Nothing phone (1): Carl Pei announces almost nothing and that's not a joke

The manufacturer's motto "Let's bring the future back" promises to put the tech market back on the right track. An ambitious project, you say? Well, I'd like to get my time back, because the half-hour I spent listening to Carl Pei play the Machiavellian genius, with a teasing air, cost me a lot.

On a more serious note, the CEO of Nothing, dressed all in black, on a red background with a slightly dark aura, started by revealing that after a year spent recruiting a new company, the company was ready after a year of recruiting a dream team and finding investors who matter, he is ready to tell us the truth about Nothing. "We're building the most compelling alternative to Apple," he said.

Basically, the idea is to have an ecosystem of quality products but also be open and intercompatible with the products of other brands. Logically, to carry this ecosystem, you need... a smartphone. Not surprisingly, the Nothing phone (1) is official and will be the heart of the ecosystem wanted by Carl Pei. But, strangely, as hyped as the product may be, Carl has been very stingy with concrete information about his famous phone.

All we know is that it will be powered by a Qualcomm SoC and that it will run on Nothing OS, the manufacturer's in-house Android overlay. Nothing guarantees 40% less bloatware and an update policy of up to 3 versions of Android and 4 years of security patches. Nothing OS is also supposed to learn from your usage by adapting RAM allocation according to the apps you use the most and vice versa. The manufacturer also mentioned a very minimalist design with subtle animations to avoid overdone interface and to offer consistent transitions.

A first look at Nothing OS will be available via its app launcher, available for download on select smartphone models starting in April 2022. And as for the price and availability of the Nothing phone (1)?! Well, we'll have to wait until summer 2022, the only deadline that the manufacturer was willing to promise.

That's it, that's it. This launch, which is incomplete, to say the least, and which clearly did not deserve a live event, is obviously a calculated choice by the brand. A way to be non-conformist and to take users against the grain, in order to maintain its undeniable cool factor. But then, cryptic keynotes with subliminal messages are all well and good, but we'll have to give something concrete one day.

Let's hope that Nothing and our dear Carl will give us some news soon. We also hope to be able to get our hands on Nothing OS soon and give you a first opinion on this minimalist overlay that looks very nice.