, games run better, the UI is smoother, and I havenāt had any major performance issues. So if youāre coming from something like the OnePlus 7, I think any of the Nothing 3 series would feel like a solid upgrade. And the 8s Gen 4 in the Phone (3) is no joke ā itās not the highest-end chip, sure, but itās no slouch either. Itās a sidegrade to the 8 Gen 3, and plenty capable.
Now, about the price ā I hear you. Ā£799 is a lot. But they addressed that in an earlier video. They said theyād have to sell 250,000 units at that price just to break even. If they lowered the price to something like $699 (around Ā£650), theyād need to sell 350,000+ units to make the same profit. And for a company like Nothing, with a smaller user base, thatās a risky move. Theyāre still trying to survive, not just compete.
Thatās why I was a bit let down by your original post. Since you titled it as a response to the new video, I was really looking forward to a deeper counter-argument ā maybe about how they could cut costs, or tweak specs, or structure pricing better while still staying profitable. But it felt like the same old āspecs vs priceā frustration weāve seen so many times before.
Again, Iām totally cool with people using AI tools ā I do it too sometimes ā but what matters is that the thoughts are yours. And your reply here? That really shows your perspective, and I appreciate that. Thatās the version of your voice I was hoping to see in the original post.
End of the day, weāre all here because we care about tech, and brands like Nothing that try something different. And I agree with you ā specs matter, especially for a long-term phone. But so does software, support, and how a company treats its users and the developer community. I think Nothingās trying to find that balance ā maybe not perfectly yet, but theyāre on that path.
Thanks again for the reply. Genuinely enjoyed this back-and-forth.
