【Belgium】

The Belgiumcoolest phone for Americans to longingly stare at from across the pond is here.

Nothing, the tech startup behind last year’s stylish Ear (1)earbuds, fully lifted the veil off its debut smartphone during a livestream on Tuesday. The Nothing Phone (1) follows a similar philosophy to the Ear (1): It bundles a low price with better-than-expected specs and seriously cool-as-hell looks.

There’s just one problem: It’s not coming out in the U.S. right now.

The Nothing Phone (1) starts at £400 (about $475 USD), putting it right in mid-range price territory, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t buy it. Still, with a transparent back case featuring a unique light-based notification system, and white and black models, it’s one of the more stylish phones on the market. It also packs decent specs to match its good looks:

• 6.55-inch OLED display with HDR10+ and a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate

• 8 or 12GB RAM

• 128GB or 256GB storage

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ chipset

• 2x 50MP rear-camera lenses (one main and one ultra wide)

• 16MP selfie camera

• 5G and WiFi 6 support

• 4,500mAh battery with wireless charging

• USB-C charging port

The most striking feature of the Nothing Phone (1) is, naturally, the transparent back that shows some of the technical innards of the phone. There are a series of lights in this back panel called the “Glyph” interface which can be customized to light up differently for calls, notifications, and charging status. The idea is that you can turn the phone over on its front, reduce screen time, and still not miss important information.

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Aside from that, it uses a proprietary version of Android called Nothing OS. It has its own widgets with dot matrix fonts and promises a lack of bloatware apps, which will be good news for Android enthusiasts who are tired of deleting apps every time they get a new phone. It all looks very futuristic and high tech, which is cool. Unfortunately, again, it won’t be sold in the states and people in eligible countries who want one will have to participate in an invite-only systemto start. 

Still, it’s cool that someone is making a phone that doesn’t look like every other phone. Maybe someday those of us who live stateside can even get our hands on one.