OnePlus founder rumored to release a new Android phone soon

Admit it. When OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei (and the owner of the best Twitter handle with @getpeid) announced that he was starting a new firm called Nothing, you were extremely disappointed when his first new device was a pair of true wireless stereo earbuds instead of a new phone. The earbuds feature active noise cancellation, a transparent mode when you need to hear what's going on around you, and it is priced at only $99 including a wireless charger.

Now comes word from a tipster named Mukul Sharma (via 91mobiles) that says Pei is indeed working on releasing a smartphone that will see the light of day early next year. First, though, the company will release a power bank. Is it us or is Nothing doing this backward and should have introduced the phone first followed by the power bank and then the true wireless stereo earbuds.

Nothing recently announced that it was partnering with Qualcomm and the latter's Snapdragon chipset line to power future tech products. That certainly has the smell of new smartphones all over the announcement. At least if a Nothing phone (1) is in the works, we know which chip brand will be powering the device. Remember, Nothing purchased Andy Rubin's Essential company and brand which released the Essential Phone on August 17th, 2017.

The new brand could end up giving us the Essentially Nothing phone, or the Nothing Essential phone. There was speculation that Pei wanted his hands on Essential's patent library which includes IP related to "voice-enabled home setup and voice setup instructions."

We'd love to tell you all about this rumored new phone including specs, design, pricing, and availability. But so far, we have (clears throat) Nothing. Still, Pei helped create a brand that millions know about and love. So it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that he can do it again. We will go out on a limb here and say that if Nothing does release a new smartphone, the company will require that buyers obtain an invitation first.

Demanding that buyers get an invitation in order to buy an OG Nothing phone is a great way to match demand and supply so that money isn't spent on building phones that won't be purchased. This system was used by OnePlus until it released the OnePlus 3. by then, the company was on more stable ground and invites were no longer necessary.

We can't imagine that Carl Pei would want to do the same thing all over again, so the Nothing phone (1) might not be a "flagship killer" as OnePlus branded its phones right from the start. The one issue that we can see taking place is that there will be extremely high expectations on a new handset from Pei, similar to the expectations that Essential had to deal with. After all, Andy Rubin is known as the 'father of Android' and there are expectations from having that title follow you wherever you go.

In some ways, Essential didn't swing and miss. The phone had small bezels and a notch allowing it to sport an edge-to-edge display. While some will tell you that the Essential Phone was the first handset to sport a notch, that honor actually goes to the Sharp Aquos S2. The latter was released on August 14th, 2017 while the Essential Phone was launched three days later.

Interestingly, when we ran a poll in 2018, a resounding 63.7% said that the Essential Phone was the first to have a notch while over 24% correctly selected the Sharp Aquos S2. 6.93% voted for the Apple iPhone X. The latter was the first iOS-powered handset to feature the notch. It might not be until next year's iPhone 14 Pro Max that Apple will replace the notch with a punch-hole on the unit's display.