Will any of these community created concepts be Nothing's next product?
As you might expect from company founder and CEO Carl Pei, Nothing is nothing like your average mobile device manufacturer. So far the company has released three products to its name including the Nothing ear (1) true wireless earbuds, the Nothing Phone (1), and the Nothing Ear (stick) which is a pair of true wireless earbuds housed in a cylinder-shaped carrying case.
Taking a page from the other big mobile brand that Pei co-founded, OnePlus, Nothing has no problem reaching out to its customers and fans. We saw a glimpse of that earlier this month when Nothing called supporters on its Discord site and from other social media pages to hand out free pairs of the Nothing Ear (stick). Imagine if Apple started calling fans of the company to hand out free AirPods. And could you see Tim Cook playing a video game online versus an Apple supporter as Carl Pei did with a Nothing customer?
Two members of Nothing's design team weigh in on concepts created by the Nothing community
Nothing posted a video today to show some concept products that the Nothing community submitted to the company or posted on social media. Two members of the Nothing design team commented on these submissions. One thing that many of the concepts included was the glyph interface that is used on the Nothing Phone (1). The lights on the back of the handset flash to inform you of a notification, and charging status, and can even be set up to tell you who is calling.
The first concept in the video is an over-ear headphone with an LED array that can alert the people around the user whether they can talk to the person wearing the headphones or if that person is listening to music. "That's quite a good idea," says one of the design team members.
Another concept sent to Nothing was for a Nothing Watch (1). This makes sense if the company has designs on building the Nothing ecosystem. This concept showed a 45mm size, a GPS feature, and a ceramic case. And like the Nothing Phone (1), the watch concept had a transparent back; the watch concept also had a see-through case. The design team employees were intrigued by the two buttons placed on the right side of the timepiece.
The next concept device in the video was the Nothing Book (1) laptop. Note how the letters on the QWERTY keyboard use the Nothing dot font. Nothing says Nothing more than little things like that. The next submission displayed was a Nothing smart speaker with a see-through case. A concept Nothing wireless charger also appeared on the video and the glyph interface would be used to notify the user how close the battery on the phone (or earbuds carrying case) is to achieving a fully charged status.
What will Nothing release next?
A Nothing Phone (2) concept follows and while it is different, we would bet that it would not be the look of the next Nothing phone. Would you agree?
So what product will Nothing release next? A Nothing Phone (2) might seem to be the most likely device. The first handset from Nothing is not a flagship-tier phone although it hardly could be considered a budget model. While it has the Snapdragon 778G+ chipset under the hood, the 6.55-inch AMOLED display does feature a 120Hz refresh rate. Configuration options include 8GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB of storage, and a 12GB model with 256GB of storage.
The camera array on the back features a pair of 50MP cameras, one backed by a Sony IMX766 sensor and an aperture of f/1.8. The other camera is driven by a Samsung JN1 sensor with an f/2.2 aperture. The front-facing selfie snapper weighs in at 16MP. Keeping the lights on is a 4500mAh battery, and there is support for both wireless and reverse wireless charging. The battery supports 33W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. We gave the Nothing Phone (1) a score of 9.0 out of a possible 10, so a sequel would be welcomed.
What a Nothing Phone (2) spec sheet will include depends on where the company sees its handsets. Are they quirky flagship phones? Off-beat mid-rangers? Carl Pei's vision for the Nothing Phone will decide.
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