Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? You know? A few
Speaker 1: weeks back, I talked about the fair phone as a
Speaker 1: sort of gateway topic that could let me talk about
Speaker 1: a lot of serious challenges that the tech industry and
Speaker 1: we as consumers face if we want to try and
Speaker 1: be ethical and responsible with our our tech purchases and strategies.
Speaker 1: So in that episode, we talked about environmental and social issues,
Speaker 1: and we covered things like sustainability, and we covered things
Speaker 1: like human rights because there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: steps in the supply chain where that's a real issue.
Speaker 1: And today, due to a listener request, the listener actually
Speaker 1: downloaded the I Heart Radio app, they went to tech
Speaker 1: Stuff left me a nice little voice message asking if
Speaker 1: I could talk about this. We're gonna talk about a
Speaker 1: different smartphone and what sets it apart from other devices
Speaker 1: in its category. Uh, it is not going to be
Speaker 1: nearly as heavy as the fair phone episode was because
Speaker 1: we're not gonna dive back into all the human rights
Speaker 1: stuff and sustainability stuff. To great extent, but I hope
Speaker 1: you will learn some interesting things along the way. So
Speaker 1: the phone we're going to talk about today is the
Speaker 1: Nothing Phone, specifically the Nothing Phone open bracket one, closed bracket,
Speaker 1: so the Nothing Phone one. Uh. This phone actually shares
Speaker 1: a couple of superficial similarities with the Fair Phone and
Speaker 1: one important non superficial similarity. So for one thing, it
Speaker 1: is not going to be sold in the United States.
Speaker 1: Neither the Fair Phone nor the Nothing Phone will be
Speaker 1: sold here in the US. So if you are in
Speaker 1: the United States, I'm sorry this phone is not going
Speaker 1: to be available. I can't get it either. So um,
Speaker 1: but you know, listen to the episode because there's some
Speaker 1: important stuff in here. And by the way, it's clear
Speaker 1: that it's not gonna be sold in the US because
Speaker 1: the f c C, the Federal Communications Commission, didn't certify
Speaker 1: the device, and that as a requirement if you're going
Speaker 1: to have a cellular device operate on United States networks.
Speaker 1: Superficial similarity number two. Both Fair Phone and the Nothing
Speaker 1: Phone one rely on a version of the Android operating system,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk more about you know, Android OS
Speaker 1: and how it appears on more phones in a little
Speaker 1: bit in this episode, now one less superficial. One important
Speaker 1: similarity between the Fair Phone and the Nothing Phone is
Speaker 1: that the Nothing Phone also takes a pretty cool approach
Speaker 1: when it comes to at least some of the material
Speaker 1: in the phone itself. So the Nothing Phone has an
Speaker 1: aluminum case that is then coded with gorilla glass. So
Speaker 1: when you look at the Nothing Phone, it kind of
Speaker 1: look like it has a clear case, and then you're
Speaker 1: looking into the the aluminum uh casing itself almost like
Speaker 1: you're almost like you have stripped the shell off of
Speaker 1: another smartphone. It has that kind of cool esthetically industrial
Speaker 1: look I think. Anyway, the bit that's important is that
Speaker 1: the company says they use recycled aluminum to make those cases,
Speaker 1: which is following that sort of ethical sustainability approach that
Speaker 1: Fair Phone uses. So I wanted to call that out
Speaker 1: because I think that's really cool. I think that's a
Speaker 1: great thing to do, is to rely on recycled materials
Speaker 1: rather than mining for new ones. But really that's where
Speaker 1: the surface similarities kind of end between the Fair Phone
Speaker 1: and the Nothing Phone. So the Nothing Phone isn't really
Speaker 1: meant to address sustainability or ethics issues in the text
Speaker 1: fear the same way the fair phone does. It doesn't
Speaker 1: push his hard in that in that regard. But boy, howdy,
Speaker 1: the marketing for the Nothing phone has been, i'll say,
Speaker 1: pretty aggressive. If you just pop on over to Nothing
Speaker 1: Technologies web page, you'll get to read some of that
Speaker 1: marketing and you'll see stuff like quote less distractions, more soul,
Speaker 1: just pure instinct, formed as a machine told through beautiful symbols,
Speaker 1: deeper interactions, and brave simplicity. Phone one can bring us
Speaker 1: back to us end quote. Now. I like that This
Speaker 1: doesn't actually say a whole bunch of useful stuff about
Speaker 1: the phone itself, but it feels like it's really deep
Speaker 1: and meaningful. All right. Now, Before I dive into the phone,
Speaker 1: which you know will be most the bigger part of
Speaker 1: this episode, and talk about what it does and some
Speaker 1: other related stuff about it, I want to talk first
Speaker 1: about the company behind it, which is called Nothing Technology Limited.
Speaker 1: One of the co founders of Nothing Technology is a
Speaker 1: guy named Carl Pay. Now, Carl Pay co founded another
Speaker 1: phone company called one Plus. This happened back in One
Speaker 1: plus is an incredibly successful hardware company, especially in places
Speaker 1: like India. The smartphones that one plus makes are popular
Speaker 1: among millions hundreds of millions of users. One plus does
Speaker 1: something similar to what Nothing is trying to do, which
Speaker 1: is it produces Android based smartphones that aim to market
Speaker 1: interesting features for a mid range price. So in both
Speaker 1: one plus and Nothing Technology, pays companies aren't necessarily pushing
Speaker 1: to create the flagship device for that platform, that being
Speaker 1: Android phones, but rather one that is compelling while costing
Speaker 1: less than competing phones are in the same general field. Now,
Speaker 1: Pay left one Plus in twenty which came as a
Speaker 1: surprise to some people because the company had grown into
Speaker 1: a big brand. It was incredibly successful, so why leave, Well,
Speaker 1: Pay was getting ready to launch a new company. In fact,
Speaker 1: he did it almost immediately after leaving one plus, and
Speaker 1: he secured investments from some pretty interesting folks here in
Speaker 1: the United States, which includes former Apple designer Tony Fidel
Speaker 1: Reddits CEO Steve Hoffman is one of the big investors.
Speaker 1: Twitches co founder Kevin Lynn is another, and there were more.
Speaker 1: And Pay started talking about how tech had kind of
Speaker 1: lost its way, like it lost its magical touch on us,
Speaker 1: and this would lead right into the marketing spiel for
Speaker 1: Nothing technology in general and Nothing Phone in particular. So
Speaker 1: Pay was essentially saying that, you know, in the early
Speaker 1: smartphone days, so really, when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone,
Speaker 1: consumers reacted with excitement and wonder and they just gushed
Speaker 1: about these new devices. It was something to celebrate. And
Speaker 1: if you just go back and watch early Apple iPhone
Speaker 1: press events like for the first few iPhones, especially the
Speaker 1: ones that Steve Jobs lead before his passing in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, if you watch those, you'll really see what
Speaker 1: pay is kind of talking about. You'll see these big
Speaker 1: reactions from the crowd over these things. Like it was
Speaker 1: this enthusiasm and joy. It came across almost as if
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs was promising the crowd that they were all
Speaker 1: going to go to Disneyland on his dime. But these days,
Speaker 1: Pay has said, folks tend to be a little more
Speaker 1: reserved and skeptical, maybe even apathetic. They're not excited about
Speaker 1: new products. They might still refresh them regularly because their
Speaker 1: devices start getting less useful as time goes on, but
Speaker 1: they're not enthusiastic about it. And Pay puts a lot
Speaker 1: of the blame on the products themselves, although I think
Speaker 1: really the blame goes on the companies that have created
Speaker 1: this this incredible rapid refresh cycle that has kind of
Speaker 1: burned us all out, Right, Like when there's a new
Speaker 1: one every single year, there gets to be a point
Speaker 1: where it's hard to innovate in a way that sets
Speaker 1: something head and shoulders above everything that came before. Right,
Speaker 1: you start to refine and you make things more powerful
Speaker 1: and faster and more attractive, But it's hard to create
Speaker 1: something that is a huge leap forward. It tends to
Speaker 1: be smaller steps, and that just tends to get us
Speaker 1: less excited over time, because we start to come to
Speaker 1: expect these things like, of course it's gonna be faster,
Speaker 1: of course it's going to be prettier. What else does
Speaker 1: it have? That's kind of what pay was saying, And um,
Speaker 1: he wanted to create a company that would design awesome
Speaker 1: devices that people would want to use, devices that could
Speaker 1: connect people to each other and include really cool features
Speaker 1: along the way. So he launched Nothing Technology, which has
Speaker 1: already come out with a set of wireless earbuds called
Speaker 1: the ear one. It did that in one and the
Speaker 1: Nothing Phone, for those who don't know it, came out
Speaker 1: earlier this year too, in July. So this is a
Speaker 1: phone now that has been on the market for a
Speaker 1: few months now. Back one, the ear one bud's got
Speaker 1: pretty good reviews. And by the way, when I say
Speaker 1: ere one is really ear open bracket, one close bracket
Speaker 1: or parentheses if you prefer. So, Yeah, the both the
Speaker 1: phone and the ear have parentheses one in close parentheses
Speaker 1: after them. That's kind of how they're designating it. Just
Speaker 1: year one so whatever. Anyway, got really good reviews. People
Speaker 1: said that the sound quality was great, that the battery
Speaker 1: life was great, that it had a really neat kind
Speaker 1: of aesthetic to it because the case is made out
Speaker 1: of a clear plastic, transparent plastic. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of set it apart from like the white air pods
Speaker 1: from Apple or things like that. And it was obvious
Speaker 1: that nothing technology was going to produce stuff of of
Speaker 1: good quality and intriguing design. So the earbuds came out
Speaker 1: and the word was then that a phone was going
Speaker 1: to follow the next year, and that happened. It launched
Speaker 1: in London, England in July. All right, so let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that phone. The phone's operating system,
Speaker 1: which I mentioned earlier, is a version of Android OS,
Speaker 1: is called Nothing OS. But Nothing didn't make their own
Speaker 1: operating system. Really, what they did was create a skin,
Speaker 1: a user interface that sits on top of an Android
Speaker 1: OS core or body if you prefer. And this is
Speaker 1: kind of what Google was planning for. When folks over
Speaker 1: at Google were first developing the Android operating system, Apple
Speaker 1: was preparing to launch the iPhone. So this is like
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, and folks over at Google, we're trying
Speaker 1: to create a next generation smartphone operating system that other
Speaker 1: manufacturers can install on their devices. Google wasn't really keen
Speaker 1: on jumping into the hardware business itself. All Right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break. When we come back, I'll
Speaker 1: talk more about Google's approach versus Apple's approach and how
Speaker 1: that would define the strategy that these two companies made
Speaker 1: when they were getting into the smartphone arena. But first,
Speaker 1: let's take this quick break, Okay. As I said before
Speaker 1: the break, Apple was coming into the smartphone market primarily
Speaker 1: as a hardware company. That's what Apple was known for.
Speaker 1: Everyone new Apple for its Mac computers and for its
Speaker 1: iPod devices, which had become monstrous lee popular in the
Speaker 1: mid two thousand's. Now more recently, the more recent years,
Speaker 1: Apple has started to shift to become more services focused.
Speaker 1: That's something that Tim Cook has been leading the charge
Speaker 1: on in order to generate revenue by having Apple make
Speaker 1: more money from things like subscriptions and by taking a
Speaker 1: cut of in app transactions, so there's less of a
Speaker 1: focus on the hardware itself. I mean, Apple still makes hardware,
Speaker 1: and they still put a lot of effort into it,
Speaker 1: but the push from a revenue standpoint has really kind
Speaker 1: of shifted to services and less on how many of
Speaker 1: these things can we sell this. By the way, it's
Speaker 1: sort of what pay was getting at when he was
Speaker 1: arguing that device design had kind of lost its way.
Speaker 1: He's sort of imp lies at least in my mind.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm inferring. I'm inferring that Pay is saying that
Speaker 1: companies like Apple no longer innovate in design the way
Speaker 1: they used to. Uh their focused too much on finding
Speaker 1: ways to make money through services. By the way, that's
Speaker 1: something that around the world we're seeing regulators push back on,
Speaker 1: right because we've seen a lot of of developers complain
Speaker 1: that Apple locks them into a system and does not
Speaker 1: allow them to use any alternatives, and that that is
Speaker 1: anti competitive. So that's something else playing out around the
Speaker 1: world right now, Well over at Google, the plan all
Speaker 1: along was to provide an operating system platform that other
Speaker 1: companies could use, because that operating system naturally emphasizes Google's
Speaker 1: other services, and that's where Google derives revenue. So Google
Speaker 1: was kind of looking at this services approach from the
Speaker 1: beginning and wasn't really keen on getting into making its
Speaker 1: own smartphones, so Google would not benefit directly from hardware sales,
Speaker 1: but down the road, the company would make bookoos of
Speaker 1: buckos because hundreds of millions of people would be using
Speaker 1: phones with an operating system that tends to guide people
Speaker 1: into using Google services. And again, Google has also gotten
Speaker 1: in trouble for this, and there have been regulators claiming
Speaker 1: that Google practices anti competitive strategies in the market. But
Speaker 1: this means there's a fundamental difference between iOS and Android,
Speaker 1: and it gets to the very core of this. iOS
Speaker 1: is only meant to run on Apple devices, right, You're
Speaker 1: only supposed to run iOS on things like iPhones and
Speaker 1: iPads and that kind of stuff. Android operating system is
Speaker 1: meant to run on whatever hardware a manufacturer wants to
Speaker 1: put it on, assuming that they certify with Google to
Speaker 1: run Android and manufacturers can tweak Android too that it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to just be a pure droid experience. They
Speaker 1: can actually put their own user interface on top of
Speaker 1: the Android operating system. They can also include their own
Speaker 1: apps as native apps on that, so that if you
Speaker 1: were to get say a Motorola smartphone versus the Samsung
Speaker 1: smartphone back in the day, you could have very different
Speaker 1: apps on the homepage on there. Also, phone carriers can
Speaker 1: get in on this too, so if you have T
Speaker 1: Mobile versus if you have a T and T, you
Speaker 1: could also have different apps pre installed on your phone
Speaker 1: and on the home page. Now what this means is
Speaker 1: you could buy two totally different Android phones made by
Speaker 1: two different manufacturers, running on two different phone carriers. And
Speaker 1: even though they're both wearing the same operating system, even
Speaker 1: if all the internals are the same, like they're using
Speaker 1: the same processor, they've got the same amount of memory,
Speaker 1: the same amount of storage space. You can have a
Speaker 1: very different look to the home page on the two
Speaker 1: different devices, and often users lack the permissions to remove
Speaker 1: some of those native apps that the various manufacturers and
Speaker 1: carriers have pre installed on the phone. So you get
Speaker 1: a phone it's got an app on it that you
Speaker 1: don't want, you never use, but you can't remove it.
Speaker 1: It's just stuck there. Now, we have a name for
Speaker 1: this kind of software. We call it bloat where so
Speaker 1: this is the stuff that manufacturers and carriers add on
Speaker 1: top of a device and users are not typically able
Speaker 1: to remove it, and it bloats the operating system. So
Speaker 1: not only might you be irritated that there's this app
Speaker 1: on your phone that you don't want but you can't
Speaker 1: take it off, you might also get mad that that
Speaker 1: app or apps are taking up space on your phone
Speaker 1: that you wanted to use for something else. Like you
Speaker 1: might think, oh, I'm not going to be able to
Speaker 1: take as many photos as I want because this app
Speaker 1: I don't want. There's no way for me to get
Speaker 1: rid of it, and I can't free up that space
Speaker 1: or free up that processing. It's slowing my phone down,
Speaker 1: and it's making the experience less enjoyable. That is the
Speaker 1: kind of issue with bloatwear. Well Nothing touts its version
Speaker 1: of Android is being free of bloatwear. They say it's
Speaker 1: more of a pure Android OS experience that is free
Speaker 1: of bloatwear, and presumably that means that you could also
Speaker 1: uninstall any apps that come preinstalled on a Nothing phone.
Speaker 1: I don't know that for a fact, but if it's
Speaker 1: truly free of bloatwear, it should be possible. Now. The
Speaker 1: company also says it uses quote bespoke widgets, fonts, sounds,
Speaker 1: and wallpapers end quote bespoke. Okay. I love tech and stuff,
Speaker 1: but marketing speak sometimes makes my eyes roll around uncontrollably
Speaker 1: in my head. I am sure it's very pretty to
Speaker 1: look at, I have no doubt about it, but bespoke okay. Anyway,
Speaker 1: One benefit that Nothing touts of its phone is that
Speaker 1: the operating system doesn't prioritize first party apps over third
Speaker 1: party apps. So what that means is that whatever you
Speaker 1: install on a Nothing phone should run just as smoothly,
Speaker 1: just as well as any native apps preinstalled on that phone,
Speaker 1: any apps from Nothing itself. They should all run at
Speaker 1: the same capability based upon the phone's technical specs, which
Speaker 1: we will get into in a bit. So if you
Speaker 1: were to install an app that had a greater requirement
Speaker 1: on the hardware than a Nothing app would, yes, that
Speaker 1: will make a difference. But it's saying we are not
Speaker 1: prioritizing our own stuff over anyone else's. This phone is yours,
Speaker 1: and whatever you put on it should run as as
Speaker 1: well as possible based on the hardware. One example they
Speaker 1: give is a Tesla app that lets you use your
Speaker 1: phone to do stuff like unlock your Tesla vehicle. Now,
Speaker 1: the company also says that the phone tracks your app
Speaker 1: usage so that your most used apps are ready to
Speaker 1: load right away. So if you happen to use something
Speaker 1: like a Netflix app right to watch videos all the
Speaker 1: time on your phone, then the Nothing phone essentially prioritizes
Speaker 1: that app so that it takes less time to pop
Speaker 1: up once you select it, and and there's less lag there.
Speaker 1: So apps that you use much less frequently are quote
Speaker 1: frozen to conserve power end quote, which I think just
Speaker 1: means it has to go through the whole loading process
Speaker 1: in order to get those active. Oh and the phone
Speaker 1: one also has a native n f T gallery where
Speaker 1: you can display your n f T s and even
Speaker 1: track their prices on your home screen, so you can
Speaker 1: display the digital things you've purchased and how much they're worth.
Speaker 1: Now y'all already know how I feel about n f
Speaker 1: T s, The fact that this display incorporates prices into
Speaker 1: it feels really a key. It just reinforces the criticisms
Speaker 1: I have about n f T S in general, so
Speaker 1: this ain't a feature that I find particularly compelling. Also,
Speaker 1: it's curious to me that there's still kind of promoting
Speaker 1: that just because I feel like the general feeling about
Speaker 1: n f T S has really become much more negative,
Speaker 1: except for that small niche group of n f T
Speaker 1: enthusiasts and evangelists. But that's neither here nor there. Now.
Speaker 1: If you flip the phone so that the back faces up,
Speaker 1: you'll see that you've got your gorilla glass coated aluminum
Speaker 1: case has the sort of industrial look because you're looking
Speaker 1: at just little panels of aluminium on the back. You'll
Speaker 1: see that as a couple of camera lenses. Um. So
Speaker 1: you also will see that if you get a notification
Speaker 1: or a call, that bright lights will light up on
Speaker 1: the back of the case in different shapes. There's actually
Speaker 1: two sets of lights. Each set has ten lights in
Speaker 1: it that can make these shapes. They are called glyphs.
Speaker 1: Nothing calls these glyphs. So one set of ten is
Speaker 1: for phone notifications. The other set of ten is for
Speaker 1: different ring tones. And you can actually tweak how these
Speaker 1: glyphs light up, and you can customize them so that
Speaker 1: the glyphs will light up one way for say, an
Speaker 1: incoming Facebook message, and they'll light up a different way
Speaker 1: for a Twitter notification. Or you can have one glyph
Speaker 1: appear if it's your mom calling you, and a totally
Speaker 1: different one appearing if it's a your significant other calling you.
Speaker 1: And you can tell who's calling or what's going on
Speaker 1: with your phone just by looking at the back of
Speaker 1: it and seeing the pattern of lights light up. I'll
Speaker 1: talk about that more when we come back from this
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, So there are these lights, these glyphs
Speaker 1: that can light up in different shapes on the back
Speaker 1: of this phone and indicate that you've received a message
Speaker 1: or that someone's calling you. Now, I probably would end
Speaker 1: up spending ages setting up these glyphs to customize every
Speaker 1: notification I can and every incoming call that I could
Speaker 1: like in my context list, and then I would promptly
Speaker 1: forget what was what, so I would have to float
Speaker 1: the phone over anyway just to see what I was getting,
Speaker 1: like whether it was a phone call or a notification
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. But that's on me, right,
Speaker 1: Like I can't imagine looking at one of twenty different
Speaker 1: potential patterns and immediately knowing, oh, that's a Twitter message
Speaker 1: or something. If I had actually used all of them,
Speaker 1: that is, if I only used a couple ensure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that makes it way easier. But if you're
Speaker 1: using all of them, you must have a better memory
Speaker 1: than I do, which isn't saying much if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: I can't really blame the phone for that. That's more
Speaker 1: of a failing on my part. I think the glyphs
Speaker 1: feature is kind of nifty. I mean, it's definitely the
Speaker 1: eye catching feature on the phone. It's probably the most
Speaker 1: effective way to grab someone's attention to the phone because
Speaker 1: it's different from what other phones do. This is something
Speaker 1: that sets it apart. But I would not call it
Speaker 1: a killer feature on the phone simply because it really
Speaker 1: has limited usefulness. One thing that is interesting is that
Speaker 1: these glyphs are are actually tied to specific notification sounds
Speaker 1: and ringtones on the phone. So, in other words, the
Speaker 1: way you would assign a glyph to, let's say, a
Speaker 1: Twitter notification is that you would go into the Twitter
Speaker 1: app and you would go into its settings, and you
Speaker 1: would change the notification sound for an incoming tweet to
Speaker 1: a specific sound on the list. That sound correlates to
Speaker 1: one of the ten glyphs for notifications, and so if
Speaker 1: you have sounds turned on, you'll get that specific notification
Speaker 1: sound and the corresponding glyph pattern will light up. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, what you're really doing is you're changing
Speaker 1: sounds and ring tones. You're not really choosing a specific
Speaker 1: glyph so much as you're choosing the sound that corresponds
Speaker 1: to that glyph. So you're stuck with the pre made
Speaker 1: ring tones to choose a specific glyph for specific people.
Speaker 1: So if there's a glyph you really like but you
Speaker 1: hate the ring tone, well, you can put your phone
Speaker 1: on silent, the glyph will light up, the ring tone
Speaker 1: won't play, but you're stuck with that ring tone with
Speaker 1: that glyph. Right. You can't change the ring tone and
Speaker 1: keep that same glyph. You'll get whatever glyph goes with
Speaker 1: the new ring tone. Um, I just think it's kind
Speaker 1: of a weird gimmick more than a feature. That quote
Speaker 1: brings us all back together, all right, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about actual specs here. So the phone's processor is a
Speaker 1: WELLcom snap Dragon seven seven eight G plus. This chip
Speaker 1: set debuted last year and the seven series of snap
Speaker 1: Dragon chips are end snap Dragons high end range, but
Speaker 1: they are below like flagship level, so kind of like
Speaker 1: between flagship and mid range. So it's a good processor,
Speaker 1: but it's not top of the line. It's not the
Speaker 1: best of the best. This does, however, mean that the
Speaker 1: phone isn't gonna cost as much because the processors not
Speaker 1: as expensive. It also has five G connectivity, so you're
Speaker 1: able to tap into that. So in places that have
Speaker 1: the high density, you know, high frequency five G, you
Speaker 1: can get that incredible responsiveness on five G. The problem
Speaker 1: is that's just not available everywhere. The distance of transmission
Speaker 1: for that level of five G is pretty limited and
Speaker 1: it can't do stuff like go through walls, for example,
Speaker 1: So you will get that incredible speed in specific instances,
Speaker 1: but not everywhere. There are two camera lenses on the
Speaker 1: back of the phone. The first is a regular fifty
Speaker 1: megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization. A quick reminder on
Speaker 1: megapixels here, it's been a long time since I've really
Speaker 1: talked about megapixels. Essentially, megapixel tells you the number of
Speaker 1: dots or points of light that will make up a
Speaker 1: digital image, and this is true no matter how large
Speaker 1: the screen is. So fifty megapixels tells you that the
Speaker 1: photos you take will have essentially fifty million little points
Speaker 1: that make up that image. This is oversimplifying things, but
Speaker 1: that's essentially what it means. So in the good old
Speaker 1: days digital camera companies, back when we would just buy
Speaker 1: regular consumer digital cameras, before cell phones had decent cameras
Speaker 1: in them, they would use high megapixel numbers as sort
Speaker 1: of a metric of quality, like this phone is better
Speaker 1: because it has more megapixels. That's kind of an oversimplification
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of other factors that are
Speaker 1: important in determining each quality. It's not just megapixel count.
Speaker 1: High megapixel count is important if you plan on doing
Speaker 1: something like showing off digital images on a large screen. Right,
Speaker 1: let's say that you're taking photos on a camera and
Speaker 1: you're planning on putting those photos on a giant television. Well,
Speaker 1: you want a high megapixel count so that that image
Speaker 1: still looks good on the big screen and doesn't look
Speaker 1: grainy or anything like that. Or maybe you want to
Speaker 1: print out giant posters of whatever you're taking photos of.
Speaker 1: You want high megapixel count so that the resolution is
Speaker 1: still good when you're on this much larger format. That's
Speaker 1: where megapixels are really important. The second camera on the
Speaker 1: Nothing phone one is an ultra wide lens, but it
Speaker 1: also has a fifty megapixel sensor, so five zero megapixel sensor.
Speaker 1: There's also a front facing camera on the phone. This
Speaker 1: one has a more modest sixteen megapixels. Now I say
Speaker 1: more modest because again, I remember when consumer digital cameras
Speaker 1: were maxing out at like ten or twelve megapixels. So
Speaker 1: just having a sixteen megapixels a front facing camera, it's
Speaker 1: incredible when you if you've been around long enough to
Speaker 1: have seen how digital camera technology has improved over the
Speaker 1: last two decades, really three decades, I'm getting old, so
Speaker 1: pretty incredible in that regard. The phone is capable of
Speaker 1: recording video add up to four K resolution, which is
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. The screen on the phone is oh lad,
Speaker 1: it's organic led. It has a one hurts or fresh
Speaker 1: rate that actually is really impressive. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things about this phone that I find pretty amazing. It's
Speaker 1: better than a lot of flagship phones out there that
Speaker 1: max out at around sixty hurts. Now, in case you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with the term refresh. Essentially, this refers to
Speaker 1: the number of times that the screen renders itself. A
Speaker 1: refreshes each second, so hurts means the screen refreshes a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty times per second. For you. This creates a
Speaker 1: smoother experience when you're scrolling through the phone, or it
Speaker 1: can improve the experience if you're using your phone to
Speaker 1: do stuff like play games on it. The screen measures
Speaker 1: six and a half inches on the diagonal and has
Speaker 1: a resolution of ten eighty by two hundred, so not
Speaker 1: like super high resolution. But it's also a small screen,
Speaker 1: so you don't need super high resolution at that size.
Speaker 1: And and at how far you're away you are from
Speaker 1: the screen, you're gonna be pretty close to it. Nothing
Speaker 1: Technology advertised the screen as being capable of a brightness
Speaker 1: of up to twe knits. A knit in i T,
Speaker 1: as you probably have gathered at this point just from context,
Speaker 1: is a measurement of the brightness of light. So one
Speaker 1: knit is equal to one candela per square meter. A
Speaker 1: candela refers to candle power. So now you're saying that's
Speaker 1: not really giving me an idea of brightness. Well, let's
Speaker 1: put it this way. The noonday sun has a brightness
Speaker 1: of about one point six billion knits, so you know,
Speaker 1: just think, okay, well, what would twelve knits look like then? Now,
Speaker 1: according to ultra Vision LED Solutions, the average television has
Speaker 1: a brightness of around four hundred fifty knits, so significantly
Speaker 1: brighter than that. Right, it's almost three times as bright.
Speaker 1: But then you don't typically take your brand new TV
Speaker 1: outside into bright sunlight, but you do take your smartphone
Speaker 1: out there. So that explains why phones need to be
Speaker 1: brighter than televisions, because in sunlight, if it's a dim screen,
Speaker 1: you can't see anything on it. However, I should add
Speaker 1: that a review of the phone one that was published
Speaker 1: by The Verge revealed that the actual max brightness was
Speaker 1: closer to seven hundred knits and that Nothing Technology had
Speaker 1: clarified that the company had eased off on the brightness
Speaker 1: in order to preserve battery power. That you know, if
Speaker 1: you were blasting at twelve knits, you're draining the battery
Speaker 1: much faster. But that a future firmware update could remove
Speaker 1: this kind of throttle feature and allow you to go
Speaker 1: all the way up to twelve hundred. So maybe by
Speaker 1: the time you hear this, the max really will be
Speaker 1: twelve knits anyway, according to the review even seven hundred
Speaker 1: knits was more than sufficient for upgrading the phone indirect
Speaker 1: sunlight without a problems, so there's no real issue here.
Speaker 1: It's it seems like it's pretty good in that regard.
Speaker 1: While nothing technology says. The phone one has a battery
Speaker 1: life to support up to eighteen hours of use, the
Speaker 1: Verge reported that the phone's charge was pretty much drained
Speaker 1: after a single day's use, not like twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: but just like using a phone in a typical day. However,
Speaker 1: the reviewer does say that they tend to put their
Speaker 1: phones through heavy use scenarios, so you should imagine someone
Speaker 1: who's on their phone frequently throughout the day, but at
Speaker 1: by the end of the day the phone was pretty
Speaker 1: much out of charge. The phone supports thirties three W
Speaker 1: wired charging, so it can go back up to around
Speaker 1: fifty power pretty quickly, like within twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 1: It can also charge wirelessly with a g charging station
Speaker 1: at fifteen W. It's slower than if you used a
Speaker 1: wired charger, but it is capable of charging wirelessly, which
Speaker 1: puts it in a pretty small subset of of of
Speaker 1: medium and smartphones It can also reverse charge other devices
Speaker 1: like those earbuds I talked about at five W so
Speaker 1: you can actually wirelessly charge your earbuds from your phone
Speaker 1: if you want to, which is again nifty is not
Speaker 1: something that you typically see in mid range phones. Uh.
Speaker 1: It does not include a charger itself, so you would
Speaker 1: actually have to go out and buy the cable and
Speaker 1: plug and everything uh separately, but that's not that unusual
Speaker 1: in in devices that are sold in Europe. All told,
Speaker 1: the base level Nothing Phone one comes in at three pounds,
Speaker 1: which is about four bucks right now due to the
Speaker 1: British pound being weaker against the US dollar than I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in my life. That will get you a
Speaker 1: phone with eight gigabytes of RAMS and a hundred twenty
Speaker 1: eight gigabytes of storage space, and you can upgrade to
Speaker 1: a twelve gigabyte RAM and two hundred fifty six gigabytes
Speaker 1: storage version of the phone one. That one would cost
Speaker 1: four nine pounds are around five hundred fifty bucks American
Speaker 1: again due to that exchange rate. So this puts the
Speaker 1: Nothing Phone into the category of mid range smartphones. It's
Speaker 1: not priced as a budget phone. It's more expensive than
Speaker 1: budget phones, but It's also half as expensive as the
Speaker 1: flagship phones that are out there now. I have not
Speaker 1: personally used one of these phones because I'm in the States,
Speaker 1: but my impression based upon what I have seen, is
Speaker 1: that this is a good mid range Android smartphone. Now,
Speaker 1: some features that you're just not gonna find in most
Speaker 1: other mid range phones on the market, like that reversible
Speaker 1: charging feature. The glyphs are a really nifty idea. It
Speaker 1: really does make the phone, you know, stand out, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a practical feature for someone like me.
Speaker 1: I would think they were pretty, and then I would
Speaker 1: never worry about them again. I would just as soon
Speaker 1: keep my phone face up so I can see what
Speaker 1: notifications are coming in, rather than sit there and say, huh,
Speaker 1: that is a blinking see which of the which is
Speaker 1: the things that I assigned a blinking C two I
Speaker 1: wouldn't remember. So in short, my first impression is that
Speaker 1: pay is following a similar playbook with nothing technology as
Speaker 1: he did over at one Plus. He's creating smartphones and
Speaker 1: accessories that includes some nifty features at mid range prices,
Speaker 1: and I think this is awesome, but I also think
Speaker 1: it falls far far short of the marketing messages we've received.
Speaker 1: I don't see the Nothing phone as transforming smartphones in general. Um,
Speaker 1: which is again that's kind of the hype that was
Speaker 1: around this phone before it was launched. There were outlets
Speaker 1: out there saying that, you know, if we're to believe
Speaker 1: what's being said, that Nothing phone is going to change everything,
Speaker 1: it's not. It just isn't. Um. It's a good phone,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to transform smartphones. Uh. It's a
Speaker 1: good phone and a good price pretty much, full stop.
Speaker 1: So I think the other takeaway we can keep in
Speaker 1: mind with this episode, it's one that we all know,
Speaker 1: but it bears repeating. Marketing can be deceiving. In fact,
Speaker 1: marketing frequently is deceiving. Maybe it it uh exaggerates things,
Speaker 1: Maybe it couches things in language where the language doesn't
Speaker 1: really mean anything, like you can't quantify it. That's how
Speaker 1: Nothing phone was, Like Nothing phones, marketing was all about this,
Speaker 1: these these feelings and these abstract concepts that you can't
Speaker 1: tie to specific metrics, right like, how do you measure
Speaker 1: how deep your experience is? There's nothing to measure. So
Speaker 1: that's something that you should always keep in mind when
Speaker 1: you encounter that kind of messaging it's just like, does
Speaker 1: this actually mean something? Is it? Is it something that
Speaker 1: you can quantify, or is it just there to kind
Speaker 1: of get your interests? And that's it. Um. Sometimes marketing
Speaker 1: lies by omission, right, Like they'll leave out important stuff
Speaker 1: that if you knew, would very much change your perception
Speaker 1: of the device. So it's just good to remember that
Speaker 1: when we encounter marketing, any kind of marketing, we should
Speaker 1: kind of keep a skeptic hat on. Whether that marketing
Speaker 1: trying to sell us a product or a service, or
Speaker 1: an image of a brand or just an idea. We
Speaker 1: need to approach with some critical thinking. Don't just dismiss stuff.
Speaker 1: Don't just say, oh, they're marketing it, so there must
Speaker 1: not be anything to it. That's not the case either.
Speaker 1: It just means examine those claims carefully, ask what they
Speaker 1: actually mean. Maybe they don't mean anything, And that's just
Speaker 1: good to know before you go into it. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: always important to keep that in mind whenever anyone is
Speaker 1: trying to market stuff to you, or as Wesley from
Speaker 1: The Princess Bride would say, life is pain. Anyone who
Speaker 1: says otherwise is selling something. All right, that's it. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for this request. I would thank you by name,
Speaker 1: but you didn't leave it in the message, so I
Speaker 1: don't have a name to thank But it was great
Speaker 1: to be able to look into this I and there
Speaker 1: nothing fune to kind of gone over my head, largely,
Speaker 1: I think, because again, it's not a United States based phone,
Speaker 1: right it's based over in the UK, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be sold in Europe and places like that, but
Speaker 1: not here in the US. And I missed it because
Speaker 1: of that, which is a shame because obviously there are
Speaker 1: tons of really important text stories playing out all over
Speaker 1: the world, not just here in the United States. It's
Speaker 1: just very easy for me to miss those because they
Speaker 1: don't get as much coverage here, and if I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm looking for, I'm not going to find it.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that suggestion. It was really interesting
Speaker 1: to dive into this and to look into it. I
Speaker 1: think that nothing technology as well as one plus are
Speaker 1: doing something important. They're creating these mid range phones that
Speaker 1: really are competitive and have these interesting features in them.
Speaker 1: I just feel like they are being marketed in an
Speaker 1: unrealistic way, which is a shame because I think that
Speaker 1: they could stand just fine on their own. I look
Speaker 1: at these and based upon what I've read and seen, Uh,
Speaker 1: they look great, I guess. In order to really stand
Speaker 1: out against other phones that are in that same pricing
Speaker 1: range and against higher end phones that are touted as flagships,
Speaker 1: you've got to do something. But it just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I get a little antsy when I encounter marketing messaging
Speaker 1: like that. That's it for this episode. I haven't done
Speaker 1: an episode where I focused on a specific technology like this,
Speaker 1: like a specific product, in a very long time. UM.
Speaker 1: I tend to avoid it, but I don't mind doing them.
Speaker 1: So if you have suggestions for a specific product you
Speaker 1: think I should really take a look at and say,
Speaker 1: what is it that makes this product what it is?
Speaker 1: How does it stand apart from others in this category,
Speaker 1: I'd be glad to do that too. I don't do reviews,
Speaker 1: so if anyone's out there thinking, oh good, I can
Speaker 1: get them to review this product, I represent I don't
Speaker 1: do those, so don't We're not going to do any reviews.
Speaker 1: It will be more of an objective look at these
Speaker 1: sort of of of devices and kind of a dive
Speaker 1: into the history and development of them as well. But
Speaker 1: if you want to leave me any kind of message
Speaker 1: whether it's a suggestion or you have a question or
Speaker 1: anything like that. There are two ways to do it.
Speaker 1: One is to do as I said before. You download
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app. It's free to download, it's
Speaker 1: free to use. You navigate over to the text stuff page.
Speaker 1: You can just use the search for text stuff and
Speaker 1: go there. You'll see there's a little microphone icon on
Speaker 1: that page. You click on that, you can leave a
Speaker 1: voice message up to thirty seconds in length if you like.
Speaker 1: You can even tell me if I can use the
Speaker 1: message in a future episode. I'm all about opt in,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna use I'm never gonna play a
Speaker 1: voice message unless the person specifically says I'm totally cool
Speaker 1: with you doing that. In that case, I will include
Speaker 1: it in an upcoming episode, which is fun, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I would never do that without permission. The other way
Speaker 1: to get in touch with me, which doesn't involve talking
Speaker 1: into anything at all. I know that can be kind
Speaker 1: of and an anxiety trigger for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: No judgment, it can. It totally does for me and
Speaker 1: I do a podcast. But the other way you can
Speaker 1: get in touch with me is to use Twitter, the
Speaker 1: handle that we use for the show. Is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Y tech Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.