Can Carl Pei flash twice with the Nothing Phone 1?

The original OnePlus was a turning point in smartphone history. By stripping the smartphone down to its essentials – performance and value – the company cemented its claim to fame as the maker of the first affordable flagship. Even more important was the non-trivial task of creating a community of die-hard fans willing to take a bet on an unknown company and part with hard cash that distinguished the brand. And for the most part, it came down to one person – Carl Pei. And now he’s back with the Nothing Phone 1.

Related: Nothing reminds us that innovation in smartphone design isn’t dead

I’ve often joked that Carl Pei would be a great choice to lead some of the best creative agencies in the world. The man is a master of hype, and the casually demure OnePlus “OG” has an uncanny ability to create mystery through obfuscation. How Pei, along with the original OnePlus team, managed to drip-feed information while instilling a rare sense of privilege of being selected via an invitation system to purchase a product could very well be a case study in a marketing class.

But there’s a difference between launching a brand backed by a billionaire giant like Oppo and launching a startup. Nothing can afford to lose everything.

To be fair to Pei, he’s no longer bound by the ambitions or constraints of running an Oppo sub-brand. It’s long been shockingly obvious that Oppo was half jealous of OnePlus’ opinion outside of China. Despite working hard to create a premium image and a significantly broader portfolio, Oppo was never quite able to achieve this. And so we watched OnePlus’ incremental “opposition,” until it got to a point where the company was practically willing to squander all the goodwill it deserved from OnePlus. Despite his success, Pei failed and eventually left the brand he helped build.

See also: BBK and Oppo are leaving OnePlus behind on the road to success

With Nothing, he has a clean slate and no looming giant looming at his door. His formulaic approach to dispelling cryptic clues and favoring technically advanced design trends has worked in his favor so far. The fact that the company is selling its first 100 devices on StockX proves that this is a phone designed for the TikTok generation. From the retro-futuristic typeface to the partnership with Scandinavian tech design geniuses Teenage Engineering, the brand clearly appeals to a “hypebeast” audience. And at first glance it seems to work.

The worst thing that can happen to a new brand is not being talked about. Nothing that takes center stage in conversations at the intersection of culture, design and technology is as fantastic as it gets. In fact, during a recent office chat with my colleagues, I discussed how design really is the final frontier where a smartphone can truly innovate. The Nothing Phone 1 is bold with its selective use of Bauhaus and even Brutalist design sense. It’s a polarizing topic of conversation.

The Glyph user interface is perhaps the epitome of function-oriented design – an important tenet of the Bauhaus philosophy. The Nothing Phone uses an array of 900 LEDs arranged in design patterns across the length and width of the phone. These act as notification LEDs, charging progress bars, ringtone animations, and even fill lights during video recording. It’s awesome and definitely something no big brand would experiment with. I can’t wait to see what the developers do with it.

However, Pei’s ambitions are much larger than just design. Pei has spoken about creating an ecosystem of interconnected devices and the phone’s ability to interact with connected peripherals from other manufacturers as well. That’s ambitious. And while he may not be able to achieve all of his dreams within the first or second iteration, it’s certainly refreshing to see a company talking about a broader ecosystem rather than developing its proprietary AIOT (Artificial Intelligence Of Things) strategy.

The competition is fierce and there is great value to be found

While design and art are easy to appreciate, the proof is in how many people part with money from their wallets. And that will be a much more difficult task for Pei and his team this time.

The smartphone market is saturated. You could even say that smartphones emit a burnout feeling, but that’s not a bad thing. Going through the last few years of popular smartphones, some trends are easy to spot. The focus areas have mostly revolved around slightly better cameras, faster loading, and a slightly spruced-up design. If you put aside emerging categories like foldable devices, breakthrough innovations have stalled. What has emerged instead is a steady stream of dependable and dependable phones across a range of price points and user needs. There really is something for everyone. It’s just not possible to tell the difference with pure specs when every other phone has the same beefed up spec sheet. But is a ring of LED lights straight out of Close Encounters of The Third Kind the answer? Only time can tell.

The sheer economics of launching a brand new phone makes this endeavor even more difficult for a startup. Rumors suggest that the Nothing Phone 1 will feature a Snapdragon 7-series chipset, putting it squarely in the mid-range camp. Meanwhile, companies like Xiaomi, Poco, Realme, and others are using economies of scale to bring high-end chips and top-of-the-line cameras into the same segment. It remains to be seen if the market will respond positively to a design-first approach at the expense of specs, but historical precedents like the ones we’ve seen with HMD Global and the Essential Phone leave me skeptical.

Continue reading: If the Nothing Phone 1 isn’t cheap, it’s going to fail

Also from a software point of view we already got a glimpse of what Nothing has in mind. The Nothing launcher beta turned out to be a whole lot of, well, nothing. In addition, the smartphone brands have certainly pushed the needle forward when it comes to software. Compared to the early days of OnePlus, software today is more about consumer preference than choosing the less inherently bad or obtrusive skin. In fact, brands even offer updates for three years or more, making it even harder to generate marketing buzz around these essentials.

It’s not all doom and gloom

While it’s great to approach any new technology with a degree of skepticism, the fact is that Pei has proven his guerrilla marketing tactics to work. Not only has he infuriated an overzealous fanbase, but he has also successfully sold over 600,000 units of the Nothing Ear 1.

The invite system, while we’ve seen it before, is an ingenious solution to the very real problem of tight supplies and the sheer cost of sitting on an inventory of smartphones. It ensures the fast movement of units while providing incentives for quick purchases.

Loyalty for OnePlus phones was built on the back of internet forum scrolling nerds poring over spec sheets and custom ROMs. The smartphone landscape has changed dramatically since then. The creator economy is real and purchasing decisions are absolutely motivated by it. Design sells and cool gimmicks such as innovative LED lights cause a sensation. While Nothing could still serve as a home for jaded OnePlus fans, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that Pei made the right decision in choosing to make a phone for cool trendsetters rather than PUBG addicts design.

See also: Nothing borrows the right moves from the early OnePlus playbook

Look, I want the Nothing Phone 1 to be successful. It’s an exciting and refreshing idea of ​​what a phone can look like. I’m also aware that I’ll forget the design the moment I put a case on it, but unlike the monolithic piece of metal that is my Galaxy S22 Ultra, removing the Nothing Phone 1’s case always would still some evoke emotion and even a sense of community, if you will. (Editor’s note: Or you could buy a clear case.)

Ultimately, the success or failure of the phone is entirely dependent on how well the brand does the launch, pricing, and customer service. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that Pei’s marketing magic has positioned the Nothing Phone 1 to have any chance of real success. Maybe lightning really can strike twice.