Nothing Phone (2)
Android is an excellent operating system, but how good it is all depends on the device you’re using. Google Pixel phones have long been lauded for their software experience, but the Nothing Phone (2) is a good reminder that the Pixel has lost its way a bit.
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The Nothing Phone (2) runs an Android skin known as “Nothing OS 2.0.” The skin is fairly lightweight, with a mostly stock Android experience that has some customized designs throughout and a few special features and settings, like icon tweaks and widgets on the lockscreen. It’s not like Samsung’s One UI, which effectively rebuilds the platform from the ground up.
Nothing’s tame approach feels more like a coat of paint, but it goes beyond the aesthetics.
Somehow, Nothing has really managed to create one of the most stable Android experiences I’ve ever tried. It’s fast, it’s fluid, and it’s consistently great. Even coming from a Pixel, which tends to outdo Samsung, Motorola, and others when it comes to the feel of the software, I was just blown away at how well Nothing OS did.
Years ago, that’s how Pixel was. Things were stable and consistent, but as time has gone on, that’s degraded. Pixels seem to “rot” faster than most other smartphones, with the strangest bugs forming over time, performance hurting as a result, and also some truly crazy issues through updates. And we’re talking about the maker of Android here. It’s quite something to watch a young startup outshine Google itself with this.
I truly hope that Nothing’s example, along with Google’s continued work in improving Tensor, will help to make a change over time.
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