Nothing’s flashy Phone 2 lands in the US for $599

Nothing’s Phone 2 has officially arrived. The company has already preannounced plenty of details about the handset, so the big news today is the Phone 2’s price and release date. It’ll be available starting at $599 (£579 / €679), and unlike last year’s device, the Phone 2 will be available to buy in the US. Preorders start today, and the phone will be publicly available July 17th. 

There are a couple of different variants of the Phone 2 available. The starting price gets you 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but there are also step-up models with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $699 (£629 / €729) and 12GB and 512GB of storage for $799 (£699 / €849). For comparison, the Phone 1’s starting price for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage was £399 (€469) in the markets where Nothing sold it. So the Phone 2 has received a substantial price bump for Nothing to justify.

The Nothing Phone 2 isn’t a radical departure from last year’s device. It’s still got those flashing light strips that drew so much attention to the Phone 1, it’s still got a dual-camera setup, and it still runs Nothing OS, the company’s distinctive take on Android. But the Phone 2’s specs have been improved across the board, with a faster processor, bigger battery, and larger screen.

For example, the Phone 2’s flashing Glyph interface might use the same basic layout as last year, but there are more lighting zones contained within them this time around to offer more granular effects. One strip can now act as a progress bar, for example, showing the countdown of a timer or volume level, and Nothing is allowing other app developers to use the light strip with their own apps. 

There’s also a new feature called “Essential Glyph Notifications” that lets you turn one of the light bars into a notification light for contacts or apps of your choosing, meaning you can set it to stay illuminated until you’ve seen a ping that’s important to you. Meanwhile, a new “Glyph Composer” feature lets you create your own ringtones for the phone with accompanying lighting effects. It’s nothing revolutionary, but if you liked what Nothing was going for with the Phone 1, then there’s more of that on offer here.

These kinds of upgrades persist across the rest of the phone’s specs. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 this time around, which Nothing claims offers an 80 percent performance improvement over the 7-series Snapdragon chip in the Phone 1. Its screen is 6.7 inches rather than 6.55 inches and offers a claimed peak brightness of 1,600 nits rather than the 700 nits the Phone 1 was eventually rated for. 

The Phone 2’s battery is now 4,700mAh (a 200mAh increase) and can be fast-charged at up to 45W (a 12W increase). There’s still support for wireless and reverse wireless charging here, capping out at the same 15W and 5W as before. Even the phone’s IP rating is a little better this time around, at IP54 versus IP53, though functionally, that means it’s still only protected against limited splashes.

On the camera side, the spec improvements are less eye-catching. The two rear cameras (main and ultrawide) are still 50 megapixels, though the selfie camera is 32 megapixels this time around rather than 16. But Nothing claims there have been some improvements made under the hood, including an upgraded image signal processor and better HDR. Video recording has also been boosted, with the Phone 2 now supporting 4K at 60fps from the rear camera and 1080p 60fps from the selfie camera. 

Nothing is still promising three years of major Android updates and four years of security updates, as it did with the Phone 1. Like last year’s phone, the Phone 2 is available in a choice of either light or dark color schemes, though this year’s dark colorway is more gray than black.

Stay tuned for our full review of the Nothing Phone 2, coming soon.