Nothing phone (1) long-term review

Camera image quality

The Nothing Phone (1) has two cameras on its back, and we find it refreshing that Nothing, as a new entrant in the smartphone space, chose not to play the "decorative sensor" game. There's something very honest about not padding the phone's back with novelty sensors, in order to impress from afar. There's no cheap, pointless 2 MP macro camera or depth sensor here. There's also no proper zoom camera either, but at this price point that's easier to forgive than when we start climbing higher.

Thus, the device has a wide and an ultrawide, both 50 MP, and that's it. Let's start with the former, the main camera. The sensor it uses is a pretty common one these days, the Sony IMX766. The Oppo / Realme / OnePlus family especially seems to like this one.

On the Nothing Phone (1), during daytime, it produces pleasant-looking pictures with good levels of detail, good contrast, good dynamic range, and low noise. Colors are accurate-ish - meaning they are 'enhanced' and overly saturated, but not so much that they become garish. This is that look that seems to please most people. Sharpening is present, but it's kept within reasonable limits mostly.

Daytime samples from the main camera

The ultrawide camera during the day captures shots which come with good levels of resolved detail, nice contrast, good noise reduction, and rather average dynamic range. Colors are different compared to the main camera, even getting a slight desaturated look at times, strangely enough. These are above average ultrawide shots even so.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

If you want to go macro, you can with the ultrawide, since it can focus from 4cm away. We haven't taken macro samples for this long-term review, but we have plenty in our normal review of the Nothing Phone (1). Spoiler alert: the main camera can focus from 10cm and its macro-like shots are much better.

There's a 2x zoom option in the viewfinder even though there isn't a dedicated 2x zoom camera, and that means digital zoom. It's not of the fancy lossless variety, however. Shooting in this mode during the day results in photos that aren't as sharp as the 1x ones, in fact they are always softer, and, depending on the scene, sometimes very visibly so. On the other hand, they do have high detail levels. In terms of colors, contrast, dynamic range, and noise, these are a match for the 1x shots. That's not surprising considering they come from the same sensor, but such similar performance is not always a given when zooming digitally.

Daytime zoom samples

At night there is a convoluted Night Mode. It's not an option in the viewfinder among all the other modes, but instead when the phone wants to, it throws a moon icon at you. You then need to tap that to activate Night Mode. We very much prefer what basically every other Android device maker out there is doing these days, with a dedicated Night Mode that's easier to engage at all times, not just when the phone deems it appropriate. Anyway, we had no issues using this one, so let's see how good it is.

First, the Auto mode shots from the main camera are very good. You get decent dynamic range, plenty of resolved detail, good color saturation, and a noise reduction algorithm that balances noise with detail very well.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

There are, however, some blown highlights all-over, but thankfully Night Mode improves these, while at the same time brightening everything up, saturating the colors a bit further, and restoring some shadow detail too. It's a toss-up which mode to use, really. Auto has a more realistic look, but you can simply see more in the Night Mode shots. These, by the way, take around 4-5 seconds to capture and process.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

The auto mode ultrawide shots at night come out better than you might expect for an ultrawide at night, but these merely betray the fact that this is no regular, average, run-of-the-mill 8 MP sensor fitted to most mid-range smartphones out there. And yet - while you get good levels of resolved detail, decent color saturation and noise reduction, and photos that aren't overly bright, nor so dark as to not be able to tell what's in them, there is an obvious reduction in quality compared to the main shooter.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide

Applying Night Mode improves the exposure and boosts the colors even more, but it comes with a drop in resolved detail. There are also some visible artifacts in some of these, and the images just have an overly sharp and processed look that may be too much for you. If it is, then we'd suggest sticking with Auto mode for your ultrawide needs at night, and if not, then you can definitely default to Night Mode on if you can spare the few seconds each capture takes.

Night Mode samples from the ultrawide

The 2x zoom pictures at night come out rather bright, bordering on too much sometimes. They're also often very soft and blurry, to the point that it's pretty hard to get a usable shot - our track record is about 2-3 good ones out of 10.

Nighttime zoom samples

With Night Mode, the 2x shots get improved colors, but at the cost of even more softness, and that's not a price we're willing to pay. So at night we'd suggest you try and 'zoom with your feet' if you can, neither the Auto mode shots nor the Night Mode ones are anything to write home about.

Night Mode zoom samples

Selfies are taken by a 16 MP sensor which shoots pixel binned images at 4 MP. These are then upscaled back to 16 MP for some reason, and this means the end results are always a bit less sharp than they could have been. That aside, colors, contrast, and dynamic range are great during the day, and noise reduction is working well too. Portrait Mode has a pleasant but mild blur effect, with well-developed subjects, and decent (but not outstanding) separation.

Selfies, daytime Portrait Mode off/on, nighttime

At night, things predictably go downhill, but if you have some light source around, you'll still manage to capture usable shots. The quality does take a very substantive hit compared to what it's like during the day, however.

To sum up then, the Nothing Phone (1) has a very good main camera in all light conditions and a good ultrawide that punches above the device's price point. The 2x zoom shots are good during the day, while selfies are very good during daytime and reasonably usable at night. So this is a good camera system overall, and the snappers aren't likely to let you down.