It’s arduous to get a thrill from glimpses of unreleased smartphone {hardware} lately, given the baked-in maturity of the cell market and the overall kind and performance sameness of the sticky rectangles we people routinely spend hours poking at and peering into every day.
However this rear-view design-teaser (beneath) of a forthcoming handset made by {hardware} startup Nothing would possibly simply offer you a bit of tingle: Meet the minimally named cellphone (1), in all its pure, deconstructed, ‘analog’ glory — parrot not included, presumably.
As design aesthetics go, it’s roughly akin to if The Ordinary made electronics. Which is to say clear, minimalist, useful trying, even scientific, as if to counsel it’s purged of performative frills — besides that first-glance stark distinction is the performative visible thrill any such look is capturing for as a differentiator so there’s loads of contrivance at work.
In cellphone (1)’s case, by stepping away from the shiny, hermetically sealed look that iPhone maker Apple is so keen on — and scores of Android machine makers have so keenly copied — Nothing is delivering some sensible, immediate visible differentiation vs. the premium competitors.
On its website, it sums up its method with cellphone (1) as: “Designed with intention. Full of heat. And pleasure.” Which suggests the parrot is there to characterize all of the enjoyable stuff you are able to do with the stripped-back little bit of cuttlefish-bone-white cell package it’s having a (staged) beak at.
As we’ve noted before, Nothing is a dab hand at teasers. Albeit, founder Carl Pei’s tweet about this pre-launch reveal claims the startup’s hand was compelled by leakers forward of subsequent month’s official unboxing. (However for those who consider that, nicely, I’ve a very healthy Norwegian Blue parrot to sell you.)
A previous Nothing teaser of cellphone (1) confirmed what seem like illuminated gentle strips on the again of the machine — a strikingly contrasting characteristic to the in any other case utilitarian look being revealed at present. So all is probably not as purely useful because the cellphone’s analog look would possibly indicate on first look, because it appears to sprinkling a bit of enjoyable into the design combine too.
Pei has beforehand stated Nothing’s debut smartphone will pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, rock wireless charging and run a skinned model of Android (aka NothingOS) — which its advertising suggests will layer one thing “daring” and “heat” atop Google’s hyperfamiliar smartphone platform. So if the consumer interface doesn’t — someway — characteristic snazzy plumage we’re going to be disenchanted.
The remainder of cellphone (1)’s specs are TBA however Nothing will formally reveal all on July 12.
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