The marketing magic of Carl Pei should have other phone manufactures feeling very worried…
Nothing's Glyph Interface(Image credit: Nothing)
Nothing owner Carl Pei, the former OnePlus CEO, took to Twitter yesterday to announce that the Nothing Phone (1) had exceeded 100,000 pre-order registrations. Fast forward to 10am this morning – our time of writing – and that number has now reached over 170,000. That’s not just people adding their name to a list either, it’s people willing to register for an invite, wait for the invite to arrive, and then return with a code to part with a non-refundable £20 deposit (or local equivalent currency) to hold a spot to order the Nothing Phone (1) on 12 July.
100,000+ on the pre-order waiting list! Can't wait for everyone to get the phone (1) 🔥🔥🔥june 26, 2022
This is an astonishing pre-order feat for Nothing, and sure to be threatening to other Android smartphone manufacturers. Especially so as Pei has neither parted with much information about the forthcoming device nor spent a fortune on marketing, which is perhaps what you’d expect from a company launch its first phone with no track record.
The Nothing approach
Carl Pei is nothing short of a marketing genius. We saw him in action with his invite-only release model when he successfully launched the OnePlus One back in 2014. With the Nothing Phone (1) he has used the same inclusive, people-centric marketing model but added a more sophisticated element with a series of orchestrated leaks, that have built an incredible hype around the phone’s design, but in truth told us very little about the phone’s specifications outside of its unique design.
Deliberately different
"A very distinct and iconic design language of our own"
Carl Pei
“One of the issues we saw with the tech industry was that nobody had a consistent way of designing products,’ says Pei. ‘Apart from Apple – you can see their coherent vision. But if you had a table full of products from another manufacturer, you don’t really see that. From the very start, we wanted to have a very distinct and iconic design language of our own,” said Carl Pei, in an interview with Jonathan Bell for Wallpaper.
Indeed, the design is different. Yes, there are those that argue it simply looks like a semi-transparent iPhone 12 and while the boxy shape and dual camera set-up aren’t dissimilar, the design goes well-beyond. The semi-transparent casing was a success on the Nothing Ear (1) and has been taken to a new level on the Nothing Phone (1).
YouTuber Marques Brownlee’s excellent recent video, made with a working Nothing Phone (1) shows the hyped smartphone’s semi-transparent design in detail and is well worth a watch. The Nothing Phone (1)’s ‘Glyph Interface’, which uses over 900 LEDs. These are used for notifications, charge indicator which turns on with a shake, as a fill light for photography – something we can’t wait to test, and they also provide matching light patterns to ten included ring tones. The last feature allows users to give contacts their own tone and, courtesy of the individual light patterns, know who is calling with the phone muted.
Nothing Phone (1): Specifications
Other what we know about the Nothing Phone (1)’s design, confirmed specifications of the Nothing Phone (1) are a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, wireless charging, 8MB RAM and Nothing OS (a modified and re-branded version of Android). Everything else circulating on the internet is just rumour, but that just adds to the phone’s hype and is no doubt all part of Pei’s masterplan.
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Seasoned tipster, Yogesh Brar told 91Mobiles that the Nothing Phone (1)’s the dual-camera setup on the back includes a 50MP primary sensor and a 16MP secondary shooter and has a 16MP camera at the front to take care of selfies and video calling needs. He also alleges the phone to have a 4,500mAh battery that supports 45W fast charging.
It looks to be Pei’s style to slowly drip feed more details ahead of the phone’s official announcement on July 12, so keep your eyes peeled.
Rachael is a British journalist with 18 years experience in the publishing industry. Since working on www.digitalcameraworld.com, she’s been freelancing, and contributing to some of the world’s best-loved websites and magazines including T3.com and TechRadar.com and has also had a book, iPad for Photographers, published. She's currently acting as editor of 5GRadar.com - a website specializing in the latest cellular technology.
