Nothing Phone (2) hands-on review

Design

Nothing is sticking with a largely familiar yet slightly improved design for the Phone (2). The most distinctive feature is definitely the Glyph UI, which looks largely unchanged at first glance but is, in fact, a bit more sophisticated in this version of the phone. The Glyph LEDs surrounding the cameras and the wireless charging coils are now separated into more segments than before. And the whole thing is bigger to go with the overall bigger footprint of the new phone - 162.1 x 76.4 x 8.6 mm and weighing in at 201 grams.

The back side of the Nothing Phone (2) is transparent once again and made of glass. However, Nothing does not share exactly what kind. Even so, like before, the phone's actual insides are not visible. The Glyph UI is complemented by what look like either black or white plastic/cable/film pieces depending on which model you get. These cleverly hide away the internals so as not to distract from the unique surface design.

One thing that has changed about the back glass on the Nothing Phone (2) is the newfound curvature on all sides. The glass surface now folds into the middle frame. This makes for a more comfortable grip, in our opinion. Though the Nothing Phone (2) still doesn't instill perfect confidence while handling, it is good enough not to necessitate a case.

The two 50MP cameras have jutting-out metal rings surrounding them, and they make the phone a bit wobbly when used on a desk or table. Next to the two cams is a single-LED flash and what appears to be a sensor, probably a color temperature one. And above the flash, you can spot a barely visible microphone.

There is another thing you cannot see immediately - a small red LED that can be active during video capturing. You can enable/disable it from within the camera settings.

The Nothing Phone (2) middle frame is made of recycled aluminum. It has a matte finish and is pretty grippy, especially compared to the glass back.

The front of the Nothing Phone (2) is also made of glass. Flat Corning Gorilla Glass, to be exact, but Nothing does not offer any info on exactly what variant it is using. Still, this instills a bit of extra confidence in the durability of the phone. So does the upgraded ingress protection rating from IP53 to IP54.

Let's do a quick tour of the controls. There is nothing particularly special about their layout. On the front, the Nothing Phone (2) has a fairly compact selfie punch hole also pretty thin bezels, even the top one that houses the amplified earpiece that doubles as a speaker and some sensors to the right.

The phone uses an optical under-display fingerprint reader. It is among the fastest and most accurate we've experienced since those came to be, and we are happy with its performance.

The Nothing Phone (2) has separated volume controls and power buttons. The former are on the left-hand side of the phone. Pretty well-positioned height-wise, clicky and responsive.

The same goes for the power button, which sits alone on the phone's right side.

The top of the phone is nearly empty and just houses a secondary noise-canceling microphone.

And finally, you can see the SIM tray, the primary microphone, the USB-C port, and the other stereo speaker at the bottom of the Phone (2).

Overall, we have nothing but positive impressions of our time spent with the Nothing Phone (2).

Display

As mentioned, the Nothing Phone (2) has grown in size compared to the original model. That includes the display which now has a 6.7-inch diagonal, up from 6.55 inches. The aspect ratio and resolution haven't changed, though. The panel is still 20:9 with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. This technically means that the Nothing Phone (2) isn't quite as sharp as its sibling, but with a pixel density of around 393 ppi in absolute terms, it still looks perfectly sharp and the difference between the two devices in this department is hardly noticeable.

Just like the Nothing Phone (1), the Nothing Phone (2) has a 10-bit panel and HDR10+ support. The latter has arguably gotten better this time around, though, since the peak brightness of the Nothing Phone (2) is improved and should now reach 1,600 nits as per marketing. While not chart-topping, that should definitely be more than enough for the phone to be usable outdoors in the sun.

The display on the Nothing Phone (2) has a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. Thanks to the use of LTPO tech, the Nothing Phone (2) can dynamically adjust its refresh rate down to 1Hz to conserve power.

Battery and charging

The Nothing Phone (2) has a slightly larger battery than Phone (1) - 4,700mAh vs. 4,500mAh. Together with the more efficient display and chipset, the Phone (2) should deliver an even better battery life than Phone (1). We will be sure to test that in the full review.

The same goes for the charging rate on the Nothing Phone (2). Unfortunately, it does not come with a charger in the box, but you should be able to use any modern PPS PD charger to top it up efficiently. Ideally, you will want at least 45W on the charger since that is what the Nothing Phone (2) is rated at, up from 33W on the Nothing Phone (1). Nothing claims that the Phone (2) should be able to get a full charge in 55 minutes.

The Phone (2) also supports 15W wireless charging, and you can also wirelessly reverse charge devices on its back. All you need to do is turn on Battery Share from within the battery settings. You will get a cool Glyph indicator when Battery Share is active.

Speakers

The Nothing Phone (2) has a single dedicated bottom-firing speaker and an amplified earpiece that acts like a second channel. This is commonly referred to as a hybrid stereo setup. Plenty of phones, particularly mid-rangers, use this sort of setup. Naturally, the disparity between the two speakers almost always means that the output won't be particularly balanced across the two.

The Nothing Phone (2) does sound pretty clean and quite loud in person. We will have to test it more thoroughly for in-depth results, but our preliminary response to its audio output is quite positive.

In case you were wondering, just like the Nothing Phone (1), there is no 3.5mm audio jack on the Nothing Phone (2).