Nothing is finally announcing its debut smartphone — the Nothing Phone 1 — at a launch event today. Led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, it’s the well-funded startup’s second product released following last year’s Ear 1 true wireless earbuds.
The big news is that the Nothing Phone 1 will be sold with a modest starting price of £399 (the equivalent of around $475 USD, though it’s not getting a widespread release in the US) when it goes on sale on July 21st. £399 gets you the model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, while stepping up to £449 (around $535 USD) gets you 256GB of storage. The model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage goes on sale later this summer for £499 (around $593 USD).
Unfortunately, as previously reported, the Nothing Phone 1 isn’t getting a full release in the US. Instead, Nothing says the Phone 1 will release across over 40 markets, including the UK, Japan, India, and countries in mainland Europe.
In contrast to a company like Apple, which tightly guards every detail of its products up until their official announcements, Nothing has happily revealed many of the Phone 1’s key features in the weeks leading up to today’s event. It’s a tactic that’s generated a lot of headlines, but it means we’ve gone into today’s event with a pretty clear idea of what the Phone 1 consists of.
Most notably, Nothing showed off the phone’s design a whole month in advance of today’s event, revealing an eye-catching set of light strips on the rear of the device (called the glyph interface) that are designed to serve a variety of uses.
On the rear of the phone, there are two 50-megapixel sensors: one main and one ultrawide. The main camera supports both optical and electronic image stabilization (OIS and EIS) as well as a range of software features including night, portrait, and document scanning modes. Meanwhile, the ultrawide camera has a 114-degree field of view and can take macro shots up to distances of 4cm. The Phone 1 is available in either white or black.
